Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
A staggering 700 kg of cocaine were seized in 2013 from a private jet in Punta Cana, which carried one shady passenger, two French pilots, an unexplained third pilot, and 26 suitcases stuffed with the drug, earning the case the nickname ‘Cocaine Air’.
The three-part French Netflix documentary ‘Cocaine Air: Smugglers at 30,000 Ft.’ (Y a -t-il un dealer dans l’avion) revisits the case, beginning with a disclaimer that reads as follows: The facts in this documentary have been meticulously verified. However, it’s possible that some people may not be telling the whole truth.
As a viewer, that makes one think: oh, so a lot of it is ‘their word versus ours’, so we’ll just have to treat everything ‘said’ in the documentary with a pinch of salt. In-fact, by the end of the documentary, it’s pretty easy to assume who isn’t telling the whole truth. For investigators, the case appeared straightforward: everyone on the private jet, including the pilots, was involved in the cocaine smuggling. The pilots, however, insist they had no knowledge of the drugs, arguing that a passenger’s luggage is not their responsibility. But the real question is… who was calling all the shots?
From the interviews of Pascal Fauret, and Bruno Odos, former elite war pilots who turned business aviation, arrested for flying the ‘Cocaine Air’ flight, to the really random but entertaining interview of Pablo Escobar’s former chemist, this Netflix documentary is packed with interesting accounts on the case. The most important being Christine Saunier-Ruellan’s side, the examining magistrate who led the investigation into the cocaine air business from the French side. She gets a very ‘James Bond’ entry, in-fact, almost all the interviewees in this docu-series get an entertaining introductory frame. “This story was made for Netflix,” she tells the camera. And she is quite right!
The “Cocaine Air” case became a global scandal, dragging some prominent names through the mud during the investigation. French pilots Pascal Fauret and Bruno Odos maintain their innocence in the docuseries, recounting the nightmare of being imprisoned in Punta Cana, where jail conditions were out of a horror movie. “We were sure we were going to die there,” they tell the camera. Archival footage of the prison shows they weren’t exaggerating. Fortunately, their military backgrounds earned them significant support back in France, elite pilots with clean records, suddenly arrested and swiftly jailed in a foreign country.
Revisited mostly in chronological order, ‘Cocaine Air: Smugglers at 30,000 Ft.’ manages to get almost all sides of the tale, tracking its developments for over a decade. Since the pilots were arrested in Dominican Republic’s Punta Cana, the docu also features interviews of authorities from there. And in a good call, the documentary creators do not involve family interviews and keep this free from emotional entanglements.
If you’re an international viewer unfamiliar with the case, you’ll likely enjoy this true-crime documentary, which also features a daring escape straight out of a thriller. It’s well shot, backed by hilariously fitting background music, and filled with colorful interviewees, some of whom are clearly not telling the whole truth.
Rating: 7 on 10. Watch ‘Cocaine Air’ on Netflix.
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