HOUSTON, United States (AP):

Two charter pilots from the US who were arrested in Panama on suspicion of money laundering are heading home for good.

American Jet International spokesman Bruce Hicks says Carl Moody and Kenneth Chonoski returned to Texas yesterday afternoon. Neither was charged with any crime.

Moody and Chonoski were detained after landing in Panama in May 2011. Inspectors said they found $2.3 million in the bags of one of their passengers, a Honduran traveller.

Hicks says a judge in Panama City dismissed the case against them. He says a prosecutor determined they are innocent.

Panama authorities imprisoned then freed the pilots, but ordered them to remain in the country pending an investigation. They were allowed to return to the US twice to renew their pilot's licences.