Dominican pilot nabbed at Kennedy with cocaine

Acting as drug trafficking “mule,” in official uniform and traveling in a JetBlue airline courtesy flight, Dominican commercial pilot Saury Antonio Ortega, 41, tried to smuggle several kilos of cocaine with a street value of $75.000 dollars.

Ortega, an employee of the Dominican airline MAS based in Santo Domingo’s La Isabela International Airport (AILI), went before a Brooklyn Federal Court judge to face charges of conspiracy with intention to distribute cocaine in the United States.

He tried to pass Kennedy Airport’s security checks, even using his credentials and tried to sneak by with a group of JetBlue workers. His arrest on July 19 was the result of a drug detecting dog in the terminal.

An American citizen, Ortega, grew up in the Bronx and lives in the Dominican Republic.

He faces up to 25 years in prison in found guilty of smuggling the cocaine, hidden the Dominican coffee cans in his carryon luggage.