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On
April 10th an American-registered
DC9 was caught carrying 5.5 tons
of cocaine destined for the U.S.,
the Mexican military announced,
at an airport in Ciudad del Carmen.
In the more than two months since,
the incident has slipped into a
black hole.
Beyond a few half-hearted stabs
at pinning blame for the crime on
scapegoats du jour
like the FARC in Colombia or Hugo
Chavez in Venezuela, authorities
in both Mexico and the U.S. have
had little or nothing to say about
the case.
The
MadCowMorningNews has
learned new details in what is becoming
a growing drug trafficking scandal
implicating elements in the ruling
parties in both Mexico and the US:
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Released FAA registration records
from the American-registered
DC9 (N900SA) airline show
that documents
informing the FAA the plane
had been exported to new owners
in Venezuela were not submitted
until
after its seizure in Mexico.
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Several top executives of
SkyWays Aircraft, the
American firm which owned the
DC9 in partnership with Royal
Sons Inc. of St Petersburg,
FL. including the company’s
President, James Kent,
are former members of U.S. military
intelligence, stated one of
SkyWay’s original employees,
who contacted us after seeing
a previous story.
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Mexican newspapers last week
began openly speculating last
week on the role of high officials
in the ruling party of President
Vicente Fox in the huge drug
load…
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They are also reporting that
the DC9's flight from Caracas
to an airport in the western
Yucatan was not a one-of-a-kind
occurrence, but that the airliner
had made at least seven
previous flights along the same
route.
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The DEA has made a deliberate
effort to downplay the importance
of the seizure, underestimating
its value by hundreds of millions
of dollars.
Crime doesn't pay... At least, not
as well as politics
The
DC9, which we have dubbed
“Cocaine One,” had an identical
sister ship. In the most unusual
detail of the case released so far,
both airliners had been painted
by their registered owners, SkyWay
Aircraft and a partner with an interest
in the company, Frederic
Geffon of Royal Sons, Inc
of St. Petersburg, Fl., to impersonate
official U.S. Government aircraft
from the Dept of Homeland Security,
complete with an official-looking
Seal.
We
reported
previously on close connections
between the management of SkyWay
and the Republican Party, including
U.S. Senator Mel Martinez, who toured
the company's facilities, praised
its (non-existent) products designed
for sale to U.S. Homeland Security,
and flew a SkyWay plane in his barnstorming
finish in his successful 2004 campaign.
Recently we were contacted by one
of SkyWay's original employees who
passed on more intriguing details
of top SkyWay executive's government
and political connections.
“James Kent (President of SkyWay)
is a real strong Republican with
a lot of connections in Washington,
like U.S. Senator Mel Martinez,”
the former SkyWay employee told
us. “And he’s also in tight
with a lot of politicians in Tallahassee,
like (Republican gubernatorial candidate)
Charlie Christ.”
“He was a mole for military intelligence
during the Vietnam war. He was with
Air America over there, and I guess
he told some people he worked for
the CIA.”
According to
SkyWay SEC filings, Kent “served
in various government contract management
positions supporting projects of
the Department of Defense, National
Security Agency, and Department
of the Navy.”
Kent
also runs a company, Online Satellite
Communication, which uses an
address in Las Vegas which also
houses
Voters Outreach of America,
a Republican Party operation
accused of illegal activity
and electoral dirty tricks, including
destroying thousands of Democratic
registration forms, during the 2004
Presidential election.
Closing the
barn door after the horse is gone
More
than ten weeks after the seizure
in Mexico of a DC9 carrying 5.5
tons of cocaine the FAA finally
released the ownership records of
the plane.
Immediately reasons for the FAA
foot-dragging became clear. Documents
informing the FAA the plane had
been exported to new owners in Venezuela
were not submitted until the
day after its seizure in Mexico.
FAA spokesman Roland Herwig told
Howard Altman of the
Tampa Tribune that the
FAA received a copy of a
letter from Royal Sons
dated April 7,
asking that the plane be exported
to Venezuela, and that the FAA officially
took Royal Sons' name off the books
three days after the cocaine bust.
While this statement appears on
its surface to support Geffon’s
protestation that he no longer owned
the airliner at the time it was
busted, a closer look at the FAA
official's statement indicate he
carefully avoided stating when
the FAA received
the change of ownership documents.
Instead, he cites the date typed
on the letter, as if that provided
some sort of definitive proof. He
also makes clear that the documents
the FAA received were copies.
A day late and 5.5 tons of cocaine
short
The significance of this statement
became obvious as we studied the
documents.
Fax numbers at the bottom of the
letter indicate it was faxed
to Geffon and Corrales just minutes
after being submitted to the FAA.
An
FAA spokesman stated they hadn't
faxed the document to anyone, indicating
it was submitted by a title insurance
company, a common practice, and
then faxed by them to the principals,
probably as proof it had been delivered.
Thus one possible Geffon defense,
that the letter dated April 7 was
in the mail
for four days before reaching the
FAA, is eliminated. And the
only apparent conclusion is that
the documents submitted by Geffon
have been back-dated.
The FAA’s
stamp indicated they received
the documents on April 11th.
However, the plane was busted
April
10th.
The wages of sin... frequently go
unreported
Another
striking irregularity in the released
FAA records is that the
bill of sale indicates Geffon
and his SkyWay partners bought the
airliner in May of 2004.
But he did not record the sale with
the FAA until
August of 2005, over a
year later.
Had the plane received the attention
of U.S. law enforcement during the
interim (for, say, having a tail
light missing, or for smuggling
tons of cocaine) SkyWay and Geffon’s
name would have appeared nowhere
on the plane’s registration.
The FAA has given no indication
that it intends to frown on this,
or that the Agency even views it
as a legal faux pas.
Geffon came into sole possession
of the DC9 after SkyWay Aircraft
went bankrupt. But his claim to
have paid for the plane is in doubt.
“At the time of the bankruptcy,
Fred Geffon wanted to buy one of
the planes. He had a charter pilot,
a Venezuelan guy who lived in Venice,
and they were going to use it for
charters,” said our source.
And
that was how we learned that the
plane's pilot, a slippery fellow
who. as we
earlier reported, managed to
slip through the clutches of the
Mexican military the day the DC9
was busted, may live in--of
all places!--Venice, Fl.
Of course, Geffon's company
maintained an address at the
Venice Airport in a hangar owned
by terror flight school Huffman
Aviation, as
we've already seen, so if the
DC9 pilot turns out to live in tiny
bewildered Venice, the news will
not be as much of a shock as it
might otherwise.
"This life of ours, this is
a wonderful life."
Apparently on his own authority,
Geffon transferred the plane
into the name of his
company, Royal Sons Inc. This is
certainly a plucky move, and at
least potentially a neat trick.
Like the pilot of the DC9, said
to have escaped the clutches of
Mexican justice at the airport in
Mexico.
Maybe he didn't escape. Maybe he
just
"Released himself on his own
recognizance."
A
spokesman for a lawyer working closely
with the Bankruptcy Trustee for
bankrupt SkyWay states they can
find no record that Geffon paid
SkyWay for the plane.
Investors, of course, are crying
fraud. (Perhaps they just
lack pluck.)
The transaction is currently the
subject of litigation in Federal
Bankruptcy Court in Tampa. “The
bankruptcy trustee said, ‘these
planes are grounded,’” the former
SkyWay employee told us.
“But they’re not there now.
Strange, isn’t it?”
7 X 5.5 tons = A lotta lotta blow
Among the major developments which
came to light last week, one of
the most interesting is the speculation
in Mexico’s feisty free press (so
unlike our own!) on the role of
high officials in the ruling party
of President Vicente Fox in the
huge drug load.
It
had been learned almost immediately
that two pilots, arrested in a corporate
jet waiting for the DC9 to land,
were employees of the Mexican federal
government.
But the fact that both pilots previously
spent time in prison for drug trafficking
was new and startling information...
That they were apparently not hampered
by their drug cartel connections
when landing jobs flying for Mexico’s
National Water Commission was also
startling.
The Mexican Agency they work for
is headed by a personal friend of
President Fox, a man who had also
served with Fox as a director of
Coca-Cola in Mexico.
Although the Mexican press pretended
to be startled, it must
have been difficult... Because this
is just business as usual.
Citing sources in the Mexican Dept.
of Civil Aeronautics, Mexican newspapers
reported last week that the “Cocaine
One” DC9 made at least seven
previous flights along the
same route before being caught.
If crime didn't pay....there'd
be no crime.
Both the DC9, dubbed “Cocaine
One,” and its sister ship,
an identical DC9, had been painted
by SkyWay Aircraft to resemble U.S.
Government aircraft from the Dept
of Homeland Security, complete with
official-looking Seal…
Masquerading as official aircraft
from U.S. Homeland Security
would provide excellent
‘cover’ for a drug trafficking operation.
“I
read what you wrote about having
two planes tricked out to look like
they belonged to Homeland Security,”
stated the longtime SkyWay employee.
“Everyone working there thought,
there ain’t no way they’re going
to get away with that. We couldn’t
believe it. How in the hell is the
government letting us get away with
that?”
“They
also had a half-dozen black hummers
tricked out the same way,” he said.
“Big seal on the side, lights and
sirens on the top. Finally some
local cops pulled the hummers over,
and made them take the seals and
lights off.”
“But nobody ever said anything about
the planes.”
"Homeland Security been berry
berry good to me."
The former SkyWay employee also
indicated that government officials
went out of their way to assist
the company. “I was one of
Skyways’ first ten employees, there
from the start in the communications
division, and I participated in
the installation at the FDOT (Florida
Department Of Transportation)
mentioned in your article,” he said.
“The guy in charge there told us
that airports in Florida were all
told that the state of Florida
would reimburse them 100% for any
airport upgrades that had to do
with security.”
The State of Florida created
a ready-made market for SkyWay’s
non-existent “Homeland Security”
products by subsidizing their
purchase by local governments.
Why would they want to do that?
“They got the first plane in the
middle of 2003, and it was sent
up to an airport in Chicago to get
turned into an executive jet, with
a marble bar and leather couches,”
our SkyWay source explained.
“They had it in Chicago 8-9 months
before it came back. Then they got
the second plane in mid-2004.”
“They wrote it up in a press release,
touting how they’d just received
a big investment from the DuPont
foundation. Which turned
out to be bogus, just some guy at
a desk in Costa Rica.”
Twin airliners give you that crucial
margin for error
DC9’s cost money. But the twin airliners
weren’t being used to demonstrate
SkyWay’s products, for the simple
reason that the company never had
a product to demonstrate. 
The fact is both inescapable and
mind-boggling at the same time.
Two DC9’s painted to impersonate
U.S. Government planes were being
used for an as-yet unknown purpose…
for almost two years.
Like the FAA, the attitude of the
DEA toward a drug trafficking case
involving 5.5 tons of cocaine seems
remarkably laissez faire. A call
to the DEA to inquire whether the
Agency had mounted an investigation
of an American-owned airliner busted
with 5.5 tons of cocaine elicited
a terse “no comment.”
The duty officer at the Tampa Office
of the Drug Enforcement Administration
revealed no indication that the
DEA has taken any interest in the
case. Two days of phone calls to
the Agency’s Public Information
Officer in Miami yielded nothing
but busy signals.
Without Asa, the DEA just
hasn't been the same
Moreover,
the DEA, in an apparent effort to
downplay its importance, has deliberately
underestimated the value
of the massive cocaine seizure…
Initial wire reports
quoted the DEA as estimating
the value of the 5.5 tons of cocaine
at $100 million.
But news accounts of a seizure of
the same amount of cocaine two weeks
earlier stated that 5.5 tons of
cocaine is worth in excess of
a half billion dollars.
In
a press release March 16, the United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) congratulated Ecuador on
the seizure of more than 5.5 tons
of cocaine in the port of Guayaquil,
Ecuador. The UN said the load had
a street value of $556 million.
Street value is how the DEA figures
the worth of a load in its own press
releases…except in those rare cases
when its trying to minimize things.
The DEA’s estimation is low by a
whopping $446 million.
The Miami Herald owes us all an
explanation
Mexican
newspapers have been clamoring for
officials to come forward to explain
their curious silence.
“Where are the results of the investigations
of the airplane seized with cocaine?”
asked
Expreso.com.mx on June 28. “Why
is there nothing but silence?”
“How is it possible that this confiscation,
as important as it is, has not been
explained? When will there be information
about this?
Sharp questioning in the Mexican
press is in marked contrast to the
tepid response of the mainstream
media in the U.S.
In
news accounts of the massive cocaine
bust, The Miami Herald sounded like
Pravda during the height of the
Cold War. They dealt with the facts
of the case by completely ignoring
them... Perhaps they found it inconvenient
to mention--because of space
limitations?--that the
busted DC9 airliner was American-owned
and registered.
Their story on the massive cocaine
bust imaginatively placed the blame
for the flight on Venezuela. They
no doubt miss not having the Medellin
Cartel to kick around anymore. The
paper quotes an anonymous senior
U.S. government official, perhaps
too embarrassed to give his real
name...
“The more traditional traffickers
have discovered, from an interdiction
and law-enforcement perspective,
that Venezuela has now become a
giant black hole where they have
the least amount of resistance,
the least amount of problems, the
cheapest route to get their product
to market.”
America's Drug Lord Gap
So…what’s going on? The Herald has
a bit of experience in stories about
the movement of illegal substances
across interstate lines, do they
not? 
In
fact, The Miami Herald is to news
of narcotics trafficking what The
Sporting News is to box scores in
baseball. The paper cannot be said
to be unaware of the absurdity of
the statement they offer to their
readers with such a straight face.
So, the answer must be something
else. Something, no doubt,
worse.
For several decades it has been
the considered and unchallenged
opinion of American drug enforcement
officials that there are no American
Drug Lords.
Drug trafficking into the U.S. is
the province of unsavory “foreign
elements," according to the
DEA.
If
this were true, it would be major
bad news for our balance of payments
deficit. We would see Senators take
to the floor of the Senate, decrying
the fact that America has a
“Drug Lord Gap.”
Of
course, nothing could be further
from the truth.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE FOLKS. MOVE
ALONG.
This same nonsense has kept Americans
from holding elements in the American
government responsible for trading
guns-for-heroin with Osama bin Laden
before 9.11.
The answer, both here in the U.S.
as well as in Mexico, appears to
be: Damage Control, for what clearly
appears to have been officially-sanctioned
drug trafficking.
The silence in the U.S. and Mexico
is a tell-tale sign of clandestine
activity gone horribly awry. The
bust was a mistake.
Once again, low-level personnel
just hadn't been "clued-in"
to the protected nature of the trade. Because
of the sensitivity, everything is
on a need to know basis. This creates
a continuing problem.
You can't tell just anyone.
THURSDAY: Geffon said
he "hired someone to find a
flight crew to take it down there."
He would not identify that individual,
saying only that the man is in Europe
and unavailable for comment. The
Federal Aviation Administration
seems unable, or unwilling, to untangle
the knot.
REVEALED: THE IDENTITY OF THE "MISSING
PILOT
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