Private Jet With Large Quantity Of Cocaine Seized At Guinea-Bissau Airport

A private jet with Mexican registration carrying a large quantity of drugs (cocaine) was seized by Guinea-Bissau’s Judicial Police at Osvaldo Vieira International Airport on Saturday.

The plane, with the registration XA-SBT, came from Venezuela to West Africa, making stops in several countries before landing in Guinea-Bissau without authorisation.

The jet had five crew members from Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador.

The exact quantity of drugs is yet to be determined, but it is expected to be one of the largest drug seizures in Guinea-Bissau’s history. The drugs were found in both the cargo and passenger areas of the plane.

In 2019, the Judicial Police seized 1,869 kilogrammes of cocaine in northern Guinea-Bissau, making it the largest seizure The country had recorded.

The director of the Judicial Police Centre, Correia Quitole, told journalists that the operation was carried out in cooperation with international agencies combating drug trafficking. The authorities had been tracking the plane and noted suspicious attempts to divert it to another country in the region, he said.

Quitole further confirmed that the plane’s intended destination was Guinea-Bissau and said that it had not received permission to land, which raised the suspicion of drug trafficking.

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Editor’s note: This article was edited to correct that the seized aircraft came from Venezuela and not Mexico like Guinea-Bissau’s police source said on Saturday.

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