[wvns] Guantanamo Plane Crash: 4 Tons of Cocaine On Board
Who owned drug plane that crashed in Mexico?
By Jay Root and Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday, September 27, 2007
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/20060.html
MEXICO CITY — 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.
(Root, of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, reported from Mexico City.
Hall reported from Washington.)
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