Federal agents Saturday seized an Ecuadoran jetliner at Kennedy International Airport and charged one crewman with smuggling nearly 14 pounds of cocaine into the United States in the false sides of a suitcase, officials said.
U.S. Customs Service agents conducting a routine search discovered 13.7 pounds of cocaine in a suitcase belonging to Edwin Patricia Aguirre, 28, a flight attendant on Ecuatoriana Airlines Flight 052 from Quito, Ecuador, customs agent Ed Hotchkiss said.Agents arrested Aguirre, an Ecuadorean national, and seized the DC-10 at about 12:10 p.m., said Hotchkiss, chief of the Customs Service's Contraband Enforcement Team at Kennedy airport.
The airliner is worth about $25 million, Hotchkiss said.