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Pilot of plane found with coke, body, gets jailed
Kaieteur News – A Brazilian pilot who was among three foreigners detained on December 14, 2020, after a crashed plane was found at Nine Miles, Issano, Middle Mazaruni, Region Seven, with a body and 390 kilogrammes of cocaine.
The plane found with the coke and the body.
Jailed in Guyana for five years, Rafael Silveira Dias.
(Photo Courtesy of ITA FM 91.3).
The defendant, Rafael Silveira Dias, was tried at the Vreed-en-Hoop Magistrate Court. He was found guilty for trafficking narcotics on Friday by Principal Magistrate, Crystal Lambert.
Silveira Dias was sentenced to five years imprisonment and is required to a pay a fine of over G$500M.
Kaieteur News had reported on September 15, that police had located a 206 Cessna bearing registration PR-FMJ along with three foreign nationals – one of them an injured pilot – at Nine Miles airstrip, Issano. Police reportedly made that discovery at around 23:00 hrs. on Sunday September 13, 2020.
The three foreigners were Silveira Dias (the injured pilot), Manoel Edson Pinheiro Costa, 35, an internet technician of Manaus, Brazil and Juan Ivan Fortool, 29, a Venezuelan pilot of Tumeremo, Estado Bolivar.
They had told investigators that they were heading to neighbouring Suriname but were forced to crash land after they had experienced mechanical problems. The foreigners also related to the detectives that there was another aircraft that was travelling along with them which had crashed in the jungle.
Joint Services ranks had located the second aircraft, a crashed Beechcraft, during a search they conducted on Monday September 14, 2020. Its cargo was over 370 kilogrammes of cocaine neatly packed in white sacks. A body of a man was also found on board.
With help from International Police (Interpol), Guyanese detectives were able to identify the remains to be that of a 49-year-old Brazilian National. The detectives received further information that Silveira Dias was a well-known drug trafficker.
According a report published by a Brazilian media house, ITA FM 91.3, on March 31, 2020, a plane he was piloting was found at an airstrip located at São Félix do Xingu, southeastern Pará, Brazil, with over US$1M in cash. A 38-caliber revolver and two containers with 50 liters of airplane fuel were found on board.
He had told the Brazilian investigators that he is a partner in a construction company and a real estate company in Balneário Camboriu (SC), Brazil, and that the plane was heading to another location within the country.
The authorities there, however, suspected that it was drug money; they also believed that the airport where the aircraft was found was used to do drug trafficking.
As a result, the cash was seized and Silveira Dias was placed under investigation. Just a few months later in September he was under the microscope again but this time he was caught with cocaine in Guyana.
Pinheiro Costa and Fortool, the men caught with him were charged with illegal entry and remanded to prison on September 19, 2020. Silveira Dias was charged for trafficking narcotics at a later date.
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