On 07 September 2026, the World Customs Organization (WCO) reported that Customs and partner agencies from 19 countries had carried out 1,431 General Aviation controls in 16 days, coordinated in real time from three operational centres.
The operation produced 15 seizures, including approximately 1.2 tonnes of narcotics and 11 light aircraft, and identified 86 clandestine airstrips – alongside Customs cases involving undeclared works of art and aircraft abusing temporary admission.
A network of analysts drove targeted selection, shifting from routine checks to controls based on prior risk analysis and creating a stronger intelligence-led operation.
The WCO COLIBRI Project has concluded Operation ZAFIRO, the third and largest international operation under this European Union-funded project. Customs administrations, police, anti-narcotics units, civil aviation authorities and military forces in 19 partner countries across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and West and Central Africa (WCA) placed General Aviation – privately operated aircraft outside scheduled commercial services – under coordinated scrutiny.
General Aviation accounts for most civil aviation movements worldwide and, in remote or sparsely populated regions, it is often the only practical way to travel or move goods. This makes it attractive to organised crime: discretion, the ability to use small and remote airstrips and lighter oversight than scheduled commercial flights. Across Latin America, the Caribbean and West and Central Africa, criminal networks have made General Aviation a key link in drug routes and use it to move gold, weapons and cash. Aircraft that evade Customs and tax obligations also generate significant revenue losses for governments.
In total, 1,938 operational events were recorded on the WCO Geoportal, the innovative geospatial intelligence platform the WCO developed that supports the Project: 1,431 controls, 367 observations, 125 runways and 15 seizures. Behind these numbers is a shift the project has worked toward for three years: controls driven by prior risk analysis rather than non-targeted interventions.
The WCO Secretary General said: “Operation ZAFIRO is yet another demonstration that, when Customs administrations and partner agencies work together across borders, results follow, and society is safer because of their dedication and commitment to tackling illicit drug trafficking. The WCO COLIBRI Project has built a community of practice – analysts, field officers, coordinators – that, through sharing intelligence, are making a real difference in disrupting criminal networks that exploit General Aviation.”
Three centres, one operating picture
For the first time, the WCO COLIBRI Project ran three Operational Coordination Units (OCUs). The central OCU was hosted in Lisbon by the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre – Narcotic (MAOC-N), the international centre coordinating operational action against illicit drug trafficking by sea and air, with regional OCUs in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Staffed by regional coordinators, WCO-accredited experts, national focal points and intelligence analysts, the three units provided near round-the-clock coverage across multiple time zones.
Officers could profile a suspicious departure, check it against databases, and share it with the arrival country while the aircraft was still in the air, giving them time to plan proper controls.
What the controls uncovered
Of the 15 seizures recorded, four were drug seizures totalling approximately 1.2 tonnes; 11 were light aircraft seized in Bolivia’s Beni department during anti-narcotics operations, together with cash, arrests and the closure of several hangars. These were significant results – taking an aircraft out of circulation removes an asset that a trafficking network cannot quickly replace. It also gives investigators evidence: maintenance and fuel records, navigation and geolocation equipment, and the aircraft’s ownership.
In Paraguay, officers intercepted 262 kg of cannabis aboard a private jet that had arrived at Asunción from the United States via a stopover in Panama. The national anti-narcotics secretariat attributed the result directly to intelligence and information exchange within the WCO COLIBRI Project.
In Brazil, 490 kg of cocaine were recovered in a rural area of Tocantins, close to a clandestine airstrip, along with an aircraft bearing signs of structural modification.
In Argentina, two seizures of cocaine totalling more than 500 kg were linked to investigations into networks that rely on light aircraft – one involving 470 kg concealed behind fuel drums in a van, the other a raid connected to an earlier narcoplane case.
Where the flights were going
For the first time, officers could register the origin, transit and destination of each flight in the WCO Geoportal. The resulting picture shows General Aviation linking both regions directly with Europe, a clear corridor running from the east coast of South America, and a concentration of movements between the Gulf of Guinea and European destinations.
The great majority of that traffic is entirely legitimate. For flights assessed as high‑risk, an alert was issued, and departure‑side information was shared with European authorities to support risk‑based controls on arrival.
Beyond narcotics: Uncovering hidden aviation risks
In Côte d’Ivoire, Customs officers processing a General Aviation flight bound for Lagos found 16 works of art carefully wrapped and carried without a Customs declaration. Enforcement proceedings followed, and the regional OCU referred the case to partner agencies, including INTERPOL, to complete the investigation.
In Senegal, checks on an aircraft revealed that it had continued operating in the country well beyond its declared re-export obligation. The case triggered a wider review that found multiple aircraft overstaying their temporary admission, some for years.
In Mali, General Aviation aircraft also operate on routes involving remote or sensitive zones, making stronger oversight essential to identify and mitigate emerging risks. The security benefits therefore extend further, with enhanced control of General Aviation supporting public security, protecting national revenue and reinforcing institutional resilience.
Analysts made the difference
A defining feature of ZAFIRO was activating the WCO COLIBRI Project analyst network: national officers trained under the Project applied risk analysis and open-source intelligence techniques to identify suspicious flight patterns and support decisions as they were being made. Working with the OCUs, analysts cross-checked flight data against national databases, the WCO Geoportal and CENcomm – the WCO’s secure real-time communication platform.
The operation also demonstrated higher-quality field data. Officers in the field used the WCO Geoportal to register controls directly at the point of inspection, feeding the same dataset the analysts worked from, with controls and interventions recorded more accurately and in a more standardised manner across participating administrations. A single well-recorded control now feeds a reusable dataset, allowing analysts to identify recurrent aircraft, repeated routes and discrepancies between declared and actual movements – patterns invisible in any one inspection. Alerts trigger coordinated controls and provide valuable operational insights. One Peruvian alert on a business jet produced no illicit goods. Still, it validated the whole chain – alert, analysis, coordinated control in two cities – and generated structured information that will inform future targeting.
Operation ZAFIRO confirms that General Aviation remains an agile and flexible vector in the criminal supply chain – and that the network of trained analysts, shared tools and inter-agency working relationships built across three operations strengthens Customs and partner administrations’ capabilities to stop the exploitation by organised crime.
About the WCO COLIBRI Project
The WCO COLIBRI Project, funded by the European Union under the Global Illicit Flows Programme, strengthens the capacity of Customs administrations and other law enforcement agencies in 19 partner countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and West and Central Africa to detect, monitor, intercept and report illicit trafficking via General Aviation.