jules on [EMAIL PROTECTED] says this didnt crash in cancun. not even in the
same state.
----- Original Message -----
From: RoadsEnd
To: Cia-drugs Cia-drugs
Cc: RoadsEnd
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 1:50 PM
Subject: [cia-drugs] Fwd: Shades of Mena -- "War on Terror" jet crashes, tons
of cocaine found on board
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 28, 2007 8:55:44 AM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL
PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Shades of Mena -- "War on Terror" jet crashes, tons of cocaine
found on board
Guantanamo transport plane crashes
with four tons of cocaine on board
Who owned drug plane that crashed in Mexico?
27 Sep 2007
U.S. authorities are assisting the Mexican government in the investigation
of an American business jet that crashed in Cancun this week with four tons of
cocaine on board, officials said Thursday.
Some news reports are linking the plane to the CIA's transport of terrorist
suspects to Guantanamo. Those reports cite logs that indicate that the plane
flew twice between Washington DC and Guantanamo and once between Oxford, Conn.,
and Guantanamo.
(Must have been a "local" flight. Most of them are carrying opium from
Afghanistan.)
Who owned drug plane that crashed in Mexico?
By Jay Root and Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/20060.html
MEXICO CITY — U.S. authorities are assisting the Mexican government in the
investigation of an American business jet that crashed in Cancun this week with
four tons of cocaine on board, officials said Thursday.
One of the men listed as the registered owners of the plane, Joao Luiz
Malago, said in a telephone interview from Brazil that his Florida-based
company sold the aircraft for $2 million on Sept. 16 to a Lakeland, Fla., man
and his partner, who Malago believed was from Miami.
Malago said he feared the man was dead because he hasn't been picking up
the phone.
Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico had no information on any American
citizens being killed or arrested in connection with the aircraft, a 1975 model
Gulfstream II.
"We're in the process of a judicial investigation that the Mexican
government is conducting and we are providing information,'' said an embassy
official, who wasn't authorized to speak on the record. "Part of that
investigation is to find out more about where this plane came from and who had
it before.''
Some 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. No terrorist suspects are known to have been transferred to
Guantanamo directly from the United States.
The jet, carrying the tail number N987SA, changed hands twice in recent
weeks. But how it ended up in the hands of suspected drug traffickers remains a
mystery.
The Mexican attorney general's office said the blue and white Gulfstream II
crashed on Monday in a remote jungle area on the Yucatan Peninsula. Authorities
seized 132 bags of cocaine weighing four tons. Two men were arrested and jailed
on drug trafficking charges in Merida, officials said. They declined to
identify the men, however.
The aircraft was sold on Aug. 30 to Donna Blue Aircraft, owned by two
Brazilians: Malago and his partner Eduardo Dias Guimaraes. In separate
telephone interviews from different parts of Brazil, both men said they'd sold
the aircraft to two Florida men on Sept. 16.
"We are not the owners of the plane," said Guimaraes, reached in Goiania in
central Brazil.
He deferred most questions to his partner, Malago, who said from Sao Paulo
that Donna Blue purchased the aircraft in July from a company that had owned it
for 10 years, and then flipped it quickly to two Florida businessmen who paid
for it in full.
McClatchy is withholding the names of the alleged new owners of the plane
because they couldn't be reached for confirmation.
The Gulfstream was awaiting documentation when it departed on Sept. 18 at
5:10 pm from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport to Toluca, outside Mexico City,
Malago said. He said he learned of Monday's crash after receiving a call from
an insurance company, but had been unable to reach the new owner by phone and
feared he was dead.
He said he knew nothing of the plane's history or what use it had been put
to previously. He said he'd been a pilot for 25 years and had bought and sold
planes throughout Latin America. "Generally you don't know the history of the
plane," he said.
At the time of the Guantanamo flights, the plane's operation was managed by
Air Rutter International, a California-based air charter service, but was owned
by someone else. Air Rutter's owner, Bill Cripe, refused to identify that
owner, except to say he was a reputable businessman. Cripe also said he didn't
know about any flights to Guantanamo.
(Root, of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, reported from Mexico City. Hall
reported from Washington.)
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