Paul Belloisi, ex-American Airlines mechanic, sentenced to 9 years in prison for smuggling cocaine in fake bricks into JFK, prosecutors say

A former American Airlines mechanic from Smithtown was sentenced Friday to 9 years in federal prison for smuggling 25 pounds of cocaine from Jamaica into New York through a compartment of a commercial jetliner, prosecutors said.

Paul Belloisi, 56, was convicted by a jury in May 2023 of all three counts of an indictment charging him with importing cocaine, and conspiring to possess and import cocaine into Kennedy Airport.

U.S. District Judge Dora L. Irizarry sentenced Belloisi to 108 months in prison for his role in the conspiracy.

"The defendant abused his insider position at JFK Airport to help smuggle more than 25 pounds of cocaine into the United States in a highly sensitive electronics compartment of an international aircraft," U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. "This conduct only furthers the trafficking of drugs that harms our communities, but also poses a serious threat to the security of a vital border crossing in our district and our transportation infrastructure."

An attorney for Belloisi could not be reached for comment Friday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers from the airport's anti-terrorism contraband enforcement team uncovered the smuggled cocaine on Feb. 4, 2020, when American Airlines Flight 1349 arrived at Kennedy's Terminal 8 from Montego Bay, Jamaica, prosecutors said.

The aircraft was selected for a routine search and officers found 10 bricks of cocaine weighing 25.56 pounds hidden inside an electronics compartment on the underside of the cockpit, prosecutors said.

Then, according to prosecutors, they replaced the cocaine with fake bricks and sprayed them with a substance that glows when illuminated by a special black light.

CBP officers and Homeland Security Investigations special agents surveilled the plane from a distance and shortly before it was scheduled to take off for its next flight, "they observed Belloisi drive up and pull himself inside the electronics compartment," prosecutors said. Law enforcement observed that Belloisi's gloves were glowing under the black light, indicating he had handled the fake bricks, prosecutors said.

Belloisi was also carrying an empty tool bag and the lining of his jacket had cutouts "sufficiently large enough to hold the bricks," prosecutors said.

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.