ROBERT VOITIER, JR.
Guest Columnist
Smugglers have been around St. Landry Parish forever. However, by 1980 parish
smuggling became more sophisticated, using airborne technology that the Bowie
brothers could not have imagined. Recently St. Landry Parish Council member
and former veteran law enforcement officer Wayne Ardoin sat down and talked
about one legendary drug bust that featured the cooperation of federal and local
agencies who together brought down a smuggling operation with tentacles that
touched the Caribbean.
The twin-engine outlaw in this story was N17BC, 1 a pretty blue-and-white North
American Rockwell Aero Commander, with a “Bahamas” tourist sticker on the
pilot’s door. On the night of August 18, 1980, N17BC was over the then Gulf of
Mexico approaching the Louisiana coast with half a ton of dope, looking for a
place to land.
About two weeks earlier, N17BC had landed unannounced in Opelousas, taxied up
to the avgas pump and surprised Mike, the line boy at Opelousas Flying Service,
by draining the underground tanks dry. For the next two weeks, N17BC came and
went to who knows where, but it always roosted in Opelousas. Mike was happy to
pump gallons and gallons of avgas into N17BC, day after day for at least a week,
because the pilot of N17BC always paid cash and tipped enormously. So, whoever
dropped the dime on N17BC, it probably wasn’t Mike.
Chief Detective Wayne Ardoin of the St. Landry Parish Sherrif’s Office led the
team. If a superior officer needed to get something done, he told Det. Ardoin get it
done – not how to get it done, just get it done – and it got done. The assignment
this time was to bug N17BC. Ardoin enlisted fellow law enforcement officers Roy
Mallet and Alphonse “Billy” Frilot for the midnight mission. The plane was
parked on the concrete ramp at the St. Landry Parish Airport, so it was easily
accessible, but the door to the cabin was locked. Det. Ardoin called lifetime
Opelousas locksmith, Ivan Bourgogne, and in short order the lock was picked, the
bug was planted, and the crew went home, like it never even happened. Det.
Ardoin notified U.S. Customs Service.
A day or two later, N17BC was seen and heard leaving Opelousas, loudly climbing
at full power, heading due south, like a homing pigeon that had just bolted from its
cage. All the good guys knew the pigeon would come home to roost but they
didn’t know when. So, the waiting game that followed could be loosely described
as a law enforcement slumber party in the control tower at the Lafayette Regional
Airport.
Customs had their own twin-engine plane, a Cessna 310, that could run with
N17BC. So, one or two nights later when the smuggler’s blip showed up on the
radar scope, the Customs pilots and Det. Ardoin scrambled and took off, guided by
Lafayette tower to intercept the outlaw, now clearly headed for the Estherwood,
Louisiana, airport. Customs got there first, and hid in the dark at the far end of the
runway, waiting to make the bust. But just as the smuggler was about to land, he
shoved the throttles forward, retracted the gear, and the chase was on – a fly-by at
Eunice, another at Opelousas. It ended in Bunkie, Louisiana, of all places, where
N17BC left about 1,100 lbs. of weed next to the runway. The pilot got away, but
his fever dream of easy riches 2 just didn’t work out. As Det. Ardoin might have
said, “Nice try, cowboy.”
- “November-one-seven-bravo-charlie” in pilot speak.
- In the 1980s, marijuana prices varied depending on quality and location. On average, an
ounce of cannabis cost around $15-$20. With 1,100 pounds equaling 17,600 ounces, the
total value would have been approximately $264,000 to $352,000.
