We've devoted much cyber-ink to two cocaine-laden jets that have been linked to some powerful Americans. The big question: Why has no American gone to jail as a result of these busts?
Daniel Hopsicker looks into that poser:
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I am particularly intrigued by the detail that Geffon sold the plane for stock in a company run by a scamster. Skyway was headed by Brent Kovar, who had a history as a con artist, selling investors the proverbial "piece of blue sky" -- a wireless data-transfer technology which simply did not exist. Anyone doing research into the man would have found indications that he had something other than his elbow up his sleeve.
The jet underwent a rapid sale just before the drug run, which, as we have seen in earler stories, is standard practice. Usually, these sales are never finalized unless a drug flight goes sour.
In the case of the Skyway jet, the last person to hold the title was a mysterioso figure named Jorge Corrales, of Simi Valley, California -- a location rarely associated with high-rollers in the aviation field. Here's how the St. Petersburg Times sees the Corrales transaction.
Back to Hopsicker:
Daniel Hopsicker looks into that poser:
Frederic Geffon of Skyway Aircraft and Royal Sons Inc., was the last registered owner of the DC9.Hopsicker goes on to note that, while bank robberies often garner obsessive television news coverage, the media prefer to ignore the coke jet scandals. One exception would be the St. Petersburg Times, which has published a bizarre defense of the parties named in the Skyway affair. Strange and infuriating as this story is, we do learn a few interesting details:
Yet just when Geffon had probably begun to breathe a little easier, with everything seemingly well-in-hand vis-a-vis the little “incident” with his plane 18 months ago...
This other plane, this second plane, a Gulfstream, goes and gets itself busted.
And now even the Tampa Tribune is looking for him. And do they find him? No sir... "Making themselves unavailable" is one of the things these guys do best.
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In the 1980s, the plane flew for billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp., majority owner of the MGM Mirage resort and casino chain. It also shuttled Kenny Rogers across the country on a music tour.This list of previous owners is meant to pound home the idea that we can't blame previous owners for the fact that the jet was found on a Mexican tarmac filled with five tons of coke.
The NFL's Seahawks used it in the 1990s. And it was Howard Dean's presidential campaign plane in 2004.
Later that year, Wolfson sold the plane to Geffon for 2.5-million shares of stock in Kovar's company, SkyWay Communications Holding Corp.
I am particularly intrigued by the detail that Geffon sold the plane for stock in a company run by a scamster. Skyway was headed by Brent Kovar, who had a history as a con artist, selling investors the proverbial "piece of blue sky" -- a wireless data-transfer technology which simply did not exist. Anyone doing research into the man would have found indications that he had something other than his elbow up his sleeve.
"I lost too much money in the Skyway deal," Geffon said.Odd. Seems to me that Geffon made money. He got a DC 9 in return for a bunch of worthless stock.
The jet underwent a rapid sale just before the drug run, which, as we have seen in earler stories, is standard practice. Usually, these sales are never finalized unless a drug flight goes sour.
In the case of the Skyway jet, the last person to hold the title was a mysterioso figure named Jorge Corrales, of Simi Valley, California -- a location rarely associated with high-rollers in the aviation field. Here's how the St. Petersburg Times sees the Corrales transaction.
That's when the call came from California.The St Petersburg times does not ask where this sort of money came from, or why the authorities have not arrested Mr. Corrales, even though the DC9 went off on its drug run soon after the purchase.
The man known as Jorge Corrales wanted the plane, tail number N900SA.
Corrales, who could not be reached for comment, made six payments to Geffon totaling $1.047-million, court documents show.
Back to Hopsicker:
One thing about CIA planes. None of them seem to ever form comfortable relationships with their owners.Rim-Yo-Mama? That is just crude.
The same plane gets flipped back and forth endlessly between brass plate firms and dummy front companies, from Pacific Rim International to Rim Pacific, Rim-Pac, Pac-Rim, and Rim-Yo-Mama LLC.
And all this subterfuge is just for one plane.
Deserving special mention is an investment bank located in tiny Boerne, Texas, and La Jolla, Ca. Argyll Equities LLC has the distinction of having participated in this operation in at least two separate ways.Here is the Argyll web site. Liepar Destin published a magnificent story on Argyll last year. Some highlights:
Argyll was the second-largest shareholder in SkyWay, according to bankruptcy filings, owning nearly 21 million shares of totally worthless stock, which might be considered something of an investment black eye, unless other undisclosed considerations were involved.
And Argyll also raised funds for a Mexican industrialist who’s in business with the very people whose dope keeps getting busted in the Yucatan.
According to documents filed with the SEC in 2005, Argyll Equities LLC was paid to raise a $17.0 million loan for Mexican industrialist Jose Serrano Segovia’s shipping line, GRUPO TMM.
Segovia turned around and, according to an English language newspaper in Chile, The Santiago Times, on May 5, 1998, “provided significant capital” to a “Chilean narcotics trafficker" named Manuel Vicente Losada, arrested in the Chilean capital of Santiago after being “linked to a shipment of five tons of cocaine which U.S. drug enforcement officials in Miami intercepted over six years ago on the vessel Harbour, as it headed toward Guantanamo Bay.”
Hey, wait a minute... Guantanamo Bay?
In 1997 Mexican Newspaper El Universal De Mexico reported "Drug trafficker Losada is a partner in some 30 shipping companies."We've noted in previous posts that creepy cargo shipping companies have become a recurrent motif.
Through A Federal Indictment we learn that Argyll Equities was the recipient of $9.7 million dollars it didn't earn, in a "purported stock loan program operated by Argyll Equities, L.L.C," which resulted in criminal charges earlier this year against three men.
8 comments:
LOL, every journalist with black room sources has heard our CIA is the drug kingpin of the world. No reason to believe an anonymous poster, but this is what my sources tell me. They say Gary Webb was 100% right, except he touched only the tip of the iceberg.
What irks me is that this is not the 1st time that a CIA-linked plane was caught with 4 tons of coke. 5 months ago another plane under similiar circumstances was caught just 2 or 3 months before this particular bust. There have been 2 busts of 4+ tons of coke on US planes w/ CIA links in the past months.
Where's our bulldog American press corps, a pillar of our free, democratic society?
(crickets chirping)
Document Indicates Owner of Cocaine Jet was U.S. Operative
Audio: CIA, FBI Protect Drug Traffickers
The American Monitor
At issue is not the nexus of the global drug trade, the funneling of illicit profits to run covert operations and how this connects to US foreign policy -- heck, Alfred W. McCoy established that 30 years ago (!) in "The Politics of Heroin -- but the impunity, the raw criminality enjoyed by various Bush "rangers" in this sordid, slimy affair. This too, is nothing new for this gang. Check out Henrik Kruger's 1980 masterpiece, "The Great Heroin Coup," not to mention various books by Peter Dale Scott and the late, great Gary Webb. As far as "crickets chirping" comment (in jest, I assume) regarding "our bulldog American press corps," check out Alex Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair's book "Whiteout," where the media's complicity in the trashing of Gary Webb is laid out. I hope someone's got Hopsicker's back.
"Whiteout" is, indeed, excellent and well sourced.
I'm the first commenter and there are journalists who know the score. Gary Webb had something most of us don't, and that's enough sources to go on the record to reach the high threshold for responsible publication.
Those same privileged sources and others in similar and subsequent activity may be reluctant to go on the record because of the fallout from Webb's experience, and the same might be true for journalists if given the chance with sources on record. Certain spooks wanted this information out at the time, but I don't sense that motivation now, for whatever reason.
I believe my sources, who tell me it was true in the '80s and it's true now, and it probably was true before the '80s and appears the CIA's activity never was affected by congressional mandates to stop it.
The media is indeed powerful and the Washington press corps is well aware of how their corporations roll. A clear example, imho, is how Rev. Moon used that power when he printed the A-1 story about the child porn ring in Bush I's White House. It's hard to say if the story was true, but what I have no doubt of is that Moon had a purpose for running ti and it worked, thus today's close ties with a family that used to call him a nut (which he still is, of course, but a dangerous one with an A-1 to break any power broker).
"The Gulfstream II jet that crash landed in the Mexican Yucatan in late September carrying close to four tons of cocaine was part of an operation being carried out by a Department of Homeland Security agency, DEA sources have revealed to Narco News."
Cocaine Jet That Crashed in Mexico Part of Cowboy Government Operation, DEA Sources Claim
You might be interested in checking out Daniel Hopsicker's latest article on the saga of "Cocaine 1," "Cocaine 2," SkyWay Airlines, et. al. at http://www.madcowprod.com/12212007.html, "Lauderdale Pilots Face Uncertain Future.
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