Begin forwarded message:
From: "Shawn L. Ranta" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: September 28, 2007 8:26:47 AM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ctrl] Who owned drug plane that crashed in Mexico?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/20060.html
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.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Global_News_Monitor
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Truth_In_Media
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UndoBush
Tonight's top picks. What will you watch tonight? Preview the
hottest shows on Yahoo! TV.