‘I don’t want to get my head chopped off,’ pilot tells cops during drug bust, feds say

Badlands McNally didn’t want the feds to search his plane, authorities say.

“I don’t want to get my head chopped off,” he said, according to court documents.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection received a tip Tuesday about his single-engine aircraft departing Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and flying to Oklahoma. The agency requested a pilot inspection.

Department of Homeland Security agents were waiting at Richard L. Jones Jr. Airport in Tulsa when McNally landed shortly before 11 p.m., and they met him in a hangar. After McNally provided certification records, the agents asked whether he transported “anything” from Arizona.

“During this conversation, McNally became increasingly agitated and defensive” and refused to allow a search of the plane, according to court documents.

An agent told McNally they weren’t overly concerned if he was transporting marijuana.

“It’s probably not marijuana in there,” McNally replied before saying he didn’t want to be decapitated, according to court documents.

When a Tulsa police K-9 unit arrived, the dog began to alert agents to the presence of drugs, jumped onto the wing of the plane and sniffed at the cargo door, authorities say.

Inside, the agents discovered two duffel bags filled with a substance that appeared to be meth along with a rifle and two pistols, authorities say. The bags contained 102.7 pounds of meth, according to an arrest report obtained by KTUL.

McNally told agents he previously flew seven or eight similar trips, authorities say. He said he was paid $7,000 to $12,000 to fly cash and guns to airports in California and returned with bags, but “he never looked in the bags because he did not want to know what was inside,” according to court documents.

McNally was charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and possession of firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.