Wilder than a Coen Brothers movie, the sprawling true story behind Netflix‘s new documentary mini-series “Cocaine Air: Smugglers” has captivated French people for over a decade, after two former French air force pilots, Pascal Fauret and Bruno Odos, were arrested in Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic, with more than 1,500 pounds of cocaine abroad the private plane they were flying.
Their adventures, including an epic escape by boat that involved a far right deputy, Aymeric Chauprade, a former European Parliament assistant, Pierre Malinowski, and an aviation security expert, Christophe Naudin, have now gone fully viral across the globe thanks to the documentary series. Directed by Olivier Bouchara and Jerome Pierrat, “Cocaine Air” has already lured millions of views on Netflix since June 11, ranking second on the weekly top 10 for non-English content, following the South Korean revenge show “Mercy for None.”
Driven by colorful archetypes, “Cocaine Air” cleverly juxtaposes interviews with the pilots, who still claim they had no idea what the 26 suitcases boarded on the small plane contained; the fiercely determined French judge, Christine Saunier-Ruellan, who led the investigation from Marseille and made sure the pilots turned fugitives were arrested when they made their way back to France; the men (Chauprade, Malinowski and Naudin) who allegedly helped the pilots escape the Dominican Republic; former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was at one point suspected to be involved in the case; Dominican major general Rosado Mateo and justice minister Dominguez Brito who are still hopeful that the pilots – who were acquitted in 2021 in France after an initial six-year sentence verdict — will one day face the 20-year sentence they got in the Dominican Republic; as well as Alain Afflelou, the French optical industry entrepreneur whose private plane, named Falcon 50, was rented out the day that it carried the stash of cocaine and has been stuck in Punta Cana for over a decade; and Laurent Fiocconi, aka El Mago, the former chemist of Pablo Escobar.
The popularity of “Cocaine Air” on Netflix has even surpassed that of “Lords of Scam,” another comedy-filled original documentary based on a tentacular investigation by Bouchara and Pierrat which came out in 2021 and charted the rise and fall of conmen who cheated the EU carbon quota system and pocketed millions before turning on each other.
Speaking to Variety about “Cocaine Air,” Bouchara said he and Pierrat were “fascinated from the outset by how unreal the scene of the arrest was. “Four Frenchmen arrested on the tarmac at Punta Cana with 700 kilos of cocaine in a private jet. It’s like a spin-off of ‘Narcos,’ except that none of the four fit the profile,” Bouchara joked. “Two pilots, former air force heroes, family men. And two passengers with no criminal records, not even for stealing potatoes. It was this dissonance that made us want to dig deeper.”
He and Pierrat were able to pull together the investigation thanks to their sources within the justice system and police, along with “more shady circles,” Bouchara said, citing “Pablo Escobar’s former chemist, and the mercenary who smuggled the pilots out by boat, as well as a few characters who look like they’ve stepped out of a Soderbergh film.” One of them is Sarkozy, who is fittingly quoted in the opening credits saying “Have we become crazy? That’s the question we must ask ourselves.” The former president, who is currently serving a prison sentence with an electronic ankle tag on charges of influence peddling and corruption, was questioned by the judge, Saunier-Ruellan, because his name showed up in the registers of the aviation company. He had in fact made a trip onboard the Falcon 50 plane with Stephane Courbit, the boss of Banijay.
Bouchara said he and Pierrat managed to secure an interview with Sarkozy by promising him they wouldn’t caricature him. “We told him we would allow him to express how he felt when he saw his name associated with a huge cocaine scandal,” Bouchara said. “He claims to have been the victim of a relentless judicial campaign for years. For him, this case is a perfect example of that.”
Pierrat, who also worked with Bouchara on “Lords of Scam” and “Le Masque,” another doc about a masterful conman who swindled French elites, is a well known journalist and expert on organized crime who worked on Jack Thorne’s “Panthers” and has penned several books. Bouchara, meanwhile, is the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair France.
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