Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Cocaine Air: Smugglers at 30,000 Ft.’ renders reality stranger than fiction as it charts the case of four French men being arrested for drug trafficking. Two pilots, Bruno Odos and Pascal Fauret, and two passengers, Alain Castany and Nicolas Pisapia, were held in custody by the Dominican Republic authorities under the charges of drug trafficking. The three-episode docuseries charts the ups and downs in this already singular case, with Nicolas Pisapia, perhaps, facing the worst brunt of it all.
Nicolas Pisapia Claims He Knew Nothing About the Drugs
Born to Monique and Claude Pisapia in Velaux, France, Nicolas Pisapia was a passenger on the Falcon 50 plane piloted by Bruno Odos and Pascal Fauret in March 2013. While there were a total of 26 bags in the cargo hold and the lounge, Nicolas carried a single suitcase, which had been cleared at the airport. They were supposed to take off from the Punta Cana Airport, headed to Saint-Tropez, France. However, they were intercepted by the authorities, who raided the plane to find around 700kg of cocaine stuffed in the 26 bags. While the pilots were arrested near the plane, Nicolas was in the VIP area of the airport, patiently waiting for the boarding process to complete. He was shocked when the cops showed up and arrested him, slapping the charges of drug trafficking on him.
Before the trial began, Nicolas, like the other three accused, was put in a prison where he spent the next fifteen months of his life in utterly horrific conditions. Eventually, all four of them were let out on bail, but they were prohibited from leaving the country. Meanwhile, Odos and Fauret found a way to flee to France, while Castany met with an accident that rendered him unable to show up for the trial on a regular basis. This left Nicolas alone to witness the proceedings, which eventually ended with him and the other three receiving a 20-year prison sentence.
All this time, he claimed complete innocence on the matter, saying that he had no idea what was in the bags. Though he made his own assumptions about the contents of the 26 bags, he claimed never to have thought that they might contain cocaine. He hoped that the court would see that he had nothing to do with the drugs, and he appealed against the conviction. However, in September 2015, the Dominican court upheld the verdict.
Nicolas Pisapia is Still in the Dominican Republic Today
Now in his early 50s, Nicolas Pisapia is still in the Dominican Republic. He is out of prison, but has been released under judicial supervision, which allows him to live in the city. However, leaving the Dominican Republic is still out of the question for him. Due to the lack of proper documentation and the shadow of the court case still hanging over him, he is unable to get a job or provide for himself in any way. Reportedly, his family has been paying for his accommodation and other expenses all this time. By 2019, his parents were said to have already spent around 190,000 euros on him. Meanwhile, his wife, who is of Romanian descent, separated from him while the case was still in the pretrial phase, and Nicolas has little to no contact with his son.
Nicolas continues to claim innocence over the entire matter and hopes that the truth will come to light someday. He believes that the raid was a political show for the authorities of the Dominican Republic, and he was unfortunate enough to get caught up in it. Meanwhile, the other three men (Odos, Fauret, and Castany) are back in France. In 2021, Nicolas was asked to testify in Odos and Fauret’s appeal trial in France, but he refused to speak. In the meantime, his friends and family have tried to gather support for him. Several things, like a support committee, a donation page, and social media pages to call for justice for Nicolas, have been set up over the years to draw the attention of the French authorities to his situation. So far, things have not worked out in his favor.
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