We've seen this movie before. Many times.
Who owned drug plane that crashed in Mexico?By Jay Root and Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
September 27, 2007
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.''
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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.
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It's time all of this is exposed. The rapidly changing ownership of these planes. The drug running. The hollow registration paperwork. The foreign ownership, especially Saudi. Tracking the routes of these planes. The shadowy Florida connections that seem to connect all of it. And *nobody knows anything.*
Maybe Jeb can add to the information, seeing as how he now lives in a posh high rise in Miami.
And by the way, one of Jeb's best buds, Florida businessman
Ned L. Siegel, has recently been confirmed as the next U.S. Ambassador to The Bahamas. And what will be his priority as the new ambassador? Reducing drug trafficking through the Bahamas.
Freeport News, BahamasSeptember 20, 2007
Seigel got the 'thumbs up' from the United States Senate on Wednesday, September 12, to fill the post as the 12th U. S. Ambassador to The Bah-amas.
In his acceptance statement before the Senate, Amb-assador-designate Siegel affir-med his intention to support Operation Bahamas Turks and Caicos (OPBAT) to reduce drug and migrant trafficking through The Baha-mas.
In his acceptance statement before the Senate, Amb-assador-designate Siegel affir-med his intention to support Operation Bahamas Turks and Caicos (OPBAT) to reduce drug and migrant trafficking through The Baha-mas.
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He noted that if confirmed, he would focus on combating "international crime, drugs and illegal migration" while attempting to strengthen the ties between the United States and The Bahamas.
He also was a member of the board for Enterprise Florida, a public-private partnership promoting Florida's economic development. A prominent fund-raiser for former Governor Jeb Bush and other Republican candidates and committees, Siegel was a "Ranger" for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, meaning that he contributed at least $200,000 to the GOP presidential campaign. Siegel is also a former chairman of the Florida chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition, based in Boca Raton.
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