Two members of the U.S. Air National Guard were arrested this week and accused of smuggling nearly 300,000 ecstasy pills into the United States on a military airplane, The New York Times reported Thursday. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials said the street value of the 290,000 pills, which came into the country from Germany, is as high as 11.6 million dollars. Captain Franklin Rodriguez, the captain of the cargo plane, and Master Sergeant John Fong, who worked on the plane's crew, face sentences of up to 40 years in prison and 2 million dollars in fines if convicted of all charges. The cargo plane left the United States April 8 and flew to the Republic of Georgia via Germany to deliver supplies for a training mission. On the return leg, the two accused allegedly picked up the ecstasy tablets in Germany. The two were arrested upon their return in New York, and a DEA official said no other arrests of members of the Air National Guard were expected and that the delivery mechanism of the smuggling operation had been shut down. However, federal agents also told the Times that at least three other similar smuggling flights were successful. --SP 2337 Local Time 2037 GMT
