Canadian airline crew still being held
 

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/10/11/canadian-flight-crew-dominican-republic/

Absolutely frightening. Airlines should refuse to fly there, force the issue.

Wrong. Educate yourself on the matter.

This discussion has been had before. https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/m...ined-dr-4.html

Not the airlines themselves, the Canadian government needs to stop flights from carrying their citizens to D.R., maybe ask USA to follow suit - it could be resolved in two days.

Very questionable "airline" with one airplane and management crew, long history of torture and human rights abuses and a criminal past flies into foreign nation with twenty five million dollars of drugs inside their aircraft, gets caught when a mechanic finds it, and is then lawfully detained.

You want the secret to flying into the Dominican Republic and not getting detained? Or just the secret of doing it with twenty five million dollars of cocaine secreted on board your aircraft?

Legitimate airlines don't hire people who are the centerpiece of the longest running domestic violence trial in state history, involving carving death threats to children into one's wife's limbs. This was not a legitimate airline, nor a legitimate operation, nor was it a matter of illegal, or even inappropriate detention. Even the RCMP noted that the Dominican Republic was well within their rights to take this action, and under Dominican law detention for up to 12 months without charges is legal, pending investigation. The crew is not in jail. This was not a case of contraband stowed in passenger bags, or even left in a baggage space. This was a matter of twenty five million in cocaine stowed in the electronics bay area, trafficked through a foreign country, by questionable persons in a very questionable operation. Read all about it.

As far as I can tell they have at least 3 ships, and what does a domestic case in Canada have to do with this?

Torture and human rights abuse? By an air carrier???? You say "read all about it", can you provide the references?

Can I provide the references? I just did. Use the link. Would you prefer that I visit your house and whisper it in your ear? Is your finger broken? Click on the link. That will take you to a discussion, and other links.

If you don't understand it, grow up another ten or fifteen years, and revisit as an adult.

The articles say nothing about suspicion or history.
You have a hard-on for Safdar.
Eleven people have been held for 6 months - he is only one of them, however large he seems to loom in your life.
A few years back an Alaskan operator paid a convicted sex offender to go away after they'd hired him - having served his time, it still freaked them out...I wouldn't doubt he is flying for someone in this market.

And Safdan was acquitted, not convicted. Any US regional would hire him. I don't think his legal history is the center of gravity of this situation but it makes a nice sideshow.

Safdar wasn't acquitted, despite references suggesting so by various newspapers at the time. The trial, in which he was one of several defendants, was the longest trial in Hamilton history; so long, in fact, that the judge tabled the trial on the day he was set to read the verdict (a truncated version of which he later read, which took six hours). The woman who was tortured lived in the same house as Safdar and was tortured by multiple family members. Safdar's wife, also living in the house, lied at the trial and was fired from her law firm. There is no possibility of the extended torture, and physical and psychological abuse that went on for years in that house, having escaped Safdar's attention. He was as much a party to that as the rest. The reason he didn't go to jail with his brother related to the trial length and stoppage of the trial. The judge, two years later, stated that he had serious misgivings about those who didn't get jail time, but couldn't do anything about it. The family court, where the case also played out regarding a daughter, saw the matter more directly, and seized the girl while the defendents were in court for the torture of the wife. The mother was also involved. This wasn't simply a case of domestic violence. The torture went on for years, and involved breaking the woman's jaw in multiple places, burning her face with an iron, carving death threats into her leg, and numerous other acts, to say nothing of extended physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. The trial, again, was the longest one in Hamilton history. It was well publicized and well known...not something Pivot, et al, could possibly have ignored.

Safdar isn't the focus here; the twenty five million in drugs on board the aircraft are, and the legal impounding of the aircraft and detention of the crew; the Dominican Republic can detain for 12 months without charge, pending an investigation. Pivot claims two aircraft, but has one; which is impounded, and a "future" CRJ-200.

No US regional would hire Safdar, incidentally, as he doesn't have the right to work in the US. Trouble does seem to follow him. That isn't uncommon from people who spend years torturing other people.

Don't want to spend a year detained in a foreign country for a drug smuggling investigation? This isn't rocket science. It really isn't.

Interesting documentary on W5

'Cocaine Cargo': Eagle-eyed flight attendant on how she uncovered key evidence

https://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/cocaine-ca...ence-1.6188517

A bit more investigation into the Pivot Airlines flight raises more questions than answers; for those who believe that the Dominican government simply held a group of innocent international travelers (after recovering two hundred ten kg of cocaine, worth twenty five million dollars, secreted on the aircraft).

The flight was chartered by John Strudwick, CFO of Trust Capital (a real estate company), based in Toronto. Trust Capital booked two flights to the Dominican Republic, with Pivot Airlines. Trust Capital paid two hundred thousand dollars to charter those two flights. It was the second flight on which the drugs were found and the crew and passengers detained.

Trust Capital does not exist. Neither does John Strudwick. Strudwick identified an employee on the drug flight: Sheldon Poirier. Poirier was cited as the head of Trust Capital's Edmonton and Calgary residential development projects.

Sheldon Poirier was convicted in 2020 of drug trafficking and possession. Interesting coincidence. Three other passengers on that flight also had recent convictions for drug trafficking. Also interesting coincidences. Two of those men had been represented by the same attorney in their drug cases; that attorney, when questioned, said he didn't know that Poirier, or any of the other passengers on the flight, were employees of Trust Capital. Same attorney represents both men for drug trafficking and possession (convictions), also represented the passengers on the flight, chartered by Trust Capital, but didn't know any of them were employees of Trust Capital? Seems unusual.

Another passenger who flew down on Pivot, but who left the Dominican Republic and flew back on his own a few days prior to the drug discovery, also said he knew nothing about Trust Capital (the company that chartered the flight). The passengers, employees of Trust Capital don't know who the non-existent company is. The attorney that represents the passengers doesn't know who Trust Capital is. The passenger who was flown to the DR by Trust Capital and then vanished before everyone else was detained, knows nothing about Trust Capital. Multiple passengers had recent possession and trafficking convictions in Canada, and were represented by the same attorney who was hired to represent the rest of the passengers. And the flight was chartered by a man who doesn't exist, working for a company that doesn't exist. Nothing unusual about that, is there?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/w5-exposes...d=7n01t83bzu4j

At Punta Cana, the drugs were transported to the airplane by an airport truck; the process was caught on camera. The crew initially discovered the bags by a cockpit door annunciator. Authorities arrived, identified four bags and removed them, and cleared the airplane to depart. Subsequently, the crew identified more bags in the same compartment, when the crew was unable to close the compartment door, raising the question of how a search failed to identify the additional bags of cocaine, and whether some had been removed, and others intentionally left behind. DR autorities removed four bags, half the total cocaine load, but left four bags behind. That's not suspicious. Or is it?

Cocaine Cargo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-ycQBte06M

Cocaine Cargo II (parts 1 and 2): https://www.ctvnews.ca/w5?lid=yvlpecyhdrm8

I just watched this and have a few thoughts....


1- Nice to see some real investigative and useful journalism for a change. While the production was a bit over dramatic the content of the story was well done and beneficial.

2- The Canadian government was absolutely worthless it seems. Maybe some diplomatic backchannels got the job done, but we will probably never know. DR a 3rd world country, wasting time dealing with their courts is exactly that, a waste of time. Drop an ultimatum and if that doesn't work send in extraction forces. Of course I'm sure this was not high on the list of priorities for Trudeau until the media started embarrassing him over it. In other words they had something else going on with the DR government and didn't want to ruin it over this until the news report started making it a priority for him.

3- If I had been the airline and/or the families, I would have pooled money together to hire a reputable mercenary firm to go in and extract the flight crew assuming the government wasn't going to. They are only 75 miles from Puerto Rico and I doubt the US government would have shipped them back to DR, especially if they claimed asylum in PR. I would also hope that Pivot Airline would be paying their salaries and expenses during this time.

4- With government you can never tell if malice or incompetence. It's quite possible this was a government op (think Iran/Contra Affair) or that some high ranking Canadian officials were simply in on the side business. Either way unsure if the government was just incompetent and didn't care, or if they were worried that this issue would embarrass some of them.

Where can I find a reputable mercenary team willing to go into the DR to extradite someone under arrest?
It’s like the A-Team, “if you can find them”, but the US govt can’t?

You're assuming that Pivot Airlines, or the crew, was not complicit in the smuggling operation.

It seems pretty obvious they weren't. But even if they were, the DR government has mishandled the entire situation.

Why would the crew open the hatch and report on themselves if they were involved? This dude really seems to have a bone to pick with Safdar.

You're responding to me. I didn't mention Safdar. You just did.

With the stupidity about hiring mercenaries to "rescue" a crew that was legally held under Dominican law, one must consider that it's possible the crew or airline was involved. One must consider that passengers were involved. One must consider that the client was involved. One must consider that none of the above were involved. Regardless, the detention of the aircraft and crew was legal under Dominican law. The Canadian government saw fit not to push that issue, and the RCMP stated at the time of detention that the act was legal.

An airline which desires to continue operating internationally would best be served by not hiring mercenaries to extract an aircraft and crew that are legally detained.

Well he did have the caveat of it being a “reputable” mercenary team. I just checked Angie’s List and didn’t find any 5 star teams in my area though.

This post brought to you by Angie’s List.

They do in fact exist, here is one of the better known ones:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Outcomes

Maybe at first, but not after months, and not after the legal shenanigans perpetuated by the DR legal "system."

Allowing 3rd world kangaroo courts detain your assets and personnel for extended periods of time without actual due process is bad business.

You don’t get to impose your own legal definitions on another country’s legal system.

Part of going to another country is that you are subject to the laws of that country.

“Due process” is not a universal, or universally-defined concept.

All the more reason to seriously consider a hired extract if things go sideways.

Put the pipe down and take a step back from the Russel Crowe and Sylvester Stallone movies.

You do understand that the town they were in is about 50 miles from Puerto Rico, right? A boat trip over there before anyone even noticed they were missing would not have been unrealistic.

International warrant for bail/bond jumping? Kind of limits countries they could fly to for the rest of their lives. Better for Canada to trade an arms dealer for each of the flight crew.

You do understand that The Dominican Republic is a sovereign nation and is within their rights to enforce their laws, right? Also, like with the U.S.A., the DR has an extradition treaty with Canada, which indicates that certain legal standards have been met.

Seeing how they treated the flight crew's case, they are a 3rd world banana republic with no rule of law.

Deeming the Dominican Republic as a Banana Republic is quite a stretch. Not to mention, saying that the DR is 3rd world is abject nonsense.