Air chase ends in $1 billion cocaine seizure > Quebec police arrest four

About $1 billion worth of cocaine was seized Wednesday when a twin-engine plane landed on a remote Quebec airstrip after flying over northern Maine toward Canada and being chased by Canadian jet fighters and helicopters, the RCMP said.

Four people were arrested and about 3,000 kilograms of cocaine was seized at a small landing strip in Casey, Quebec, about 450 kilometers north of Montreal, said Cpl. Yvon Paquet of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

“I think this is the biggest seizure ever in Canada,” he said.

Three of the four passengers in the plane took flight in the woods but were arrested several hours later, an RCMP statement said.

They will likely be arraigned in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, said Paquet, adding the cocaine has an estimated street value of $1 billion.

“At this point, it looks like the plane originated in South America,” said Pacquet, who did not specify which nation the plane was believed to be from.

Sources in New Brunswick reported that shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday, a large group of RCMP officers arrived at Fredericton Airport acting on information that a pair of Canadian F-18 fighter jets out of Bagotville, Quebec, called in by the U.S. Coast Guard, would force a twin-engine Convair 850 to land there.

A Convair 850 has a large cargo capacity, giving rise to speculation that the amount of drugs aboard could lead to a record-setting seizure.

The fighters tried to force the plane to land at the Fredericton airport, but the jets had to quit when they ran low on fuel and had to land at the airport.

The airplane, which refused to identify itself to ground control, quickly disappeared. It apparently headed to Maine and at one point was thought to have landed in Houlton.

Bill Reynolds, a special agent for the U.S. Customs Service who was at the Houlton Airport Thursday morning to participate in the search, said the plane was located by military radar and identified, but contact later was lost.

The plane reportedly was spotted at about 11:30 a.m. over Caswell in Aroostook County and was traveling in a northerly direction.

“Together with the Canadian Forces, the RCMP intercepted the airplane at about noon,” Paquet said.

According to a Maine source, the plane was believed to be en route to Canada from Florida. It had Canadian flags hand-painted on the fuselage.