The World - News from June 13, 1988

Colombia’s national airline, Avianca, has suspended freight flights to the United States after paying millions of dollars in fines for cocaine smuggled aboard its flights into the country, Bogota newspapers reported. Avianca officials were not available for comment. In the latest incident, an Avianca jumbo jet was seized June 4 in Miami after 490 pounds of cocaine were found hidden among boxes of cut flowers. Avianca President Orlando Cabreles rushed to Washington to negotiate the jet’s release and had to pay a $3.4-million fine to U.S. Customs, the newspapers El Espectador and El Tiempo said.