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At
least four men have already paid with their lives in Mexico during the
ensuing confusion which followed the crash of the CIA-connected Gulfstream
business jet which was carrying more than 4 tons of cocaine as
well as an yet-unspecified amount of heroin, in the jungle outside of
Merida in Mexico's Yucatan on September 24th of this year.
Last week the Director of Civil Aviation in the Yucatan,
Jose Luis Soladana Ortiz, was assassinated on his way to work.
And
three tortured bodies were discovered lying across a road near
the Merida airport several weeks ago, according to reports in the Mexican press.
The murders and multi-ton drug busts are part of a
continuing "Mexican stand-off" between rival Mexican drug cartels
allied with dueling factions contesting across Mexico's unsettled political
landscape, a contest which has resulted in more than 1500 murders
already this year.
Last month this massive
upheaval resulted in the biggest drug seizure—not just in Mexican history—but in
the history of the world.
An incredible 33 tons of
cocaine were discovered in cargo containers offloaded from the cargo ship
Esmeralda which sailed to Mexico’s Pacific Coast port of Manzanillo from
Buenaventura in northwestern Colombia.
This came hard on the heels
of headlines from Tampico in early October. "Mexican
soldiers seize 10 tons of cocaine after shootout."
Altogether so far this year an
unprecedented 48 tons of cocaine has now been seized by the
Mexican government.
The two CIA-connected airplanes—the recent Gulfstream business jet (N987SA) and a DC9
airliner (N900SA) eighteen months ago—which sallied forth from St.
Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport only to be busted in the Yucatan
carrying multi-ton loads of cocaine, may owe their ignominious fates to being
caught in the middle of this contest.
CIA drug planes & the narco-pederastas

There is a wild card
in the story of cartel wars and drug murders involving busted loads on American
planes in the Yucatan...
Several figures in the story
are implicated in another, and if possible even more serious
Mexican scandal underway currently.
Kamel Nacif
and Jean Succor, prominent Lebanese businessmen in Cancun,
are widely reported to be major figures in the dominant drug cartel in the
Yucatan whose cocaine was
seized on the two American planes.
The two men are also at the
heart of a scandal involving a huge child molestation ring which
has been providing children as young as five to a clientele of wealthy Mexican
and foreign businessmen.

They have been dubbed Narco-Pederastas
in Mexican press coverage of the scandal, which is growing so fast that it may become Mexico’s
Watergate.
A lot of criminal activity
is tolerated, or even officially promoted, in Mexico. Buggering 5-year old
girls and boys is not.
The scandal, which we will
cover fully soon, has the potential to threaten the established order in Mexico.
Were it to become widely
known that CIA-connected drug planes were flying multi-ton loads of cocaine for
these men, it might shake the ground in the U.S. as well.
St-Petersburg Clearwater Int'l Airport: The New Mena?
In April of last year 5.5 tons of cocaine
were discovered on a DC9 (N900SA) flight which originated in St. Petersburg,
flew to Venezuela, to Colombia, and then on to Mexico, where it was busted by ordinary Mexican
foot soldiers at a rural airport in Cuidad del Carmen on the Yucatan peninsula.
Then two months ago well
over four tons of cocaine—some knowledgeable estimates went as
high as six tons—were discovered on a Gulfstream business
jet (N987SA) flight in Mexico.
This flight too originated at the
St Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport, flew to Colombia,
and then on to Mexico, where it crash-landed in a field 45 kilometers outside of
the Yucatan capital of Merida.
Having your city's airport host a major player in
international drug trafficking would be big news in most cities. But seemingly
sleepy St. Petersburg must have a lot more going on than normal burgs, because
the news hasn't made it yet--even in the business section!--in the
St. Petersburg Times, or
been featured in the newsroom of the St. Pete-Clearwater Int'l Airport
website.
Doing the Impossible: Making Asa Hutchinson look good

Both the DC9 and the Gulfstream had already and on
numerous occasions successfully ferried multi-ton loads of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico,
according to sources, including published reports in the Mexican press.
Thus it must have been
been a surprise and an unpleasant shock to the plane's flight crews when they
were waved off and turned away by
control towers at airports in Cancun and Merida, each of which had long-standing
arrangements to let the planes land.
Ten tons of somebody's cocaine
is now off the street. Someone must be smarting a little. And wondering, with
results
this dismal, what exactly the point is in using
aircraft associated with the CIA.
Because both had flown successful
and recent drug runs before their sudden reversals of fortune, the big
unanswered question is: what happened?
Whatever
happened, the head of the DEA doesn't know a thing about it. America’s DEA
administrator Karen Tandy suggested before leaving office recently that the
busts were the result of increasingly-vigilant Mexican government anti-drug
trafficking operations.
Like the demise of Pablo
Escobar and the Medellin Cartel fifteen years ago, the record cocaine seizures
in Mexico recently had outgoing DEA director Karen Tandy all-but-crowing
“Mission Accomplished.”
“We have created a perfect storm,” Tandy gushed.
But a drop in a very expensive bucket

Hardly.
Evidence suggests that the real reason can be found in the fact that the
two seizures both occurred on a trafficking route associated with supporters of former
Mexican President Vicente Fox, and before Fox, the PRI.
What's going on owes far
more to a power struggle for control of choice drug routes into the U.S. than it
does to increased Mexican vigilance.
An officially 'protected' drug cartel associated with
now-former Mexican
President Vicente Fox is no longer being protected. Apparently, the
message has been a little slow to sink in.
Replacing it on the route is it's
main competition, apparently favored with Fox’s successor, current
Jefe-in-Chief Felipe Calderon.
The story of the combined ten tons bust
on CIA-connected planes flying out of St. Petersburg-Clearwater
International Airport is just a drop in the bucket comparatively.
But it's a very expensive
bucket.
Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss

Last month this massive
upheaval resulted in the biggest drug seizure—not just in Mexican history—but in
the history of the world.
An incredible 33 tons of
cocaine were discovered in cargo containers offloaded from the cargo ship
Esmeralda which sailed to Mexico’s Pacific Coast port of Manzanillo from
Buenaventura in northwestern Colombia.
But in the voluminous press
coverage of the bust in Mexico we were struck by the fact that we could find no
picture of the ship itself. Just already-offloaded containers, presumably filled
with cocaine, stacked on the dock, watched over by the watchful eyes and
automatic weapons of soldiers from the Mexican military.
But no pictures of
the Esmeralda.
Maybe its a ghost ship. A
Philadelphia Experiment carrying cocaine in and out of the ether. Better
than submarine, even.
Apparently Mexican authorities, before alerting the media, allowed the
ship, after unloading, to proceed on its
merry way.
Consider: if the government
of Mexico found 23 tons of cocaine in the trunk of your car on your way back from
a margarita-soaked weekend in Tijuana, would they hand back the keys after
grabbing the dope?
Does 23
tons of cocaine get loaded onto a cargo ship while the Captain is out
to lunch? If not, then the really important question becomes:
Who owned the ship?
Okay. Pencils down. Anyone
want to guess the answer?
Ownership of big ticket items still causing uncertainty

If you said, “Nobody’s knows
for sure,” buy yourself a drink on us…
Because the ownership of the
cargo ship
Esmeralda is apparently as closely guarded a secret as the ownership of
Cocaine One and Cocaine Two, the two American drug-running airplanes,
One thing press reports agreed on about the Esmeralda
was that it was sailing under Hong
Kong's flag.
“The navy said that so far
its officials have found 23 tons of cocaine on the Esmeralda,” reported the wire
service Latin news round-up, “a Hong Kong-registered ship which sailed from
Buenaventura to Manzanillo in the Pacific coast state of Colima.
“Big cocaine haul on ship
flying HK flag” read the headline from the South China Morning Post.
“A Hong Kong-flagged ship
was found carrying at least 11 tons of cocaine by the Mexican authorities in
what is believed to be one of the nation's biggest drug busts,” reported the
paper.
“The cocaine was hidden
behind bars of soap. Sniffer dogs found the drugs. Initial press coverage
indicated that the Esmeralda was registered in Hong Kong.”
All we need do to learn the
true owner of the Esmeralda, and the 23 tons of coke, we figured smugly, would be
to call the Hong Kong maritime authority.
But wait, what’s this?
Someone beat us to it?
“The identity of the ship,
which departed from Buenaventura, Colombia, remains a mystery as the Hong Kong
Marine Department said, ‘it did not find its registration.’”
“All Hong Kong ships must
register with us. Maybe it was flying the flag to conceal its real identity,” a
department spokesman said.’
We were incensed. This
was not cricket! (Do they still play cricket in Hong Kong?)
We wrote an email to the
two reporters, Lina Lin and Martin Wong.
“On Nov. 2 Martin wrote,
“The identity of the ship, which departed from Buenaventura, Colombia, remains a
mystery as the Hong Kong Marine Department said "it did not find its
registration."
Then on Nov 6 Lina called it
the "Hong Kong-flagged vessel Esmeralda."
“Has the HK Marine Dept.
found the Esmeralda's registration?” we asked plaintively. “Had it gone missing?
Can you tell me who owns the ship?”
(If and when we hear anything, we'll let you
know. But, if experience is any guide, we advice you to not hold your
breath.)
Stay tuned.
Thursday: Top Mexican
Government investigation exposes massive corruption. (Thank God we don’t
have problems like that here.)

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