One of my favorite cases, where surveillance was key to the seizure, happened to be one of the most tedious assignments as well. For years, we had been hearing stories about a cargo aircraft flying directly from China to the international airport of a Latin American capital city. As the story went, the plane would land in the early morning hours, once or twice per week, offload its goods and be gone before dawn the next morning. We also learned that the cargo consisted entirely of counterfeit goods.
Checks of flight logs at the airport showed no sign of the flights coming or going, and airport officials denied all rumors. So, to some extent we believed the surreptitious planeloads to be nothing more than urban legend.
A few months later, we were working an investigation for one of our clients in which a clerk in the target store claimed they would soon be receiving a shipment of new products. The clerk added that the products were being flown in directly from China.
On a hunch, we set up surveillance in an open field next to the airport, posting investigators from midnight to 6 a.m.. They watched the airport for two consecutive nights with nothing to report other than an abundance of mosquitos, a few snakes and even an odd donkey.
At approximately 02:30 on the third night, however, our operatives witnessed a large cargo plane land on the main runway of the International airport. They then observed the aircraft taxi to a hangar where it was met by four trucks and about a dozen laborers who immediately began offloading boxes of electronics goods, toys, clothing and office supplies. Within about 90 minutes, the entire plane had been emptied of its contents, refueled and readied for takeoff.
The investigators tracked a large quantity of our client’s products being transferred to a waiting truck. They immediately notified local police and followed the truck. Guided by our people, the police arrived as workers began transferring the products to one of the warehouses used by our target. The police seized the products and made three arrests, none of which would have been possible without the long hours of surveillance.
Interestingly enough, airport authorities continued to deny that the flight actually occurred, despite video that we took showing the contrary. Inquiries by the Prosecutor were quickly shut down, suggesting the involvement of people very high up in the government who were able to regularly co-opt an international airport, with all of the regulatory agencies and parties involved, and still keep everything off the books.