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+--- Thread: Pilot in DC9 5.5 Ton Cocaine Bust “Escaped” Custody in Three Separate Countries (/thread-4162.html)
Pilot in DC9 5.5 Ton Cocaine Bust “Escaped” Custody in Three Separate Countries - Ed Jewett - 17-07-2010
Pilot in DC9 5.5 Ton Cocaine Bust “Escaped” Custody in Three Separate Countries
July 16th, 2010 Via: Mad Cow Productions:
The identity of the pilot of the American-registered DC-9 (N900SA) from St. Petersburg FL caught carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine in Mexico’s Yucatan several years ago, long a mystery, finally saw the light of day recently in Mexico.
Carmelo Vasquez Guerra, a Venezuelan, was the DC9’s pilot who was said to have “escaped” from the airport while his airplane was being seized, and four other members of his crew were arrested.
He was later taken into custody by Mexican authorities, and charged with flying an airplane packed with 128 identical suitcases filled with cocaine.
Getting caught with 5.5 tons of cocaine would seem to call for some serious jail time. Reporters in Mexico assumed he’d been sent to prison for, like… forever.
So imagine reporter Francisco Gomez of Mexico City’s El Universal surprise when he made a startling discovery: Carmelo Vasquez Guerra—amazingly and inexplicably—had been released from prison less than two years after being arrested.
The shocking news was delivered via an international headline stating that a pilot named Carmelo Vasquez Guerra had been arrested in the West African nation of Guinea Bissau on a twin-engine Gulfstream II carrying… what else? 550 kilos—a half-ton— of cocaine.
The date of Vasquez’s West African arrest was July 13, 2008.
Mexican authorities had nabbed Carmelo Vasquez Guerra, Gomez learned, not long after authorities discovered him missing from the DC9.
How was it he was out of jail, less than two years later, Reporter Francisco Gomez asked.
Authorities in Mexico refused to discuss Vasquez Guerra’s release with reporter Gomez.
But news about Carmelo kept coming, and kept getting worse. Gomez discovered that Mexico was not the only country to arrest Vasquez Guerra for the presumably major offense of flying box-car sized loads of cocaine, only to let him go.
It’s happened in three. Caught and released under mysterious and unexplained circumstances. in Mexico, in Guinea Bissau, and in Mali, home of Timbuktu.
Drug pilot Carmelo Vasquez Guerra—or , more likely, the global drug trafficking network to which he belongs, which has, it must be said, a strong and enduring presence in St Petersburg FL, the shuffleboard capital of the world– has an apparent inexhaustible supply of “get out of jail free” cards.
Pilot in DC9 5.5 Ton Cocaine Bust “Escaped” Custody in Three Separate Countries - Magda Hassan - 17-07-2010
Just lucky I suppose. :flybye:
Pilot in DC9 5.5 Ton Cocaine Bust “Escaped” Custody in Three Separate Countries - Ed Jewett - 18-07-2010
Magda Hassan Wrote:Just lucky I suppose. :flybye:
Here's a two part explanation, in video, story and song:
Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI3kbAjI4yI
Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4y1Asq2hic&NR=1
Pilot in DC9 5.5 Ton Cocaine Bust “Escaped” Custody in Three Separate Countries - Ed Jewett - 04-08-2010
American Owner of DC9 Carrying 5.5 Tons of Cocaine Had Been Investigated for Drug Trafficking a Decade Ago
August 4th, 2010 Via: Mad Cow Productions:
The American owner of record of the DC9 airliner which took off from St Petersburg in April of 2006 and was busted in Mexico carrying an astonishing 5.5 tons of cocaine Mexico had been the subject of a drug trafficking investigation ten years earlier.
According to a DEA report on the DC9 sent to Luis Correa, the Director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office, Frederic Geffon was investigated by US Customs in Tampa, Florida in 1995, after being identified as an aircraft-broker-dealer working with drug traffickers.
“Frederic J. GEFFON DOB: 08.02.1948, home address 10316 Paradise Blvd, Treasure Island, Florida, was the subject of an investigation by US Customs in Tampa, Florida in 1995,” stated a DEA report on the highly-publicized DC9 incident in the Yucatan to Luis Correa, the Director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office. “GEFFON was identified in 1995 as an aircraft-broker-dealer working with drug traffickers.”
Yet despite being no stranger to Federal law enforcement officials, Frederic Geffon, the owner of record of the DC9, was never charged with any crime.
Similar government action—or inaction—was occuring in Mexico with respect to a second figure in the ill-fated DC9 drug move.
The pilot of the DC9, Carmelo Vasquez Guerra, was—inexplicably and with no explanation—released by Mexican authorities sometime after being taken into custody.
The two nation’s drug policy, when it comes to this particular drug trafficking organization, is apparently “Catch and Release.”
[see embedded video at link]
- Peregrino Says:
August 4th, 2010 at 3:56 pm “Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” -Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745