Earlier this year, authorities were investigating the transfer of cocaine and cash between recording studios in Los Angeles and New York. Rock-It Cargo and Interscope Records both denied any involvement in, or knowledge of, the exchange, and both were also reported to be cooperating fully with the efforts to prosecute those sending and receiving the drugs. Rock-It Cargo declined to discuss the matter, but a conversation with Brandon Fried, the executive director of the Air Forwarders Association in Washington, D.C., told PLSN that, regarding air transportation in general, the Federal security focus has been on passenger aircraft and the safety of those passengers, and that the screening of cargo hold contents is focused on explosives, not contraband. “The all-cargo side of the shipping business is focused on keeping the ‘man out of the box,’” added Fried, a reference to shipping people in containers as part of human smuggling rings. Entertainment equipment for music and other types of tours, however, can be transported via either route, depending upon cost, itinerary and dozens of other factors. Contraband of various types — narcotics, cash, precious metals — can find their way into all of these silos at any time, and with potentially disastrous results: Federal drug laws provide severe seizure and forfeiture penalties for items and conveyances deemed to have been used in the interstate transportation of narcotics and cash derived form the sale and transportation of narcotics.
—Dan Daley, from “The Biz,” PLSN, Dec. 2011
