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Airfields Help Bootleggers Foil Drug Prohibition Laws

The following adaptation is based on an article by staff, (Airfield used by cocaine importer, 11-25-2009, BBC News), and is part of a demonstration project on drug policy conducted by the publication Drug War Chronicle.

Evidence of prohibition's failure to staunch the flow of drugs was found at a Welsh airfield used by both the Royal Air Force and civilians, BBC News reported. Mona airfield on Anglesey, an auxiliary landing site for crews at nearby RAF Valley, was apparently the centre of a multi-million pound bootlegging operation, officials told Liverpool Crown Court.

How many millions of pounds before they were caught? Only the bootleggers know for certain.

A man from Manchester pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to import cocaine into Britain using the airfield. He was targeted after prohibition agents discovered £1m worth of cocaine on a light aircraft which had arrived from Le Touquet, France, according to BBC.

The man was granted bail and is expected to be sentenced in February. Officials believe that other smugglers now supply cocaine to the UK.

Low-flying airplanes are prohibition's latest threat to safety, recent articles about the drug wars suggest. Bootleggers often fly very low to the ground in order to avoid detection on radar screens. In a recent case in Michigan, a prohibition agent on helicopter patrol spotted a bootlegging plane at just 150 metres.