Jonathan Gardiner Arrested on Cocaine Conspiracy Charge After 11 Survive Atlantic Plane Crash
Updated
Updated · WSB Atlanta · May 16
Jonathan Gardiner Arrested on Cocaine Conspiracy Charge After 11 Survive Atlantic Plane Crash
6 articles · Updated · WSB Atlanta · May 16
Federal prosecutors brought Jonathan Gardiner to court Friday after the U.S. Coast Guard rescued him and 10 others from an Atlantic plane crash between Florida and the Bahamas.
Court documents identify Gardiner as a Bahamas-based trafficker accused of moving ton-quantities of cocaine from Colombia through the Bahamas and into the United States.
The filing says he shipped several kilograms of cocaine to a Georgia drug trafficking organization in 2023 and was carrying three cell phones and $30,000 in Bahamian dollars when pulled from the water.
An envelope with the cash bore the name of a Bahamian politician suspected of ties to a drug trafficking organization; Gardiner remains in federal custody.
Was the engine failure a coincidence, or was the drug smuggler's plane sabotaged before its dramatic ocean crash?
With a politician's name on seized drug money, how will this crash expose high-level corruption in the Bahamas?