Let’s just assume for a moment that the three pilots were indeed innocent, and the business aviation company really had no involvement in the smuggling of 680 kgs of cocaine. Then that would leave us with only one suspect, the passenger, Nicolas Christophe Pisapia, who, as per Netflix’s Cocaine Air, was a real estate agent operating in France and abroad. However, magistrate examiner Christine Saunier-Ruellan found his alibi flimsy from the very beginning. He had no records of doing any real estate deals in the Dominican Republic, so what was he doing there with 26 suitcases? Pisapia first said he was a tourist, and later told the authorities that the luggage didn’t belong to him. Even in Netflix’s documentary, Pisapia didn’t share any credible information. It was quite obvious that he was trying to avoid the questions, mostly because he was hired not to say anything and maybe didn’t even know any of the details. The fact of the matter was, Pisapia was the fall guy working for another drug trafficker named Frank Colin, whose name appeared several times on the invoices of the business aviation company, SNTHS.
According to Netflix’s Cocaine Air, Colin, a French citizen living in Romania, was supposed to board the flight Falcon 50 with Pisapia, but he never got on the plane for some unknown reason. Christine knew that there was something shady with this guy, and therefore put a wiretap on his phone and monitored his movements in France, only to find out that he was a partner in a company that he had opened with none other than Pisapia. So, Pisapia had basically worked for Colin, and the latter sent him to South America to pick up the consignment for a silent partner. Christine theorized that Colin was just an intermediary between the aviation company and the drug traffickers. In simple words, he wasn’t the one buying or selling the goods. He was the logistics coordinator for the drug trafficking ring who, through Alain Castany, got in touch with SNTHS and the two pilots, Pascal Fauret and Bruno Odos, to smuggle drugs from South America to France. But obviously, a loudmouth like Colin couldn’t be the mastermind behind the whole operation, which made Christine and her team believe that there was definitely some powerful crime boss above him who not only conceived such an idea but also paid for the consignment that was busted in Punta Cana. Christine wanted a name, but Colin wouldn’t give them one. He didn’t want to betray his powerful master, as he knew the price of treason in the crime world.
However, as the authorities started investigating Colin’s background, they came across a man named Ryan, who was likely the person who offered Colin such a lucrative proposal to arrange transport for bringing the drugs into the country. In 2016, the Spanish authorities had arrested several French nationals for trafficking 500 kilos of cocaine. And among the detainees was a man named Rayan Hanouna, whose real name was Ali Bouchareb, a Lyon crime boss. Christine and her team of investigators also confirmed the direct connection between Ali, Colin, and Pisapia. The trio were together when Pisapia boarded Falcon 50 for the first time on 5th December, 2012.
The investigators believed that Ali Bouchareb was the mastermind of the smuggling ring. He was the one who had funded the whole operation to smuggle drugs into France and sell them to various clients. In 2019, Ali and Colin, along with the two pilots and the owners of the business, were presented before the court. Ali already had a history of drug trafficking, and because of his recent arrest in Spain, the French court awarded him the most severe punishment of all the four guilty parties involved in the Air Cocaine Case. Ali Bouchareb received an 18-year sentence, while his logistics coordinator, Frank Colin, was sentenced to 12 years behind bars. As of today, both of them are serving their respective sentences.
Coming back to Pisapia, he still maintains his innocence to date, though no one really believes him, as he kept changing his statements and pretended to be clueless till the very end. You can say, he was a perfect cover for Colin, and the authorities would have never gotten to the real culprits through him. In July 2015, the judge in the Dominican Republic court had found Pisapia, along with the three other people on the flight, guilty of drug trafficking and therefore sentenced him to 20 years in prison. However, these four people were soon released on parole and were put under house arrest, meaning they weren’t allowed to leave the country. As of today, he still lives on the island and is serving the rest of his sentence in the Dominican Republic. He was arrested in 2013, which means he has to serve eight more years or less in the DR before he can finally return to France.
