LoungeMachine
09-28-2007, 07:15 PM
Who owned drug plane that crashed in Mexico?
Jet carrying $4 million in cocaine has past that includes flights to Guantanamo Bay.
By By Jay Root and Kevin G. Hall
McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
Friday, September 28, 2007
MEXICO CITY — U.S. authorities are assisting the Mexican government in the investigation of an American business jet that crashed in Cancún 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 from Brazil that his Florida-based company had sold the aircraft for $2 million on Sept. 16 to a Lakeland, Fla., man and his partner, who Malago thought was from Miami.
Malago said he feared that the man was dead because he hasn't been answering his phone.
Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico had no information on any U.S. citizens being killed or arrested in connection with the crashed 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 Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but those reports cite logs that indicate only that the plane flew twice between Washington and Guantánamo and once between Oxford, Conn., and Guantánamo.
No terrorist suspects are known to have been transferred to Guantánamo directly from the United States.
The jet, with 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 Monday in a remote jungle area on the Yucatán Peninsula. Authorities seized 132 bags of cocaine weighing four tons.
Two men were arrested and jailed on drug trafficking charges in Mérida, officials said. They declined to identify the men, however.
The aircraft was sold Aug. 30 to Donna Blue Aircraft, owned by two Brazilians: Malago and his partner, Eduardo Dias Guimaraes. Both men said they'd sold the aircraft to two Florida men 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 São 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 at 5:10 p.m. Sept. 18 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.
He said he knew nothing of the plane's history or what use it had been put to previously.
At the time of the Guantánamo 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 Guantánamo.
Jet carrying $4 million in cocaine has past that includes flights to Guantanamo Bay.
By By Jay Root and Kevin G. Hall
McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
Friday, September 28, 2007
MEXICO CITY — U.S. authorities are assisting the Mexican government in the investigation of an American business jet that crashed in Cancún 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 from Brazil that his Florida-based company had sold the aircraft for $2 million on Sept. 16 to a Lakeland, Fla., man and his partner, who Malago thought was from Miami.
Malago said he feared that the man was dead because he hasn't been answering his phone.
Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico had no information on any U.S. citizens being killed or arrested in connection with the crashed 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 Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but those reports cite logs that indicate only that the plane flew twice between Washington and Guantánamo and once between Oxford, Conn., and Guantánamo.
No terrorist suspects are known to have been transferred to Guantánamo directly from the United States.
The jet, with 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 Monday in a remote jungle area on the Yucatán Peninsula. Authorities seized 132 bags of cocaine weighing four tons.
Two men were arrested and jailed on drug trafficking charges in Mérida, officials said. They declined to identify the men, however.
The aircraft was sold Aug. 30 to Donna Blue Aircraft, owned by two Brazilians: Malago and his partner, Eduardo Dias Guimaraes. Both men said they'd sold the aircraft to two Florida men 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 São 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 at 5:10 p.m. Sept. 18 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.
He said he knew nothing of the plane's history or what use it had been put to previously.
At the time of the Guantánamo 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 Guantánamo.