Smuggling

Mystery Cargo: Suspicions Of Smuggling Swirl Around Airline Tragedy In Kyrgyzstan

Strewn among the aircraft wreckage and obliterated homes outside Kyrgyzstan's capital lie the charred remnants of iPhones, luxury cigarette lighters, and other electronic gadgets disgorged when a Turkish cargo plane slammed into a village near Manas International Airport.

The crash of the MyCargo 747-400 in dense early morning fog on January 16 killed four crew members and 35 villagers in Dacha-Suu, nearly half of them children.

But it also set off a storm of inquiry, fueled by contradictory statements from the Istanbul-based flight operator, into suspicions that some of the cargo was part of an illegal scheme to line officials' pockets or to feed the gray market in this fledgling democracy of 6 million people.