• An American Airlines mechanic was convicted of smuggling cocaine, prosecutors reported Tuesday. 
• Paul Belloisi held 10 bricks of cocaine in a compartment beneath the plane’s cockpit, they reported. 
• The prescription drugs have been well worth as considerably as $320,000, they additional. Belloisi faces up to 20 many years in jail.

An American Airways mechanic was identified responsible of striving to smuggle a lot more than $300,000 worthy of of Cocaine by stashing it in a hidden compartment in a plane’s cockpit, prosecutors stated in a push launch on Tuesday.

Paul Belloisi, 55, who worked at John F. Kennedy Airport for close to 3o decades, was convicted of conspiring to possess cocaine, conspiring to import cocaine, and importing cocaine, the launch stated. 

Prosecutors said that Belloisi attempted to smuggle the medicine — worthy of as considerably as $320,000 — on a flight that landed in New York from Jamaica on February 4. 

Customs and Border Patrol officers to start with found 10 bricks of cocaine that weighed extra than 25 pounds concealed inside of an electronics compartment on the underside of the American Airlines aircraft, the push launch said. 

To locate out who was smuggling the medicines, officers taken off the bricks of cocaine and replaced them with bogus bricks, which they then sprayed with a material that, if touched, would illuminate underneath a selected variety of gentle.

They placed the aircraft beneath surveillance right until they noticed Belloisi enter the electronics compartment. The gloves he was wearing were being glowing less than the black gentle, prosecutors explained.

“This corrupt airline mechanic not only abused his position of have faith in and undermined the protection of a critical border crossing in our district, but was also inclined to most likely endanger the basic safety of tourists as nicely as the neighborhood,” Breon Peace, the United States Lawyer for the Jap District of New York, mentioned, in accordance to the push release. 

American Airlines did not instantly reply to Insider’s ask for for remark. 

Prior to his conviction, Belloisi pleaded not guilty, with his lawyer, David Besso, arguing that the mechanic experienced a “spotless” record and no legal history, CNN claimed at the time. 

He now faces up to 20 years in prison.