The drug connections and money trail in the Pivot Airlines story

A seismic international drug-smuggling scandal that led to the arrest, imprisonment and detention of 12 Canadians in the Dominican Republic for eight months began with a seemingly innocuous inquiry.<br/>"I am looking for some charter services with your company. We have a couple of our client groups coming in from USA and Dubai next week… to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic," the company wrote in a January email to Pivot Airlines, a charter company based in Toronto. The email was sent by John Strudwick, the CFO of purported real estate investment firm Trust Capital. There were no immediate red flags -- there was a company logo, working phone number and even a downtown Toronto office address. Pivot Airlines CEO Eric Edmondson was told the company bought apartment buildings and turned them into condos. "Nothing out of the ordinary," said Edmondson. "We were led to believe that they were potential investors into one of the projects that they were looking at doing in Alberta." Edmondson said they did "initial diligence" on the company — ensuring that the funds came from a Canadian bank — before giving the go-ahead. Over a roughly two-month span, Trust Capital paid for two charters to the Dominican Republic. But as W5 discovered, the trips were not real estate ventures and Trust Capital was not what it seemed. It was on that second trip in April when the Pivot Airlines crew discovered more than 200 kg of cocaine, worth approximately $25m, in the avionics bay of the plane as it was about to depart from Punta Cana International Airport to Toronto. Story has more.<br/>