According to the criminal complaints filed today, Lopez and Caminero, baggage handlers at the airport and co-conspirators, including other Continental Airlines employees, conspired to smuggle cocaine into the United States through the airport. The cocaine was put aboard flights in the Dominican Republic, usually packaged in gym bags with hand-written luggage tags that indicated they had been checked at the departing gate. Once the planes landed in Newark, Lopez, Caminero and others arranged to remove the cocaine from the airplanes, take it from the airport, and facilitate its distribution in the New Jersey and New York areas.

Special Agent in Charge of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations in Newark Peter T. Edge stated "Regardless of their role in a drug trafficking organization, persons engaged in the illegal importation of narcotics into the United States through our nation's airports are on notice that ICE HSI will use all of its investigative resources to disrupt and dismantle these criminal enterprises, large or small, and bring them to justice."

During the investigation, ICE HSI agents intercepted numerous communications in support of the conspiracy and in conjunction with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers made five separate seizures of cocaine, totaling about 125 kilograms.