A Malaysia Airlines pilot faces the threat of being sentenced to death by a court in Indonesia after he was allegedly caught trying to smuggle more than 70,000 ecstasy pills into Soekarno–Hatta International Airport on the island of Java during a work trip, hiding the more than 55 pounds of narcotics in his luggage.
To make matters worse, the Malaysia Airlines pilot, who had just operated a flight from Kuala Lumpur, tested positive for ecstasy (also known as MDMA) and cocaine.
Identified only by the initials MBSO, the Boeing 737 First Officer has been detained under Law No. 35 of 2009 on Narcotics, which carries a maximum sentence of death for the most serious charges or life imprisonment.
Indonesian authorities said on Friday that MBSO was caught after a routine X-ray inspection of luggage by customs officials. Officers noticed something suspicious in a suitcase, which was identified by MBSO as being his. Inside, they discovered 14 large packages containing ecstasy and one package of methamphetamine.
In total, officials counted 70,114 ecstasy pills.
MBSO then allegedly told law enforcement that he had been recruited by a drug-smuggling gang, and for this particular shipment, he had been promised a payout of 50,000 Malaysian Ringgit (US $12,235). He was to transport the shipment to Jakarta, where he would check into a local hotel and meet up with a runner who would collect the drugs.
This wasn’t the first time that MBSO had smuggled drugs into Indonesia, prosecutors allege. He has also allegedly smuggled methamphetamine to Sabah, Malaysia, and delivered 7 kg of methamphetamine to Jakarta during a previous trip.
While rare, pilots and flight attendants are sometimes recruited by international drug smuggling gangs, often targeting crew members with debt problems or substance misuse issues.
Malaysia Airlines has had more than its fair share of crew members caught up in this type of activity. In 2018, for example, a senior member of cabin crew at Malaysia Airlines was jailed for 12 months after being caught trying to smuggle £150,000 in criminal cash out of Heathrow Airport in West London.
The money is believed to have come from illegal drug dealing.
Two years later, a Malaysian flight attendant who hid millions of dollars’ worth of heroin in her underwear was jailed for nine and a half years by a Melbourne court for smuggling the drugs into Australia.
The mother of two smuggled heroin into Australia on at least eight occasions between October 2018 and January 2019, when she was finally caught. The flight attendant claimed she had agreed to help the drug smugglers to help pay off her daughter’s mounting medical bills.
Other airlines in the region have had similar issues. In March 2023, four Vietnam Airlines flight attendants were arrested on suspicion of trying to smuggle around 11.4 kilograms of ecstasy from France through Ho Chi Minh City Airport. The drugs were concealed in toothpaste tubes.
And a couple of monts a go, a Thai flight attendant was busted by police and customs agents at Melbourne International Airport as she attempted to smuggle 1kg of heroin into Australia.
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This would not happen if flight crew were compensated with a proper living salary coupled with adequate healthcare. What I fail to understand is the fact that disparity between newly hired pilots and flight attendants is almost 4 to 1 among the regional carriers in the USA.
Hear me out: look at Singapore. Public officials like judges, politicians and law enforcement are well paid so they do not succumb to bribery. So, if crewmembers do not have to commute into hubs with an expensive cost of living, they would have more time to carve out a better quality of life without becoming a drug mule.
Good old Malaysian. Have you boys found your missing 777 yet? Nice people. Nice country. Lousy airline.