HELP BRINGING THEM BACK HOME ALIVE!

On April 5, 2022 a five-member Canadian flight crew was about to fly a Pivot Airlines jet with seven passengers* aboard back home to Toronto from Punta Cana airport in the Dominican Republic, when a maintenance engineer Balkrishna (BK) Dubey went to troubleshoot an issue in the avionics bay before takeoff. While performing his duties, he found a suspicious duffle bag, and reported it to the captain, Robert DiVenanzo (watch a CTV News interview with Balkrishna Dubey). The captain reported the find to Canada’s RCMP and to the local Dominican authorities, in accordance with Transport Canada protocols and international laws, and all passengers were safely disembarked from the plane.
(* according to different sources, there were six, seven or nine passengers aboard the aircraft that day.)

Dominican police officers approached the plane with sniffer dogs, and uncovered eight duffle bags, each containing 25 smaller packages for a total of 210 kilograms of what was reported by the Dominican authorities as cocaine.

The crew thought they were heroes, and will be rewarded for doing the right thing. Instead, they were zip-tied and put in jail.

That's were the horrors began. A tiny cell described by BK Dubey as "no larger than 15 by 8 feet" (the size of 3 average bathrooms) was crammed with about 20 other inmates. The cell was lorded by a "boss", who would threaten and force his demands on DiVenanzo. The crew's mobile phones, as well as their passports, were ceased by the authorities, while most of the other prisoners had their cellphones on them. Inmates wanted the Canadian crew to call their families in Canada and have money wired to the Dominican alleged criminals through e-transfers or Western Union. The communication was facilitated by the phones' translation apps. “They were on us, trying to extort money, telling us ‘you’re not going to be safe in here, you’re not going to be able to sleep, you’re going to get injured unless you send us money via e-transfer.’ That started from day one, and progressively got worse until day nine,” - told DiVenanzo to the Guardian.

"The cell was not for humans to live," BK Dubey said. "And we were just praying to God every day, just praying get out of that hell."

As the crew refused to pay, they were banished to the hole in the floor that served as a toilet, and for the last three days of their stay in jail were deprived of food and water. By the ninth day, the situation got out of control. “We expected to be injured that evening, injured or killed,” DiVenanzo says. “The inmates...made it very clear that some severe actions would be taken.”

"A dead body was placed outside our cell and we were told we would be next," said the captain.

Things weren't much better at a woman's detention center, where Christina Carello, the only female crew member, was sent. “It was a struggle. ... You had to deal with people telling you to give them money for cleaning supplies or for water,” she said. “It’s scary the thought that we could have to go back.”

After their employer mounted a significant legal battle, and after nine days spent in jail, the Pivot crew and the passengers were released from detention on bail but required to stay in the Dominican Republic, where they still remain. Since their release, they have been subject to death threats and Pivot has had to retain security and take extraordinary measures to ensure their safety.

The judge who ordered them released noted that prosecutors had presented no evidence tying the crew or passengers to the cocaine. Despite of that, THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC PROSECUTOR IS CURRENTLY APPEALING THE FIVE CREW MEMBERS' BAIL, AND AIMS TO HOLD THE CREW MEMBERS IN JAIL FOR MORE THAN 10 MONTHS.

Placing the crew back in jail alongside alleged narco-criminals will put them at serious risk of harm. The security company hired by Pivot reports that the Canadians are regularly receiving “serious death threats", likely from the criminal organization whose cocaine shipment they helped intercept.

“We’re all pretty confident in saying that if we do go back in, there’s a serious, serious risk to our lives,” said the Pivot captain. “I honestly don’t think we’ll make it out of there.”

If allowed to leave the country, the group is more than willing to participate in any future court proceedings related to the case, said DiVenanzo. But if they’re sent back to jail, as local prosecutors want, they fear the worse.

Five members of the Canadian crew posted a video online, "begging" the Canadian government for help (watch the video on Youtube).

The crew's flight attendant Christina Carello said: “If we go back to jail here, we know we may never come home.”

The crew is currently being held in an undisclosed "somewhat secure" location, guarded by a private security team that was hired by Pivot.

Whereabouts of the passengers are at present unknown. So are their identities, with one exception. Brittney Wojcik-Harrison, a Calgary photographer, was among those detained in the country.

For further details please watch The National​, CTV NEWS, read CBC News​, The Guardian​, National Post​, Toronto Star and Global News.

HEREBY WE EXPRESS OUR CONCERN FOR THE LIVES OF THE CREW MEMBERS AND THE PASSENGERS HELD IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, AND ASK THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT, PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS MÉLANIE JOLY, AMBASSADOR OF CANADA IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC CHRISTINE LABERGE, AS WELL AS ALL MEMBERS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND ALL OTHER MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT TO RAMP UP THE DIPLOMATIC EFFORT AND FURTHER THE DIALOGUE WITH THEIR COUNTERPARTS IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, IN ORDER TO BRING THE CANADIAN CITIZENS INVOLVED IN THE INCIDENT BACK HOME.