The 727s have been workhorses for illegal activities. .
Instead of stopping at Mexico they could keep going with 6 tons of munitions. I am sure our Govt. is aware of this. -Tom
Old Jets Used to Smuggle Cocaine to United States DRUG TRAFFICKING February 1995
According to government sources in the United States and Mexico, Colombian drug smugglers have been using old 727's to fly cocaine into Mexico to be smuggled later into the US (Tim Golden, "Tons of Cocaine Reaching Mexico in Old Jets," New York Times, Jan. 10, 1995, p. A1).
The sources report that smugglers buy the jets, remove the seats, and attempt to fly six tons of cocaine or more to Mexico on each flight. Each load of cocaine can be worth as much as $120 million on the street in the U.S.
The jets travel virtually undetected because they usually travel at night with their lights and radar transponder equipment turned off. The traffickers alter the plane's identification numbers and do not file flight plans.
Most notably, the planes fly at higher speeds than other aircraft, outrunning drug enforcement jets. Even when Mexican drug enforcement officials do catch the planes, traffickers often abandon them on airstrips because they are relatively cheap to replace.