Anastasios Balian was at the controls when he and accomplice Errol McCardo Weir were stopped by Border Force officers at North Weald airfield in Essex on March 20 this year, having flown from Belgium via Calais in France.
Officers searched the small plane and discovered a concealment had been built into the rear seats, with 30 1kg blocks of cocaine worth £2.4 million stashed inside.
Balian, 52, of Milton Court, Cheshunt, was jailed for nine years for drug smuggling at Chelmsford Crown Court on Monday (September 22), while Weir, 49, of Shifford Path, Lewisham, south London, was sentenced to seven years.
A WhatsApp chat was discovered between the offenders, which contained a link to a news story with the headline ‘Gang use small aircraft to drop cocaine into Dorset’.
Balian – who owns an aerial survey business – joked in another message that the gang must have watched the Tom Cruise film ‘American Made’, which is a plot based on light aircraft cocaine trafficking into the US.
NCA operations manager Paul Orchard said: “Anastasios Balian used his expertise and apparent legitimacy to enable this attempted importation of Class A drugs.
“These substances destroy lives.
“The organised crime groups that traffic them don’t care about that, they only care about money. Balian and Weir were part of that crime group.
“Working with key partners such as Border Force, the NCA will continue to do all it can to fight the threat of Class A drugs.”
