End of the Year Issue
By Catarina Vita for Sciences Defense
January 31, 2024
What was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel across the globe and encounter a culture and civilization parallel to their own quickly became 38 days in prison, thousands of kilometers away from their home country. Jeanne Paolini and Katyna Baia, both in their forties and married for twelve years, were flying from Goiania, Brazil to Frankfurt, Germany, to celebrate Paolini’s veterinary residency in one of the best universities in Brazil, the University of Brasilia. Upon arriving in Frankfurt, the two women were detained in the airport’s prison, accused of carrying forty kilos of cocaine in their baggage. The cocaine, however, was proven not to be theirs. One day later, they found themselves outside the airport, but in the city’s prison for women. It was found that the name tags in their baggage were displaced to luggage filled with drugs, by the Brazilian airport staff. Their case was a gateway to a massive scheme of drug trafficking from Brazil’s biggest airports to European metropoles.
The Case
The couple flew from the capital of their Brazilian state, Goiania, to Frankfurt, for a connecting flight to Berlin, but their bags were intercepted in one of Brazil’s biggest airports, the Guarulhos Airport in São Paulo. The couple would only revindicate their luggage in Berlin, their final destination. Upon disembarking from their flight to Frankfurt, they were detained and imprisoned on March 5, 2023. They stayed in custody for 38 days. The couple alleged mistreatment by the German police, and were denied access to the winter garments in their hand luggage despite -3 degree temperatures in Frankfurt.
Preceding the interception of Paolini and Baia’s luggage, two employees at the Guarulhos Airport were caught on security footage examining each of the women’s suitcases and removing them from the rest of the luggage reaching Frankfurt. In sequence, two women with cocaine-filled luggage encountered the employees and helped with placing the couple’s name tags in the new drug-filled suitcases. Paolini and Baia’s luggage was still sent to Berlin, but without their name tags. It is important to note that airlines, not airports, are responsible for employees handling baggage.
As the Brazilian Federal Police (PF) became aware of the case, allied to the Brazilian Public Ministry (MP), they compiled a total of 200 hours of security footage which enabled these bodies to identify the ones responsible for displacing the name tags. The couple’s lawyer highlighted that the trip was booked months before their departure date, and both women had health insurance, showing that they did not have a profile of a drug mule. These people, who have the role of smuggling drugs often through high security scenarios (especially in between international borders), are often not provided with health insurance or plane tickets bought in advance, since they will only be in the country of destination for a short amount of time and only to deliver drugs.
On April 5, 2023, the women were heard in German court in face of the evidence provided by Brazilian authorities. They were found to be innocent, but the German authorities requested evidence incriminating the airport staff for having exchanged Paolini and Baia’s suitcases, as the Brazilian government alleged. When this was presented around eight days later, Paolini and Baia were released.
The Operation Collateral Effect
Paolini and Baia’s case introduced the Operation Collateral Effect by the Brazilian police. As stated previously, Paolini and Baia’s luggage were apprehended by employees at the Guarulhos Airport. The Brazilian Police Force noticed that similar cases occurred in 2022 and 2023 in the same airport to Portugal and France, respectively. The Operation culminated in “14 mandates of temporary prison, two mandates of preventive detention and 27 mandates for search and apprehension,” according to G1 Brazil. The Brazilian police commenced their operation by questioning the airport employees involved in Paolini and Baia’s case. Out of the six questioned, five of them denied their involvement in the crime and one of them confessed. All six of them were arrested with supporting evidence.
The Brazilian Police Force was able to trace the cases of drugs being smuggled to Portugal and France to the same group of employees, but also identified other cases of cocaine smuggling also from the airport of Guarulhos with the same modus operandi as the smuggling to Germany, nonetheless without evidence that the group had responsibility.
Upon increased investigation on how the group thought and acted to smuggle drugs from Brazil to Europe, the police authorities discovered that they divided themselves into working at the airport, to observe in whose name they would send drugs to. Another subgroup simulated a check-in, but in the domestic flight part of the airport, with the actual drug-filled suitcase, but the other members of the group that worked at the airport made sure the luggage did not pass the metal detector. Continuing, the drug luggage was smuggled into the international section and then the name tag displacement process initiated.
What This Means for International Security
Katyna Baia and Jeanne Paolini’s illegitimate detention showed Brazilian and international defense authorities the extent to which the drug trafficking business has adopted in the present, and how this can come at the expense of innocent tourists’ rights. It also showcased how the drug business is everywhere, even hidden inside airport staff. What was perceived to be one of the most secure places in Brazil, the country’s biggest airport in the largest city in Latin America, was responsible for at least three massive 20 kilogram smuggling operations of illicit drugs. Airport authorities are shown to be keen on security checks on passengers and even in migration control, but this case shows that there is corruption from within the system as well.
While being interviewed by G1 Brazil, Brazilian PM Officer Felié Faé Lavareda said (contextualized translation from Portuguese): “The link in the Guarulhos Airport to Europe (in drug trafficking) was dismantled today.” In fact, the Guarulhos Airport implemented a few measures to attempt to keep the security in the restricted areas of the airport, in which the criminal group displaced name tags and smuggled drugs, such as prohibiting cell phone usage. Nonetheless, nothing indicates strict background checks on airport employees, or a further investigation on the drug smuggling cases the PF could not trace back to the criminal group. The Guarulhos Airport communicated to CNN Brazil that the airlines, not the airports, are responsible for luggage-dealing employees and are thus supposed to be held accountable for anything relating to luggage. However, especially when it concerns tourists from your own country leaving for Europe, a shared effort between airport authorities, airlines, and even government authorities is fitting — particularly because the criminal group acted under surveillance cameras and nothing was noticed. In light of this illegitimate detention and according to CNN Brazil, Brazilian authorities aim to implement a new regulation: photographing the dispatched bags with the passenger’s respective names.
The efforts from the Brazilian authorities and police to investigate Katyna Baia and Jeanne Paolini’s case is a result of disciplined work ethic and intricate scrutiny in the gathered evidence. However, taking pictures of suitcases and the passenger it belongs to barely scratches the surface of the problem. Baia and Paolini’s case surrounds the lack of surveillance in airports and the omnipresence of drug smuggling in Brazil – their experience exemplifies that further scrutiny and security measures in airports must be implemented in conjunction with airlines and national authorities.