Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Cocaine Air: Smugglers at 30,000 Ft.’ begins with the arrest of four people on charges of drug trafficking. Two pilots and two passengers aboard the plane were found with 26 bags of around 700 kg of cocaine as they were about to fly from Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic to Saint-Tropez in France. The three-episode series looks into the case and the trial of the four men, but then, the story takes a strange turn as more and more people come to the fore; one of those people is Pierre Malinowski.
Pierre Malinowski’s Illustrious Career Has Wild Turns of Its Own
Born on August 5, 1987, in Reims, France, Pierre Malinowski grew up with an explorer father who encouraged him to find new things in the places that no one else was looking. It was this spirit of adventure and exploration that led him through a career path that very few people pursue. He enlisted in the French army at the age of 17 and a half. The first four months of his training took place in the French Foreign Legion, after which he moved on to the Marine Infantry Paratrooper Regiment. Over the course of eight years of service, he was a part of several military operations in the Middle East and Africa.
Pierre left the military in 2014 and turned towards more political pursuits. For the next two years, he worked under Jean-Marie Le Pen, the former leader of France’s National Front party, as a parliamentary assistant. His job also included developing relations with Russia, which led him to build new contacts, a move encouraged by Le Pen. This move towards Moscow changed the trajectory of Pierre’s life, as most of his life and work are now focused there. However, before this, there was one scandal that brought him into the limelight. In 2013, pilots Bruno Odos and Pascal Fauret, with two passengers, were arrested for drug trafficking in the Dominican Republic. Having seen the horrors of the prison there, when they came out on bail, they knew that they couldn’t stay in the country anymore.
This is where Christophe Naudin entered the picture as he drew up the plan to get them out of the Dominican Republic and back to France on boats. However, he couldn’t do this alone, and Pierre was brought into the operation. The journey was broken into two phases, and Pierre was on the boat that carried Odos and Fauret through the first phase of their journey. The duo managed to reach the shores of France, and for a while, everything seemed to be fine. But then, the pictures of the escape were leaked, and that stirred up some legal trouble for Naudin and the others. Pierre, however, managed to come out of the whole ordeal pretty much unscathed.
Pierre Malinowski is a Historian and an Explorer Today
Pierre Malinowski currently lives in Moscow, Russia, where he has dedicated himself to the task of historical excavation, particularly in terms of military history. He moved to the country in 2017 and received Russian citizenship in 2022. In 2018, he founded the Foundation of the Development of Russian-French Historical Initiatives, which strives to “strengthen Russian-French relations by implementing large historical projects aimed at preserving the memory of their common history and its heroes.”
He got the bug of historical research from his father, Alain Malinowski, who was also a military historian and dedicated 25 years of his life to studying military archives at the French Armed Forces’ archives in Vincennes. Alain would take young Pierre on excavations with him, and it is the lessons he learned as a boy that still dictate Pierre’s approach in his own projects. So far, his foundation has completed projects focused on the War of 1812, the Pilot of the Normandie-Niemen Squadron, and the history of the Expeditionary Corps of the Russian Army during the First World War.
His projects have also brought him into the orbit of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, to whom he has presented one of his projects and received wholehearted support. In 2024, he also attended Putin’s inauguration ceremony after being re-elected as the President. In the same vein, his foundation and its projects have also received support from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, S.V. Lavrov, and the Minister of Culture, V.R. Medinsky. As of now, the Foundation is working on several new projects, which include cinematic projects about the First World War, the study of the Holocaust “produced by bullets”, and conducting archeological research related to the Crimean War.
Pierre Malinowski Has Earned Several Accolades for His Work
Pierre’s passion for history and archaeology has been acknowledged by various institutions. He has been invited to give lectures at St. Petersburg State University, Far Eastern Federal University, and Moscow State Institute of International Relations, among others. He has also received several awards for his work. In Russia, he has received the Defense Ministry Medal “for the conservation of the memory of soldiers who died for their motherland.” In France, he received the Order of the Fighter (La Croix du Combattant), the UN Medal, the Silver Medal of National Defense, and the Overseas Medal.
While the Foundation consumes most of his time, Pierre carves out some time for himself, during which he loves to travel and explore the world. Since his move to Russia, he has explored the country in depth, and his recent international travels have taken him from Easter Island to Cuba to Bahrain, to name a few. His spirit for exploration drives him to seek out new projects and opportunities to expand his horizons, which is what he plans to keep doing for the foreseeable future.
Read More: Alain Castany: What Happened to the Cocaine Air Passenger?
