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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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September 29th,
2008 - Crashed Jet Carrying Cocaine Linked to CIA |
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Crashed Jet
Carrying Cocaine Linked to CIA By Jeremy R. Hammond Atlantic Free Press September 29, 2008 A number of jets connected
to drug-trafficking, including a Gulfstream II carrying more than 3 tons of
cocaine that crashed in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico last year, have been
linked to the CIA through both its extraordinary rendition program and a
supposed sting operation known as "Mayan Express". A private jet that crashed
last year in eastern Mexico and was found to be carrying more than 3 tons of
cocaine was also used by the Central Intelligence Agency for clandestine
operations, the Mexican daily El Universal reported last week. The newspaper cited
documents from the United States and the European Parliament which "show
that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to
transfer terrorism suspects." It said the European Parliament was
investigating the jet for its possible use in "extraordinary
rendition" flights, whereby prisoners are covertly transferred by the
U.S. To a third country. In June, 2006, the British
Department for Transport website published flight data on US aircraft into or
out of the UK. According to the site, "This data had previously been
released by Eurocontrol to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe to assist with its enquiry into allegations of 'extraordinary
rendition' flights operating in Europe." The jet that crashed in Mexico,
with registration number N987SA, is listed in the data report. According to El Universal,
FAA records show that the jet flew to Guantanamo on May 30, 2003. From June
23 to July 14, the jet flew from New York to Iceland, France, Italy, and
Ireland. From July 16 to 20, it flew from the U.S. To Canada, the UK,
Ireland, the UK, Canada, and back to the U.S. Again. From April 7 to 12,
2004, it went from New York to Canada, the UK, Canada, and again to the U.S.
The jet then flew to Guantanamo again. On April 21, it flew from the U.S. To
Canada, France, the UK, Canada, and back to the U.S. It left the U.S. For
Guantanamo once more on January 21, 2005. The jet crashed on September
24, 2007. According to an Aviation Safety Network description of the
accident, the Gulfstream Aerospace G-1159 Gulfstream II jet with registration
N987SAcrashed near Tixkokob in the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula.
ASN describes it as an "Illegal Flight" and reports that "When
being chased by Mexican military helicopters, the crew carried out a
crash-landing. No bodies were found in the wreckage, but soldiers found 132
bags containing about 3.6 tons (3.3. Metric tons) of cocaine." An initial Reuters report on
the crash noted that "Drug planes packed with South American cocaine -
often with passenger seats ripped out to make space - frequently fly through
Mexico and Central America en route for the United States. Some unload their
cargo at clandestine airstrips south of the border where traffickers send it
on by road or sea." El Universal, in its initial
report on the crash in 2007, stated that the cocaine was in 132 bags and
noted the registration number of the wrecked plane. McClatchy Newspapers
observed a few days after the crash that "news reports have linked the
plane to the transport of terrorist suspects to the U.S. Detention center at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but those reports cite logs that indicate only that the
plane flew twice between Washington, D.C., and Guantanamo and once between
Oxford, Conn., and Guantanamo." In November of last year,
reporters from the Tampa Tribune followed up on the international
investigation that resulted after the Gulfstream II crash. An expert on the
drug trade from the University of Miami told the reporters that cocaine is
being moved by air through Florida more frequently, as an alternative to
being brought into the U.S. In the southwest. The Gulfstream II jet was
one of two planes being used by the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel, also known
as the Pacific Cartel, to carry cocaine. The other jet, a DC-9, had been
seized and was found to be carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine. Both aircraft were
purchased by the cartel from St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. The DC-9 with tail number
N00SA, was seized on April 11, 2006 carrying an amount of cocaine valued at
an estimated $82,500,000, according to Airport-Dat.com. Reportedly sold in
March, the jet was scheduled to depart for Simon Bolivar International
airport in Venezuela on April 5. FAA records show that at the time of the
seizure, it was still registered to Royal Sons Inc., which operates out of
St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. It was deregistered two days
after the seizure and listed as exported to Venezuela. At the time of the crash,
the Gulfstream II was registered to Donna Blue Aircraft Inc., owned by Joao
Luiz Malago and Eduardo Dias Guimaraes, who had reportedly purchased the jet
in July and then sold it to two Florida men on September 16. Two days later,
the jet left Fort Lauderdale for Cancun. Then, according to Mexican authorities,
it flew to Columbia to pick up the cocaine and was en route to deliver the
drugs when it came to the attention of the military and crashed in the
resulting chase. Some have speculated that
Donna Blue Aircraft may have been a front company. The Florida Department of
State Division of Corporations lists the "Date Filed" for the
company as March 29, 2007. And from June 1, it was listed at an address in
Coconut Creek, Florida. Then, on June 18, 2008, the company name was changed
to North Atlantic Aircraft Services, Corp., listed at the same address, but
with Malago as the sole owner. Journalist Daniel Hopsicker
visited the Coconut Creek location and found no sign that such a business
existed there. Hopsicker wrote, "Moreover the brief description of Donna
Blue on its Internet page, apparently designed to 'flesh out the ghost a
little,' is such a clumsy half-hearted
effort that it defeats the purpose of helping aid the construction of a
plausible 'legend,' or cover, and ends up doing more harm than good ... For
example, the website features a quote from a satisfied Donna Blue Aircraft
customer. Unfortunately his name is
'John Doe.' And the listed phone number is right out of the movies:
415.555-5555." The company's website (now
offline) stated only, "we are in this business over 20 years, attending
South, North and Central america, with outstanding service, we are today most
trusted company in this market. our customer loyality make us different"
(sic). According to Whois, the site was created on August 20, 2007, a
monthafterthe Gulfstream II was reportedly bought by the company and less
than a month before it crashed carrying the cocaine. Once uploaded, the site
was apparently never updated and seems to have gone offline sometime after
February 2008. According to the site description still available on Alexa,
the company opened in 1995 despite the fact, as noted above, that the date
the company was filed with the Florida Department of State was in March 2007. Malago sold the jet to Clyde
O'Connor. The name of Gregory D. Smith also appeared as a co-signer on the
bill of sale. A reporter from the
Broward-Palm Beach New Times contacted Gregory D. Smith of Global Jet
Solutions. When asked about the plane crash, Smith replied, "I'm not
allowed to discuss that - I'm sorry," and hung up. Contacted a second
time, he said, "I'm not going to divulge anything." O'Connor had once written a
letter to the editor in response to an article on the death of a police
officer saying that "one less cop is not a bad thing." He was
convicted in 2001 for criminal air safety violations. In October 2007, he was
detained by Canadian officials after they searched a Cessna 210 he had flown to Nova Scotia
and found two Derringer pistols he had failed to report. Reporters from McClatchy
Newspapers attempted to reach O'Connor at one of his companies, Execstar
Aviation in Fort Lauderdale, but the number had been disconnected.
"Adding to the plane's mystery", their article noted, "are
allegations that it made trips in 2003, 2004 and 2005 between the United
States and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. detention center for
suspected terrorists is located." Baruch Vega, a Columbian who
has worked with the FBI, DEA, and CIA in law enforcement operations told
Narco News that one of the main pilots used in operations for flights between
Florida and South America was named Greg Smith. Vega said, Well originally ... I met
Greg Smith ... we needed a pilot, a very trustful pilot, someone we could trust
to bring in the [Colombian] drug traffickers to surrender. Then the members
of the FBI recommended to get in contact with this guy [Smith] because he was
very close to them. Ever since we flew only with him. Everything was with
him. ... I never asked anything [about Smith's background]. But he [Smith]
brought a couple of pilots because we always have two pilots in the plane. He
occasionally brought pilots from the US Customs. I tell you one thing. We
flew with Greg Smith easily 25 to 30 times. All [the] operations [were]
between the end of 1997 to 2000. He added that there were
"DEA agents in the plane and of course drug traffickers who were coming
to surrender with attorneys." He also said the name of the company from
which the aircraft were chartered was Aero Group Jets. A court document
confirms one instance in which the CIA had worked with the DEA to bring a
fugitive Colombian drug trafficker, one Mr. Cristancho, to Florida by means
of an aircraft rented from Aero Group Jets. According to Narco News,
"A check of the public records available through Florida's Department of
State lists the registered agent/officer of that now inactive company as
Gregory D. Smith." When contacted by Narco
News, the Gregory Smith identified in the Broward-Palm Beach New Times story
denied that he was the same Greg Smith as the one whose signature appeared as
co-signer on the bill of sale of the Gulfstream II. He said his middle
initial is "J' and that he had been wrongly identified. Narco News obtained a copy
of a 2007 document with the signature of Gregory Smith from Global Jet
Solutions and compared it with the signature Gregory D. Smith in a 1998
annual report from Aero Group Jets filed with the state of Florida. The
signatures "appear to be different", Narco News concluded. They do
indeed appear to be different signatures, but the fact that the two samples
are 9 years apart also must be taken into consideration, as a person's
signature may evolve over time. In a follow up report, Narco
News tracked down Malago, who denied that he operated a front company.
"Some people told on internet," he said, "that my company is a
CIA cover office and that bring me a lot of problems. First this is not true
and you can imagine if this people came to talk with me. I have family and dont
want any more problems there" (sic). Malago also agreed to share
a copy of the bill of sale of the Gulfstream II jet with Narco News, which
reported that "In comparing the two signatures, there are some
differences, such as one is signed as Gregory D. while the other is signed
simply as Greg, with no middle initial. However there are some striking
similarities as well, including the fact that some of the letters appear to
be penned in precisely the same way." Mike Levine, a former
undercover DEA agent who has worked as an expert witness in court cases, told
Narco News, "I did much of this handwriting comparison work, without
using an expert, but my opinion was accepted before grand juries as having a
significant amount of work experience in comparing handwritings (IRS, BATF,
Customs and DEA). I would say the samples you sent me are definitely the same
handwriting." Although inconclusive, there
is thus compelling evidence that the Gregory Smith who cosigned with O'Connor
for the purchase of the Gulfstream II from Malago was indeed the same Gregory
Smith who was involved in piloting flights for CIA and DEA operations out of
Florida. The recent article from El
Universal noted that the Gulfstream II jet had also been previously owned by
AGI Holdings Corp., which sold it to S/A Holdings LLC, a company for which,
the paper says, there is virtually no information. The use of front companies
by CIA to provide cover for its operations is well known and documented. In December 2005, the
Toronto Star ran a story on CIA "ghost flights". It noted that a
plane with registration N196D was registered with the FAA under Devon Holding
and Leasing, Inc. - but that no such company existed. There is no Devon Holding
and Leasing Inc. at 129 W. Center St. in Lexington, N.C. There is no phone
listing. The city offices have never heard of it; neither has the Chamber of
Commerce. The law offices of James A. Gleason are at 129 W. Center St., but
five days of inquiries there failed to yield an answer to this simple
question: Does anyone in this office know of a company called Devon Holding
and Leasing? It is almost certainly a CIA shell company, existing on paper
only, and the turboprop was likely carrying a "ghost" prisoner to a
country where torture is used during interrogations. Devon Holding and Leasing
was being investigated by the European Parliament for its possible role in
the CIA's rendition program, and was named by investigators as a CIA
"shell company". In one documented case of
extraordinary rendition, the Toronto Star story continues, the CIA flew Maher
Arar, who is from Ottawa, from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport to Syria,
where he was tortured as a suspected terrorist. In another case, Osama
Moustafa Hassan Nasr was abducted from the streets of Milan and taken to
Egypt, where he was tortured. Saad iqbal Madni was similarly taken from
Jakarta and flown to Cairo, where he was held for two years before being
delivered to Guantanamo Bay. He claims he was tortured in Egypt. On the use of front
companies by the CIA: "It's careless
tradecraft," says John Pike, an expert on U.S. intelligence matters at
GlobalSecurity.org. "They (the CIA) have allowed the tail-spotters into
the game and they have not come to grips with the advent of the Internet, and
not come to grips with the massive parallel processing which is underway with
all those tail-spotters." The planes are supposed to be registered with
legitimate companies, so they just blend in and can't be traced to the CIA,
Pike says. "These are not real companies. They should be using
good-looking companies which arouse no suspicion at all." The New York Times ran a
story in 2005 stating that Aero Contractors Ltd. was a CIA front company.
"When the Central Intelligence Agency wants to grab a suspected member
of Al Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another
country," the Times report said, "an Aero Contractors plane often
does the job. If agency experts need to fly overseas in a hurry after the
capture of a prized prisoner, a plane will depart Johnston County and stop at
Dulles Airport outside Washington to pick up the C.I.A. team on the
way." The Times also stated that
"The company was founded in 1979 by a legendary C.I.A. officer and chief
pilot for Air America, the agency's Vietnam-era air company" and that
"Aero appears to be the direct descendant of Air America". The article in the Times
declined to note, however, the CIA's well-documented role in heroin
trafficking through Air America in southeast Asia during the war in Vietnam. Adding to the intrigue, in
December, 2007, Narco News reported that according to DEA officials who spoke
on the condition of anonymity, the crashed Gulfstream II jet "was part
of an operation being carried out by a Department of Homeland Security
agency" codenamed "Mayan Express". The effort was
"spearheaded by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the
sources claim." The report continues: The operation also appears
to be badly flawed, the sources say, because it is being carried out
unilaterally, (Rambo-style), by ICE and without the knowledge of the Mexican
government -- at least it was up until the point of the coke-packed
Gulfstream jet's abrupt impact with the Earth. "This is a case of ICE
running amok," one DEA source told Narco News. "If this [operation]
was being run by the book, they would not be doing it unilaterally," -
without the participation of the DEA - "and without the knowledge of the
Mexican government." The DEA confirmed to Narco
News that it was handling the investigation into the crash. The pilots were
apprehended after their initial escape from the crash site and apparently
"spilled the beans on the ICE operation during their interrogation by
Mexican authorities, DEA sources tell Narco News." "One proposition that
all of the law enforcers who spoke with Narco News agreed on with respect to
the Mayan Express is that even if DEA was precluded from participating in the
effort, the CIA almost certainly was involved on some level." Narco News also noted that a
report from a British government agency listed the Gulfstream II jet as one
"European investigators were interested in obtaining more information
about in relation to a probe into CIA rendition flights" and added that
other sources also suggested that "Mayan Express" might have been a
CIA operation using ICE for cover. Narco News reported again in
2008 on yet another plane that was apparently involved in a drug trafficking
operation. On November 26, 2004, a twin-prop Beechcraft King Air 200 landed
and was abandoned on a makeshift runway in a cotton field in Nicaragua.
Traces of cocaine were found in the plane. The cocaine had apparently been
loaded onto a truck. Several days after the plane was abandoned, law
enforcement officials arrested the occupants of a truck carrying 1,100 kilos
of cocaine. The abandoned aircraft's
tail number was N168D, registered to none other than Devon Holding and
Leasing Inc., the same company used as a front by the CIA for its
extraordinary renditions operations, as noted previously. Then the story of that plane
gets even more convoluted, as FAA records show that the plane registered
under Devon Holding and Leasing Inc. with tail number N168D actually belongs
to a different kind of plane, model CN-235-300. The Beech 200's actual tail
number is N391SA,registered with the FAA under Sky Way Aircraft Inc. Sky Way Aircraft Inc. can
also be linked to Royal Sons Inc., which, as noted above, was still the
registered owner of the DC-9 that was seized carrying more than 5 tons of
cocaine. The parent company of Sky Way Aircraft was Skyway Communications
Holding Corp., which had originally arranged to purchase the DC-9 that was
ultimately registered with Royal Sons Inc. The president of Royal Sons,
Frederick J. Geffon, was also a shareholder in Skyway Communications. In
addition, the two companies had at one time jointly filed for a loan to
purchase another DC-9, tail number N120NE. The CEO of Skyway Communications,
James Kent, had also served under contract with the Department of Defense,
the National Security Agency, and the Department of the Navy. Like the DC-9, the Beech 200
was sold to a buyer in Venezuela in October 2004, about one month before it
was abandoned in the cotton field and linked by authorities to cocaine trafficking. The Beech 200 may have been
a part of the Mayan Express operation. According to Narco News, "Mark
Conrad, a former supervisory special agent with U.S. Customs, ICE's
predecessor agency, speculates that the Mayan Express operation is not
controlled by ICE at all, but is, in fact, a CIA-run operation using ICE as a
cover. He adds that the CIA has agents operating inside many federal law
enforcement agencies utilizing what is known as an 'official cover.'" A former ICE agent also told
Narco News he suspected the CIA was behind the drug plane operations. There is no shortage of
precedents for alleged CIA involvement in drug trafficking. Aflred W. McCoy's "The
Politics of Heroin", first published in 1972, documented CIA complicity
in drug trafficking such as its involvement the opium and heroin trade in
southeast Asia. Journalist Gary Webb's
"Dark Alliance" series is a well known investigation into
allegations of the CIA's involvement in the Los Angeles crack epidemic in the
1980s to help finance the Contras in the terrorist war to overthrow the
elected government of Nicaragua. Michael Ruppert, former
narcotics officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, famouslyconfronted
CIA director John Deutch at a televised conference with information on specific
CIA operations, which he cited by name and said he had documentation on, and
said the CIA had been dealing drugs in L.A. for a long time. And there is evidence that
the CIA flew drugs into Mena, Arkansas during Bill Clinton's governorship, in
its operations to finance the Contras. In 1993, CBS 60 Minutesran a
show headlined "The CIA's Cocaine". The former head of the DEA,
Judge Robert Bonner, told Mike Wallace, the show's host, that the CIA had an
unauthorized operation to bring drugs into the U.S. "If this has not been
approved by DEA or an appropriate law-enforcement authority in the United
States," Bonner said, "then it's illegal. It's called drug
trafficking." Bonner, asked to rationalize
the operation, suggested that it might "lead to some valuable drug
intelligence about the Colombian cartels." A DEA agent interviewed for
the show said that she had been told by the CIA officer in charge of the CIA
station in Caracas, Venezuela, that they had to keep the cartel happy by
delivering their cocaine to their dealers in the U.S. "The CIA and the
Guardia Nacional," she explained, "wanted to let cocaine go on into
the traffic without doing anything. They wanted to let it come up to the
United States, no surveillance, no nothing." The CIA had gone to the DEA
with its proposal, which was rejected. "They made this proposal,"
said Bonner, "and we said, 'No, no way. We will not permit this. It
should not go forward.' And then, apparently, it went forward anyway." Senator Dennis DeConcini of
the Senate Intellience Committee also told Wallace, "It was an operation
that I don't think they should've been involved in. ... I don't doubt that
the drugs got in here." He called the operation "a mistake." Morley Safer closed the
piece by saying, "And what happened to the tens of millions that were
paid for the CIA's cocaine? Well,
General Guillen insists he didn't get any of it. But Judge Bonner says one
thing is certain, the Colombian cartel did. They got their money once the
dope made it to our streets." Senator and 2004
presidential candidate John Kerry told NBC Dateline that the CIA was
complicit in the flow of drugs into the U.S. His Senate Foreign Relations
Committee's Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism, and International
Operations found that "it is clear that individuals who provided support
for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking" and that this
activity did not go unnoticed by the government agencies. Kerry also headed up a
Senate investigation in to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International
(BCCI) which documented the CIA's involvement in the bank, which was a
criminal front for money launderers, drug traffickers, arms dealers, and even
nuclear proliferators. The government went into
damage control. In 1997, the Department of Justice issued a reportaddressing
the allegations of CIA involvement in drug trafficking, and the CIA released
its own report the following year. The full story behind the
crashed Gulfstream II jet and the other planes that were found to have been
involved in drug trafficking is far from known. But the facts that have
surfaced to date strongly indicate CIA involvement of one kind or another.
The agency's fingerprints, one might reasonably say, are all over this one. External link: http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/5207/81/ |