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'Player overlap' visible in trial |
The luxury business jet carrying a suitcase filled with $800,000 in bribes whose discovery last August kicked off the Suitcase-Gate Scandal playing out in a trial in Miami had the same registration, or" N" number, as that of a plane flying for a CIA contractor in Iraq, the MadCowMorningNews has learned.
Newspaper photos taken of the Citation X top-of-the-line business jet after the ill-fated suitcase flight show 'N' number N5113S on the tail. But a Florida-based CIA air contractor called Air-Scan Inc. is assigned that tail number, according to FAA records, for a Cessna 182 flying in Iraq.
Air-Scan Inc. is an American military contractor which has—even for an American military contractor—a checkered past.
Still, there has been no mention so far during the trial of the murky provenance of the Citation jet, whose flight began what has become a growing international incident.
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The CIA Drug Plane Scandal grew exponentially last week when European Union officials broke an official 40-year-long silence on the previously-taboo subject of the CIA's worldwide involvement in drug trafficking.
Last week Mexico City newspaper El Universal reported that The European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation has begun an investigation one of the planes, the cocaine-laden Gulfstream II business jet (N987SA), for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run detention centers.
Neither of the federal agencies with apparent jurisdiction—the DEA and FAA—has so far offered answers about how two American-registered jets with extremely politically well-connected owners, could have wound up carrying so much Colombian coke. But then, no mainstream American journalists have bothered to ask.
Mexican journalists have not been that timid…
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Last week, two wire services, Agence France Presse and the Associated Press, reported news that readers of the investigative reporting at this website have known about for almost a year.
While happy to see the mainstream media waking up, a little "credit where credit is due" would be nice, too. We broke this news on this website eleven months ago (Oct 8, 2007). When not unsuccessfully attempting to debunk it, America's corporate media has assiduously ignored my reporting on a whole host of scoops we've broken.
Ultimately, the effort is designed to make me go away, for the same reason that stories about 9/11 "conspiracies" never mention real investigative reporting on 9/11, which, alas, appears in very few places. And, in combination with a series of nuisance libel lawsuits, it has almost succeeded.
You can make the difference in keeping the news real by putting your money where your mouth is. Please send advice, and donations, and pre-order both the book and DVD.
A sincere and heartfelt thank you to all the Mad Cow readers who have been supportive over these past years...
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Straight from the front lines of the Drug War…
"The NEW American Drug Lords" is a no-holes-barred look at into the Biggest Taboo story of our time: the illegal drug trade.
The documentary pulls back the curtain on the biggest drug story of our time: the scandal which erupted when two drug planes flying tons of cocaine were busted in Mexico's Yucatan enroute from Colombia to Fort Lauderdale in Florida.
Both were American-owned. Recent owners of the first plane busted—a DC9 with 5.5 tons of cocaine—have interlocking business partnerships with recent owners of the second plane, a Gulfstream II business jet.
The Gulfstream had been previously used to fly for the CIA. The DC9 was painted like an official aircraft from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.
The New American Drug Lords. Meet them. Know them.
Beat them at their own game.
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As the political conventions dominate our consciousness, remember that a major international trafficking operation, like this one, kicks off vast amounts of fungible cash, day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year...
If there is an arena where the a battle is being waged for the "soul of America," as Joe Biden suggested last week... it is here.
The exclusive "Cocaine One" series of investigative reports by this reporter appearing on this website for the past two years made the news, finally... not in the U.S., but in Mexico City, where it was cited by a principal in the drug trafficking scandal in newspaper interviews to support his allegation of selective prosecution against the DEA.
Carlos Gutiérrez de Velasco is the paterfamilias of the influential Veracruz-based family which owned the Casa de Cambio Puebla currency exchange, accused of laundering enough drug money through U.S. banks to buy as many as 100 American planes for use in drug-running.
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The Russian "businessman" to whom
Donald
Trump sold his Palm Beach mansion for a purported $100 million was arrested in
Russia in April of 1997 and charged with masterminding the killing of a
business rival, in what law enforcement authorities called "a contract hit."
The
MadCowMorningNews has uncovered
an April 13, 1997 report in the official Russian news agency TASS
announcing that Russian law enforcement authorities arrested Russian fertilizer
king Dmitry Rybolovlev and charged him with being
behind the murder of the head of another Russian chemical company, in what
authorities said was a war for control of Russia’s lucrative fertilizer
business.
“The suspected murderers and organizers of the crime, including
the head of the FD-Kredit Bank, Dmitry Rybolovlev, have been
arrested,” TASS reported.
Trump’s
announcement of his big sale Wednesday received wide play. It was trumpeted
everywhere from the Wall Street Journal to
Entertainment Tonight.
The Wall Street
Journal,
with perhaps unintended irony, called Rybolovlev, a 42-year-old Russian
billionaire who currently ranks #59 on the Forbes list of the world's
billionaires, “one of Russia's richest and most discreet
businessmen.”
None of
the stories mentioned Palm Beach's newest billionaire's mainline connection
to the
Russian
Mob.
Full story
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An
American turbo-prop airplane went down in Venezuela last month, the second such
incident in the past 45 days, the MadCowMorningNews has learned.
After making an emergency landing at the International Airport José Tadeo
Monagas in Maturin, Venezuela, the pilot and co-pilot of the American-registered
twin-engine Piper Cheyenne (N395CA) bailed out of the plane, leaving it sitting
in the middle of a runway as they sprinted for the airport fence. Onboard were
28 suitcases stuffed with 700 kilos of cocaine, and 14 empty cans of fuel.
The busted drug flight
joined a second American plane, also suspected of drug trafficking, and
registered to a Houston firm widely thought to serve as a front to hide CIA
planes, which was involved in a fiery crash near Caracas on April 28 that made
international headlines.
One of the dead passengers
onboard was revealed to be Alfredo Anzola, a 34-year old software engineer for a
controversial Chavez-connected election company whose election code remains
embedded in thousands of electronic voting machines in the U.S.
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The Guyanese pilot implicated by a former Customs agent as part of a ring of corrupt Customs officials being investigated by the Dept. of Homeland Security was in the news again recently as part of another scandal, this time in his native Guyana.
Michael Francis Brassington, whose name is a footnote in the 9/11 investigation, was named in a procurement scandal over the disputed purchase by the Guyana Defense Forces of two antique 30-year old helicopters from a 'dummy' company in Delaware that sounds suspiciously like a front for the CIA, the ironically-named "Global X Group".
While researching pilot Brassington's involvement in the Guyana scandal, we were astonished to discover that Brassington's father (also named Michael Brassington) has close business ties with one of the most notorious oligarchs in the Russian Mob, Oleg Deripaska, the "last man standing" in the brutal Aluminum Wars in Russia during the 1990's for control of that strategic resource.
This information is important to a full understanding of the 9/11 attack. Brassington's name surfaced in connection with 9/11 because he had been the co-pilot on the drug-running Lear jet (N351WB) owned by Wallace J. Hilliard (right). Hilliard alsoand not coincidentallyowned the Venice FL flight school where Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi were at the time learning to fly.
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One week after the crash outside Caracas, Venezuela of a twin-engine Piper Navajo (N6463L), an air of intrigue surrounds almost everything about the flight, including the plane's ownership, passengers, and pilot.
Woven into one small story about a plane crash in Venezuela that killed seven people are visible threads from two perennial American cover-ups: one surrounding vote fraud, and one covering-up the CIA's role in drug trafficking.
For anyone interested in the news that gets left out of the newspaper, its' a Perfect Storm. The Mother of All Scandals.
The downed plane's relevance to the ongoing story of vote fraud in America involves the identity of it's passenger, Jose Alfredo Anzola, a 34-year old founder of Smartmatic, a Venezuela-based election company whose American subsidiary counted one in every three votes in the 2004 Presidential election, while engaged the whole time in heated controversy over allegations the firm counting America's votes had hidden ties toof all people Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.
The connection between last week's plane crash and the ongoing saga of CIA Drug trafficking begins 43-year old Mario Donadi Gafaro, the veteran drug pilot at the controls of the twin engine plane.
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Reporter threatened with being "cluster-sued!"

The biggest fish busted so far
in the laundered-drug-money-for-American-planes scheme used by Mexico’s powerful
Sinaloa cartel to purchase 100 airplanes in the U.S. has cut a secret deal with
federal prosecutors in Miami, and agreed to testify against others involved, the
MadCowMorningNews has learned.
The news is one of a series of
recent developments in the scandal, which erupted in the wake of the massive
drug hauls seized on two drug planes busted in Mexico’s Yucatan just eighteen
months apart carrying, between them, more than ten tons of cocaine.
Also last week, a federal judge
in Mexico City ordered the extradition to the U.S. of Pedro Alatorre Damy,
identified by the DEA and the Attorney General of Mexico as the main money
launderer for Joaquin Guzman, “El Chapo,” leader of the Sinaloa cartel.
And in another development which
hits close to home (at least for this reporter) the MadCowMorningNews has been
contacted by attorneys for two figures in the case. Both are threatening
lawsuits.
Imagine our surprise.
Full story

Republican
Operative Led Organized Crime Ring
An organized crime ring fronted by a former
Republican operative who claims he learned the 'art' of money laundering as part
of the Iran-Contra operation was behind a massive drug move two years ago this
week which ended with a DC9 airliner from St. Petersburg Fl busted in Mexico
carrying 5.5 tons of pure cocaine, the
MadCowMorningNews has
learned.
The crime ring behind the drug move on the DC9 was led by self-described Iran
Contra insider Marc Harris, whose associates number at least three
convicted drug traffickers (Lawrence Boulanger,
Wallace Stull, and James Somerville)
of note.
Harris is a former
staffer for Senator Jesse Helms, and has ties
to the national Republican Party go back to at least 1988, when he was the
Florida manager for former US Army General, National Security Advisor and White
House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig’s presidential campaign.
As well,
many of Harris' biggest clients were
prominent Republican politicians, according
to
one newspaper in Panama.
Full story.
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The lavishly-furnished custom Boeing 727 airliner (727PX) which ferried Senator
John McCain on four occasions during his Presidential run in 2000 also flew
Saudi Royals out
of
the U.S. right after 9/11, carrying an entourage of Saudi Royals from Las Vegas
to London six days after the 9/11 attack in a controversial operation later
scrutinized by the 9/11 Commission.
With hundreds of air charter companies and
airliners to choose from, the Saudis chose a company that owns "Worship
Ministries" and Christian Network, Inc., turning to Paxson Communications, a
"Christian broadcaster" which owned the plane, to make its corporate jet
available to spirit the Saudi princes and their entourage out of the U.S. six
days after 9/11.
The Saudi Royal party made good their escape from Las Vegas on an airliner sporting a Christian symbol of peace, a dove, on it's tail, an intriguing detail and compelling human interest storyMuslims flying Air Jesusthat has to date been reported nowhere but in the MadCowMorningNews.
Go figure.
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Four more American-registered drug planes have been seized from the 50-plane fleet of drug running aircraft amassed by Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Figures of interest in the transactions, the MadCowMorningNews has learned, include financial backers of two of this year's Republican candidates for President, as well as, unsurprisingly, an aviation company in St. Petersburg, FL. which can justifiably be called "one of the usual suspects."
Coincidentally or not, the American owners of the four planes (like the two busted earlier) were largely people and companies with 'special relationships' with U.S. political movers and shakers, including the CIA and the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.
Yet, despite this inconvenient fact, the FBI persists in referring to the aircraft's American owners as "legitimate aircraft brokers" and "unwitting sellers".
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Does Dept. of Homeland Security Threaten Homeland Security?
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New revelations in the broadening scandal kicked off by two CIA and Dept of Homeland Security-linked airplanes busted in Mexico with multi-ton loads of cocaine point to a level of criminality and turpitude well beyond the corruption at U.S. Customs in South Florida to which officials have already admitted.
A central figure in the Customs corruption probe is Guyanese pilot Michael Francis Brassington, the MadCowMorningNews has learned, a name familiar to readers who have followed the unfolding and still largely untold story of the activities and associates of the terrorist hijackers in Florida...
Michael Brassington was the co-pilot on a drug running Lear jet (N351WB) caught by DEA agents at Orlando Executive Airport in July of 2000 carrying 43 pounds of heroin.
The Lear jet's owner, Wallace J Hilliard, also owned the Venice FL flight school where, at that very moment, the two terrorist pilots who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center Towers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, were receiving flight training.
Today's $64,000 Question:
In the current Customs scandal Brassington is under suspicion for trafficking drugs, passports, people, currency, and diamonds into the U.S. through two airports in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with the assistance of high-level officials in U.S. Customs and the FAA.
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Two American-registered drug planes busted in Mexico carrying four and 5.5 tons of cocaine are just the "tip of the iceberg" in a blockbuster aviation deal which sent 50 American-registered aircraft to the Sinaloa Cartel, the MadCowMorningNews has learned.
According to an indictment released over the holidays by Mexico's Atty. General, Pedro Alfonso Alatorre, already indicted as the cartel's chief financier, purchased the DC9 (N900SA) airliner, the Gulfstream II business jet (N987SA), and 48 other planes not yet identified for Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel with laundered drug money, using a company he controls which owns currency exchanges at major airports in Mexico.
News of a 50-plane fleet of drug smuggling aircraft being sold to a Mexican Cartel by mysteriously unnamed American owners confirms rumors of a mushrooming scandal, one which may eventually implicate top officials in the U.S., Mexico, and Colombia.
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A few weeks ago ago we began collecting news stories and brief blurbs from drug stories that made the papers or the wires. As the stories piled up, the dawning realization of the immensity of the industry was a shock, even to someone who's been writing about it for years.
This has been a banner year for seizures. Four tons, six ton, even 23 tons of cocaine in one fell swoop. You even think: maybe the surge is working.
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CIA Drug Plane Scandal Heating Up
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A pilot arrested while awaiting the ill-fated landing in Mexico of the DC9 airliner carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine 18 months ago committed suicide by hanging himself this week
with his socks, in the maximum security Altiplano prison facility outside Mexico City.
The death of Marco Antonio Perez Gracia is just the latest to be blamed on the scandal surrounding the DC9 (N900SA) airliner, as well as a Gulfstream II (N987SA) business jet which crash-landed and broke into three pieces in September in Mexico, spilling 4 tons of cocaine across a muddy field 25 km outside Merida.
Adding to the intrigue, Narco News reported last week that Gregory D. Smith, one of two Fort Lauderdale FL charter pilots left holding the bag as the last registered owners of the Gulfstream II business jet (Cocaine Two) busted in Mexico with 4 tons of cocaine, worked for the CIA and DEA as a pilot during the late 1990's.
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"Threats of law suits against journalists have
become the hallmark of the Bush administration
in a not too clever tactic used to silence
independent media in the U.S. -Wayne
Madsen
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