![\"Drone](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/e47692c6597d9595384d215fb19e6ed1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe owner of a Queensland aviation company is due to face court today, accused of organising a “black flight” to smuggle two alleged Australian fugitives to Indonesia.<\/p>\n
The Australian Federal Police said its investigation began in November when Indonesian immigration officials detained two pilots and two passengers who arrived on a small fixed-wing plane at Merauke, in the Indonesian province of South Papua.<\/p>\n
The flight’s certificate of clearance listed only the two copilots, one from Indonesia and one from Australia, the AFP said.<\/p>\n
The other two undeclared passengers were from Sydney and wanted by NSW Police.<\/p>\n
The 43-year-old owner of an aviation company, from Woolshed, west of Ipswich, is due to appear in the Ipswich Magistrates Court today, charged with two counts of people smuggling.<\/p>\n
‘Network’ of charter flights<\/p>\n
The AFP said investigators arrested the man on Wednesday after searching the man’s property in south-east Queensland and his business premises in Rockhampton.<\/p>\n
AFP Detective Superintendent Adrian Telfer said police would allege the man had organised a sophisticated people smuggling operation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The men left Australia on a “black flight” from Cape York Peninsula to Merauke in Indonesia. (ABC News: Brendan Mounter)<\/p>\n
“We allege he coordinated a network of connected charter flights on different planes and with different companies over a week to smuggle the fugitives from New South Wales to north Queensland, then on to Indonesia,” he said.<\/p>\n
One of the wanted men, aged 34, was on bail for kidnapping offences with conditions not to approach any point of interstate or international departure.<\/p>\n
The other, 35, has three outstanding arrest warrants, including for supplying and manufacturing a commercial amount of drugs.<\/p>\n
NSW Police said the relationship between the men was not known.<\/p>\n
The wanted men remain in detention in Indonesia, and NSW Police said they would monitor the situation.<\/p>\n
The men flew from Orange, in central west New South Wales, to Cape York on November 10 last year, Superintendent Telfer said.<\/p>\n
They were allegedly driven or flown to various locations in Far North Queensland over the next week, before the “black flight” to Indonesia took place on November 17.<\/p>\n
The plane’s transponder was allegedly deactivated before the men were picked up from a remote airstrip at Port Stewart on eastern Cape York.<\/p>\n
The transponder was not turned back on until the plane was in international waters.<\/p>\n
Police ‘reverse engineered’ travel<\/p>\n
Investigators are still looking into how much the charter operator may have allegedly been paid to do the job, or whether he was coerced or threatened, Superintendent Telfer said.<\/p>\n
“Based on the sophistication to get these fugitives out of Australia over the course of a week, with multiple flights, accommodation, we believe the figures are extensive,” he said.<\/p>\n
“In terms of the motivation, that’s something we’re still exploring.”<\/p>\n
The two pilots and the alleged fugitives remain in detention in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Telfer said police had “essentially reverse-engineered their travel” after the plane landed in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
He implored other air charter operators to contact police if they had been approached to run similar black flights.<\/p>\n
“We have intelligence that there have been people who have exited Australia similar to this,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of a Queensland aviation company is due to face court today, accused of organising a “black…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[265454,29623,29622,265455,52165,31801,43,265456,265457,44,204582,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-534844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-adrian-telfer","tag-afp","tag-australian-federal-police","tag-black-flight","tag-central-queensland","tag-far-north-queensland","tag-headlines","tag-joctf","tag-joint-organised-crime-taskforce","tag-news","tag-people-smuggling","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}