The Murder of Manuel Buedia and DEA Agent Ki Ki Camarena

[Peter Lemkin]

Dec-29-2013 14:05

'Caro Quintero is Protected by the White House': Former CIA pilot

Luis Chaparro If it were not for these few documents that I managed to get, some still classified until 2020, the statements of three former agents might seem to be more of a conspiracy theory.
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Former CIA pilot Robert "Tosh" Plumlee is a Salem-News.com writer making major headlines for his role in the Iran-Contra affair.

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(SAN JUAN, Coast Rica Vice) - This article was sent to [B]Salem-News.com from a source in El Salvador. We understand it is part of a four part series to be released during the 2nd week in Jan., 2014 by Proceso Magazine, MX, Tico Times in Costa Rico, and El Salvador media. This is a semi-rough English translation, the Spanish version link is included below so the reader can go to the source and research the original piece. The Vice logo below will also take you it.
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Hours after Rafael Caro Quintero, alleged murderer of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Kiki, was released on 9 August, the governments of Mexico and the United States announced a manhunt. But in reality it is a fake show. Caro Quintero did not murder Kiki Camarena, and it is possible that the Mexican drug don is now living under a new identity as a protected secret agenda of the White House.
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[TD]Tosh Plumlee today, Salem-News.com
photo by Tim King
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In interviews, three former U.S. intelligence agents: Hector Berrellez, DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency), Robert Tosh Plumlee, CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and Phil Jordan, EPIC (Intelligence Center El Paso) - I was putting together a version of the complete opposite to the line that now dominates the agenda for both governments' drug case. A reality that we fail to see and where it is envisioned that the enemies of the U.S. are rather its proteges.
I had access to documents that prove what happened during the famous 1980's Drug War murder and the role of the CIA and current Secretary of State, John Kerry, who was aware of this since 1991.
If it were not for these few documents that I managed to get, some still classified until 2020, the statements of three former agents might seem to be more of a conspiracy theory.
But the documents are here. The first is signed by Gary Hart, former Democratic senator, dated February 14, 1991 and sent to Senator John Kerry, then chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Communications of the upper house of U.S. Congress letter. This letter is one of the few documents that were not burned by Oliver North [former lieutenant colonel in the Marines, serving Ronald Regan] in the basement of the Pentagon.
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The paper's concern is noted Kerry after learning about the Iran- Contra affair that smuggled cocaine into the U.S. from South America through Mexico and the sale sponsored weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras.
The letter refers to a meeting of former CIA pilot outsourced, Plumlee, with Bill Holen, Senate office in Denver, Colorado then headed Gary Hart. And that drops a bombshell: "In addition [Robert Plumlee] noted that these operations were not CIA but were under the direction of the White House, the Pentagon and staff National Security Council [NSC]."
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In this operation Rafael Caro Quintero was the key person. The Reagan plan saw planes flying from the U.S. to Nicaragua and several South American countries. Plumlee and a dozen colleagues landed at Mexican ranches owned by Caro Quintero, specifically in Veracruz.
Berrellez said the first snitch was Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, one of the main commanders of the Federal Judicial Police (PJF) in the eighties. After collaborating with the Juarez Cartel, he fled to the United States in 1993, became DEA informant and was then shot dead in McCallen, Texas in 2003.
Berrellez was asked to get Calderoni of Mexico in 1993. I said Calderoni called from a consulate in Mexico asking to help him because otherwise "they would raise and murder."
"I helped him, sent a Jet and brought to California. Here, as protected by the DEA became an informant and was very helpful to us. The Mexican government wanted to extradite him, but I did what I could to make it not because I knew they would kill him there. Then he was accused of corruption and influence peddling and stuff, but I say it's not true, " he explained to Berrellez on his last trip to Texas to meet in person.
"What he told me about what Camarena was 'Hector, skip that item because they will fuck. It is involved in the CIA Kiki is very dangerous to walk in it.' He gave me names and details and everything, but when my boss retired I got wind of the investigation and sent me to Washington DC."
A Calderoni was murdered with a shot to the head in 2003, ten years after arriving in the United States. He had left the office of his lawyer in an avenue of McCallen, Texas when a man shot him from a car.
When I interviewed Plumlee, the fifth visit I made to his home in New Mexico, after ten hours in total talking on the phone, I asked for documents that would support his version, and see how they fit with that of Berrellez and Jordan.
That gave me the letter. He also had photographs, his pilot license and more.
After drinking a Corona drink to release the tensions of the first interview, (He met me with a .9 mm tucked into his pants) Tosh showed me pictures of him allegedly at the ranch Caro Quintero and another where it appears in one of the planes that flew to EU. But he also gave me a series of research papers on which he put the FBI still marked secret, to confirm their participation in covert CIA operations. The researchers concluded that "alias X is another likely alias Plumlee." Asking this perhaps was rude of me, but Plumlee could be any well aware of the business of the CIA and the Contras and Caro Quintero. To believe these accusations he had to prove his identity, and of course, then check that version out.
Later I found more interesting evidence. Copies of a series of maps delivered to the U.S. government and classified until 2020, which delineated by Plumlee routes where weapons and cocaine were transported. The training of members of the Nicaraguan Contras at Caro Quintero ranches are also detailed. These maps eventually convinced me that Plumlee was indeed the pilot; the man who entered the United States carrying more than 40 tons of cocaine to the CIA, in a period of one year and, in 1985, brought the country Caro Quintero.
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Contact on the Pacific coast, just outside of Cabo San Lucas . This is one of the points of contact between the path and desert of Central Arizona and California during 1983-1986.
April. Rafael Caro Quintero, San Felipe, Mex. [phone number] Gacha, M. Colombo, Penonome, Panama, 1986. The note on the map contains a phone number in San Felipe that Plumlee says Quintero is the number of Delgado's ranch. This note refers to a drug deal between Gacha and Caro Quintero in 1986 "probably related to the Contras, because I was involved."
May. L 12 degrees, 84 degrees... Long, NGA Bluefield, Escualito River. Bluefields is a port on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, one of the three landing areas mined by the CIA in 1984.
6. Luis Ochoa, Penonome, Panama, in the village by the river. Previously owned by Vesco and Rojas 09/06/83. Plumlee says Jorge Luis Ochoa, a member of the Medellin cartel, sometimes stayed at the villa from Rio Hato and Penonome when sending cargo to Panama.
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[TD]Tosh on the Mexican border, 2011
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This same man explains to me how the CIA indirectly had Enrique Kiki Camarena killed, the DEA agent investigating Caro Quintero. "Kiki was no fool. He knew that the drug was not everything he wanted, then began to follow the money and found loaded with drugs openly flying to America," said Plumlee from his chair at his home in New Mexico.
"I found out about this because the CIA asked to investigate who had opened his mouth. That was Kiki and then specifically asked Oliver North was kidnapped and interrogated."
For this they hired Nicaraguan drug trafficker Juan Matta Ballesteros, who also owned SETCO, the aircraft company Plumlee worked for, under the CIA. They explained the situation and Matta Ballesteros. Caro Quintero did tell an undercover agent had found his buffalo ranch in Chihuahua, I visited a few months ago, the largest marijuana ranch in Mexico's history. "And Caro ran his hand, but in presence of two CIA agents who were also infiltrated and did nothing," Plumlee says.
"I report that Caro Quintero is alive and safe. Now living under a new identity under a special program, a step before the witness protection program," he explained. "These so far are rumors of my sources, there is nothing that can be proven as a fact, but time will tell if it was true or just rumors."
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[TD]Tosh during his CIA days
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Plumlee offered me his confidence, so did Hector Berrellez and Phil Jordan. Both told the same version from their research. These two, as I understand, seek one thing: justice for the legacy of Kiki Camarena. I am told that is the only personal agenda that has led them to talk now that they are finally retired agents, and not force them to keep secrets. They were good friends.
The agents also confessed that I have evidence of what they have heard of "military and intelligence sources" in the United States and Mexico, which suggests that Caro Quintero entered a special protection program from Washington monitored by the CIA and U.S. State Department.
Phil Jordan says this idea does not seem far-fetched, in fact you think there is a very strong probability. In a strange seedy motel in El Paso, Texas, he explained that the U.S. government is very concerned of what Rafael Caro Quintero can say about the operation of Iran-Contra: he bought drugs in South America to sell in the United States and money to buy weapons to give to the Nicaraguan Contras. All operations by Caro Quintero in Mexico.
For Jordan, Quintero should be protected the same as at any time can become their main enemy. Jordan goes further: the CIA may be giving protection to the boss of bosses, for now, but anytime you can get rid of it.


"Nobody in Mexico is interested in Caro Quintero because neither the PRI nor anyone going to do anything, he has always been protected. But there is a U.S. intelligence agency from which to look, did you know what ? ... the CIA. "
I sent a series of questions to the headquarters of the CIA. I responded to a template of the information they have on their website and sent to all journalists who ask about it.
In the more than 12 pages I got a reply, the CIA is specifically about the aviation company SETCO , Matta Ballesteros, and through which drugs from south to north and weapons flew north to south .
"According to the official records of the United States, referred to in the report of Senator Kerry , SETCO was established by Matta Ballesteros, Class 1 criminal. Besides the Kerry Report states that these records indicate that Matta was a leading figure in the Colombian cartel and was involved in the murder of Enrique Camarena , "says the CIA.
However, participation of the intelligence agency in SETCO flights and knowledge regarding drug trafficking is denied.
"Not found information indicating that said the CIA received allegations that some aircraft SETCO they were involved in drug trafficking during the Contra. [ ... ] Not found files or shared information with other government agencies . No information was found indicating that the CIA played a role in selecting SETCO to deliver humanitarian aid and assistance to the Contras."
Newest published by the CIA regarding the Southern Front and Iran -Contra , was this:


"The intelligence community has no independent DEA information on this case. The DEA will provide additional information as it becomes available. "
Since then the DEA offered nothing . But last October the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration met to refute Jordan , Plumlee and Berrellez .
From Washington, in a press conference said the following : " Many of you are aware that there are two former DEA special agents who have recently been interviewed by various media about this research , for reasons that are unclear, the two former agents have chosen to invent stories about his involvement in the case and causes the murder of Kiki Camarena . His version of events could not be further from the truth. The stories of them are hurting the DEA effort to ensure that we bring to justice the real culprits . "
In an interview , another former DEA agent told me wary of what the three agents have been saying. Gilbert Gonzalez, who was infiltrated into the Guadalajara Cartel in the nineties and who now trains agents active in infiltration techniques , said " all you are doing [ these three agents ] is to make people remove your finger from the line " .
" Jordan is a great friend , he did have first-hand information , but do not know why you are saying these things. Plumlee do not know who is, but Berrellez was in charge of investigating the murder of Kiki from here, he never traveled to Mexico , do not know how things are " , I said smiling .
" I do not say they are doing it consciously, but we are distracted from the main goal: to bring justice to American Rafael Caro Quintero Camarena's murder ."
By Robert Plumlee has now confessed to me that he is afraid. More than a dozen of his friends, the other pilots who flew cocaine for Uncle Sam , have been killed or are behind bars . He is an old man and do not want to end his life under these circumstances. So you've decided to protect a very paradoxical way , making public everything he knows about the operation for which he was hired .
One of his friends was Celestino Castillo III , a former DEA agent who served his sentence in prison for trafficking weapons during this operation .
Castillo himself has written in his book Powderburns how the U.S. government imprisoned for leaking information of Iran -Contra .
"I'm still trying to clear my name. And I know what these men are saying [ Tosh, Jordan and Berrellez ] is true. I served at the forefront of Latin America for six years when all this was happening, "he told me in a brief phone interview .
The other friend , the one who has more crying , was Barry Seal, a U.S. pilot involved in various covert operations outsourced by the CIA who was killed when he was very close to talk.
According to an internal FBI investigation , was killed when Seal , agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided their personal items Police forensic lab in Louisiana , where he was fatally shot . Among the documents seized by the FBI was your staff George Bush.
Furthermore, once the murderers were found told lawyers that were ordered by an official identified as Oliver North .
" I do not care about politics or money or who is president and who is not, I want to save my ass ," he replied when he finally confessed that he suspected she could have to reveal this hidden agendas.
To be fair to anyone but politicians care policy . But to say that the CIA was behind an illegal operation that also took the life of a DEA agent goes beyond being Democrat or Republican , PRI or PAN or PRD.
So we know how things move : on the streets of Guadalajara, Mexico City , Ciudad Juarez , El Paso, New Mexico , California , there are drug dealers , drug dealers and where there is the most likely DEA and CIA protecting .
Ronald Reagan was a president who trafficked drugs to his own people and weapons to annihilate your enemies. But what the hell , raise your hand the president has not done so.
http://www.vice.com/es_mx/read/caro-quin...-de-la-cia

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  [TD]King and Plumlee in Colorado, 2013
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[David Guyatt]

DEA Case Threatens to Expose US Government Sanctioned Drug Running

Nothing new there, then.

From NarcoNews

Posted by Bill Conroy - January 4, 2014 at 6:37 pmPleadings in Federal Court Reveal ICE Undercover Operation Marked With CIA Fingerprints
Federal agents this past November raided the offices of an aircraft brokerage and leasing company called World Jet Inc., based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The raid, spearheaded by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, was launched on the heels of a DEA affidavit for a search warrant, which was filed in late October last year in federal court in Colorado as part of a case that is now sealed. The search-warrant affidavit was made available on the Internet after being obtained by a reporter for the Durango Heraldnewspaper.
The affidavit outlines allegations against several individuals accused by the DEA of participating in a narco-trafficking conspiracy. But that is not the big story here.
Instead, the real news is buried deep in the DEA court pleadings and confirms the existence of a US undercover operation that Narco News reported previously had allowed tons of cocaine to be flown from Latin America into the states absent proper controls or the knowledge of the affected Latin American nations.
The DEA affidavit focuses on the owner of World Jet, Don Whittington, and his brother, Bill both of whom earned modest infamy as race-car drivers who were convicted and served time in prison for participating in a marijuana-smuggling conspiracy in the 1980s.
The DEA now alleges the pair, through World Jet, have leased or brokered the sale of multiple aircraft to agents of known narco-trafficking organizations in Latin America. Those aircraft, the DEA claims, were leased or sold at inflated prices and the proceeds laundered through various businesses owned or operate by the brothers including a resort and spa in Colorado.
Because the titles and tail numbers for the leased aircraft are kept in World Jet or related-parties' names, the planes can be "repossessed" by World Jet after they have served their purpose for the narco-traffickers, or if a plane is later seized as part of a drug bust, "both parties can deny responsibility and World Jet Inc. can reclaim the aircraft as they hold the financial lien," the DEA affidavit alleges.
Narco News contacted World Jet's office in Florida seeking comment from the Whittington brothers and also contacted their attorney. None of them returned calls prior to deadline.
However, Jason Bowles, an attorney representing Bill Whittington's daughter, Nerissa, claims DEA's allegations with respect to his client are without merit. (Nerissa Whittington is the registered agent for the company that controls the Colorado resort and spa that the DEA affidavit alleges is part of the World Jet money-laundering scheme.)
"Nerissa and her companies have done nothing wrong," Bowles says. "She is a good business woman. She is innocent."
Bowles adds that to date no arrests have been made or indictments issued as a result of the DEA search-warrant affidavit.
Although the investigation into the Whittingtons and World Jet may seem like a typical drug-war saga, there is a twist in this case, related to the sale of a Gulfstream II corporate jet, that appears to put the DEA in the position of investigating one or more of its sister federal agencies.

Mayan Express

Don Whittington's World Jet brokered the Gulfstream II's sale to a company called Donna Blue Aircraft Inc., according to the DEA affidavit.
The DEA affidavit indicates that Donna Blue was, in fact, a front company for an ICE undercover operation dubbed "Mayan Jaguar." Donna Blue subsequently sold the Gulfstream II jet to a Florida duo Clyde O'Connor and Gregory Smith, who has a history of involvement in US government operations.
About a week later, on Sept. 24, 2007, the Gulfstream jet crashed in Mexico's Yucatan with a payload of some 4 tons of cocaine onboard. Media reports at the time and European investigators, it turns out, have linked the Gulfstream II's tail number, N987SA, to past CIA flights to Guantanamo Bay.
Narco News reported on the Gulfstream II jet crash and its aftermath extensively and has uncovered documents and sources indicating that Gregory Smith was, in fact, a contract pilot who did work for the US government, including US Customs (later rolled into ICE, which is part of Homeland Security), DEA, FBI and likely CIA.
A Narco News story published in December 2007 also revealed that the Gulfstream II jet was part of an ICE undercover operation called Mayan Express.
From that story:

The Gulfstream II jet that crash landed in the Mexican Yucatan in late September [2007] 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.
The operation, codenamed "Mayan Express," is an ongoing effort spearheaded by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the sources claim. The information surfaced during a high-level meeting at DEA headquarters in mid-December [2007], DEA sources familiar with the meeting assert.

Those same sources now tell Narco News that Mayan Express and ICE's Mayan Jaguar operation revealed in the recently filed DEA affidavit are one and the same. The Narco News story about Mayan Express also revealed that, according to several US law enforcers, the operation likely was run with CIA assistance and may well have been a CIA covert operation using ICE as a cover for its activities.
More from the 2007 Narco News story:

The operation [Mayan Express/Jaguar] also appears to be badly flawed, the sources say, because it is being carried out unilaterally, (Rambo-style), by ICE and without the knowledge of the Mexican government ….
"This is a case of ICE running amok," one DEA source told Narco News. "If this [operation] was being run by the book, they would not be doing it unilaterally" without the participation of DEA "and without the knowledge of the Mexican government."
… The bottom line, though, according to the DEA sources who leaked the information to Narco News, is that the real purpose of the Mayan Express [Mayan Jaguar] operation remains unclear, as does the volume of drugs involved in the operation to date [beyond the four tons found onboard the crashed Gulfstream II].
One proposition that all of the law enforcers who spoke with Narco News agreed on with respect to the Mayan Express [Mayan Jaguar] is that even if DEA was precluded from participating in the effort, the CIA almost certainly was involved on some level. They say no law enforcement operation is carried out overseas without the CIA lurking in the background.
… Attorney Mark Conrad, a former high-level supervisory US Customs special agent who has an extensive background in the intelligence world, has no problem entertaining a CIA scenario in the Gulfstream II narco-world saga.
"… It [Mayan Express/Jaguar] makes no sense and it makes perfect sense. There probably aren't six people left at ICE who could put an operation like this together. It could well be a CIA operation working under ICE cover."

Government Pilot

Narco News' past coverage of the Gulfstream II jet also established that Gregory Smith, one of the jet's owners at the time of its crash landing in Mexico, worked as a contract pilot for a US government operation targeting Colombian narco-traffickers in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
In fact, Smith's company at the time, Aero Group Jets, leased the Hawker jet used for that operation to the individual at the center of it a CIA [link here, see page 16], DEA and FBI asset named Baruch Vega. That same Hawker jet, FAA records show, was later purchased by Clyde O'Connor Smith's partner in the 2007 Gulfstream II purchase.
From a December 2007 Narco News story:

[CIA asset] Vega, in a recent lawsuit filed in federal court, claims the FBI and DEA both used him between 1997 and 2000 to help broker plea deals with Colombian narco-traffickers and that, in the end, the U.S. government stiffed him out of $28.5 million in promised payments for his work.
It was during that work for the FBI and DEA that Vega ran across Greg [Gregory] Smith, whom Vega claims was brought in by the FBI to pilot some 25 to 30 flights that involved couriering federal agents, Colombian narco-traffickers and lawyers back and forth between the United States and Latin America as part of the naroc-trafficker [cooperating-source] "recruiting" efforts.
Vega also says that the CIA was very involved in this effort, assisting with assuring the safe transport of the narco-traffickers to the airports in Latin America.
"We did have the full cooperation of the CIA…," he told Narco News.
On at least one occasion, Vega adds, a CIA agent actually flew in the jet during one of the Latin American missions though he stresses the agent simply needed to hitch a ride and was not directly involved with the operation.

In another story published by Narco News in February 2008, Vega reveals additional details about the Gulfstream II jet and its role in Mayan Express/Jaguar that he learned due to his connections with US government agencies.
From that story:

… The Gulfstream II, according to DEA sources, was being used as part of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) undercover operation, called the Mayan Express [Mayan Jaguar], when it crashed in Mexico. Those sources contend the operation is being run "unilaterally" without the knowledge or cooperation of Latin American governments.
CIA asset Vega further claims that a notorious Colombian narco-trafficker named Nelson Urrego works as an informant for the U.S. government, both ICE and the CIA, and that he helped to arrange the Gulfstream II's cocaine payload through Colombian paramilitary groups. Panamanian authorities arrested Urrego on money-laundering charges about a week before the Gulfstream II crashed. Urrego has since told the Panamanian press that he is, in fact, a CIA asset.
Given this backdrop, several Narco News sources, including Mark Conrad, a former supervisor special agent with ICE's predecessor agency, U.S. Customs, have suggested that the CIA, not ICE, is actually the U.S. agency controlling the Mayan Express operation.

If Conrad is right, then DEA may now, in effect, be declaring war on the CIA because its World Jet investigation, if pursued to its end, could potentially expose CIA-sponsored drug running.
The DEA search-warrant affidavit now filed in federal court also alleges that Gregory Smith identified as a contract pilot for World Jet is also a DEA target suspected of being a drug smuggler.
From the DEA affidavit:

On September 24, 2007, a 1975 Grumman Gulfstream II Turbo Jet bearing tail number N987SA, crashed in the Yucatan Peninsula while transporting 3.723 kilograms of cocaine, which was recovered by the Mexican government, as documented by DEA Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. N987SA was owned by Donna Blue Aircraft Inc., which was subsequently identified as a front company for a Tampa Bay, Florida-based ICE undercover operation named Operation Mayan Jaguar [alias Mayan Express].
Earlier in 2007, the aircraft was sold from a Delaware-based company, SA Holdings LLC, to Donna Blue Aircraft Inc., which in turn produced a bill of salefor the aircraft to Clyde O'Connor and Gregory Smith. Clyde O'Connor and Gregory Smith have long been targets of DEA investigations for the trafficking of cocaine from South America to Central America and Mexico. As well, Gregory Smith currently works as a contract pilot for Don Whittington and World Jet Inc. Don Whittington and World Jet Inc. were implicated in the brokering of the sale of N987SA from SA Holdings LLC to the undercover company, Donna Blue Aircraft Inc.
… Gregory Smith has been identified in other DEA investigations as a pilot of interest due to intelligence that indicated he was a contract pilot who has flown loads of cocaine and marijuana from South and Central America to other points in the United States and Mexico.

Narco News recently contacted World Jet and asked to speak with Gregory Smith. The individual who answered the phone responded that Smith was unavailable, adding that she had "not seen him in a while."

More Connections

Could pilot Gregory Smith's alleged drug-smuggling runs, as outlined in the DEA affidavit, actually have been part of Mayan Jaguar/Express, or various CIA operations, that were unknown to DEA?
Tosh Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot who has blown the whistle on past CIA-sponsored drug-running operations, concludes that the answer to that question is "simple."
"The CIA's fingerprints are everywhere [on this operation]," Plumlee adds.
Still, it's difficult to know with absolute certainty, based on the available evidence, the full extent of any CIA involvement. But there are other facts related to this case that should raise eyebrows for anyone in the US government empowered to investigate such matters.
For example, Joao Malago, one of the owners of the alleged ICE front company Donna Blue, confirmed to Narco News previously that he served as a business partner in a biofuels company called Atlantic Alcohol that listed among its officers an individual named Larry Peters, owner of Skyway Aircraft Inc. in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Skyway also happens to have brokered the sale of nine planes to Venezuelan buyers between 2003 and 2008, based on a past Narco News investigation. At least two of them were later identified as aircraft that were used in drug-trafficking operations.
Peters and Malago have previously denied having any connections to drug traffickers. In fact, based on the revelations in the recent DEA affidavit, it would appear that Malago and Peters are far more likely to have US government connections.
Both the Gulfstream II jet sold by Malago's Donna Blue to O'Connor and Smith as well as one of the Peters' Skyway Aircraft planes (a Beechcraft King Air 200) sold to a Venezuelan buyer were later found crashed or abandoned and linked to cocaine payloads the Gulfstream II in Mexico after crashing in the Yucatan and the Beechcraft King Air 200 in Nicaragua. Both of those aircraft sported tail numbers at the time that linked them to apparent prior use by the CIA.
From a Narco News story published in March 2008:

Skyway Aircraft Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida, sold the aircraft [Beechcraft King Air 200] to a Venezuelan purchaser in October 2004, about a month before it was apprehended in a Nicaraguan cotton field linked to a payload of some 1,100 kilos of cocaine. The Beech 200 was found in Nicaragua bearing a false tail number (N168D), which FAA records show is registered to a North Carolina company called Devon Holding and Leasing Inc.
According to press reports and an investigation conducted by the European Parliament into the CIA's terrorist rendition program, Devon Holding is a CIA shell company and N168D is a tail number to a CIA aircraft.

ICE spokesperson Carissa Cutrell confirmed that Mayan Jaguar was an ICE operation "initiated to target drug trafficking." She said it ran from around 2003 to 2007 and was then shut down.
"I don't' think anything [arrests or indictments] came out of it," she says.
A DEA source told Narco News that it is surprising that ICE would allow an operation like Mayan Jaguar/Express to continue for so many years without producing any law enforcement results, adding that such an expensive and expansive international operation would not be launched and continued for years at DEA unless strict controls were in place and it also produced results such as arrests and indictments.
Yet another connection to all of this is the fact that the Mexican government claims a money-exchange company called Casa De Cambio Puebla, operated by an individual named Pedro Alfonso Alatorrre Damy, fronted the money for the purchase of the cocaine Gulfstream II jet -- which was reportedly sold by Donna Blue Aircraft to Smith and O'Connor for $2 million only 8 days prior to it crashing in Mexico.
Damy was an alleged money launder for Mexico's Sinaloa narco-trafficking organization. This is important because Jesus Zambada Niebla, now awaiting trial in Chicago, is a top-level Sinaloa player who claims in his court pleadings that the drug-trafficking organization had a quid pro quo agreement with the US government that allowed its senior members to operate with impunity in exchange for providing US law enforcement and intel agencies with information about rival cartels.
From Zambada Niebla's court pleadings:

The United States government considered the arrangements with the Sinaloa Cartel an acceptable price to pay, because the principal objective was the destruction and dismantling of rival cartels by using the assistance of the Sinaloa Cartel without regard for the fact that tons of illicit drugs continued to be smuggled into Chicago and other parts of the United States and consumption continued virtually unabated.

Damy was arrested in Mexico in 2007 and extradited to the US in early 2013. As part of a plea deal he was convicted on one count of money laundering and this past April quietly sentenced to time served pretty lenient considering the amount of cocaine involved and an alleged money-laundering tally exceeding $170 million, according to the indictment. A law enforcer who spoke with Narco News on background says the light sentence is a good sign that Damy had agreed at some point to cooperate with the US government.
Coincidently, Damy's case also is tied intricately to another U.S. government legal action against former banking giant Wachovia (since sold to Wells Fargo), which was implicated in the Damy money-laundering operation. Sinaloa organization operative Damy allegedly used the bank as part of his money-laundering enterprise.
Wachovia inked a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in March 2010 in exchange for paying a monetary penalty of some $160 million and providing a promise of cooperation with the U.S. government.
Jim Schrant, DEA resident agent in charge in Grand Junction, Colo., when contacted by Narco News confirmed that there is "an ongoing investigation" related to the World Jet search warrant that "involves very serious crimes." He declined to comment, however, on specific "individuals or events mentioned in the affidavit." Schrant also confirmed that his office is involved in the investigation.
Another DEA source, who asked not to be named, told Narco News that the World Jet investigation, if it indeed gets too close to exposing a CIA-enabled covert operation, will in all likelihood be jammed up by the brass at the headquarters level.
"Any agency that is above the law [such as CIA] can get away with anything. It's sad, and most people don't know it, or care, but it's true," the source says. "When they invoke national security, everyone just craps their pants, even judges."
Stay tuned….

[David Guyatt]

From Mad Cow Morning News:

Feds raid CIA-connected air charter in Fort Lauderdale
Posted on December 12, 2013 by Daniel Hopsicker


An affidavit filed by a DEA Agent in Colorado sheds new light on the mystery surrounding two American-registered drug planes from St. Petersburg busted with a total of ten tons of cocaine.
â–ª The Gulfstream II jet which crashed in Mexico belonged to something called Operation Mayan Jaguar, an unexplained Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Tampa Florida which one DEA official characterized as a "rogue operation."
â–ª The deal was brokered by the infamous and notorious World Jet Inc, the Fort Lauderdale company invaded by a Federal multi-agency operation two weeks ago.
â–ª The startling revelations in the DEA affidavit will be detailed in a series of stories in this space.
They combed through the trash. They searched dozens of planes. And while TV cameras from all the Miami TV network affiliates looked on, they loaded box after box filled with aviation records into government SUV's parked in plain sight on the tarmac in front of the office.



But today more than two weeks after more than 100 Federal agents from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security descended on the headquarters of the infamous and notorious World Jet Inc. at the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airportif you want to know why they were there or what they were looking for, you're two weeks too late.
That's because the detailed 35-page affidavit supporting the request for a search warrant of Don and Bill Whittington's air charter company filed at the United States District Court in Grand Junction Colorado has been sealed.
But not, thankfully, before it was discovered and leaked onto the Internet in an exclusive story by reporter Joe Hamel from The Durango Herald in Durango Colorado.
"I found a search warrant and one affidavit during a regular trip down to the Federal Courthouse to check on what's new," reporter Hamel said in an interview. "But when I went back a week later to check for new filings, it was gone. The whole case has been sealed."
"The whole case has been sealed."

Alone among major crimes, drug trafficking is often treated as a matter of "grave" national security. No one will say why. But there's a lot of money involved…
This penchant for secrecy is especially clear in the case of the two American-registered drug planes from St Petersburg Florida busted in the Yucatan, whose seizure revealed that Wachovia, then America's 4th-largest bank, had laundered $378 billion for Mexican drug cartels.
For example, "Raul Jimenez Alfaro," who investigators identified the man in charge of bringing the DC-9 busted in the Yucatan carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine north to the U.S., pled guilty under an alias to drug charges in a Federal Court in Miami, keeping his role in the massive 5.5 ton drug move secret.

Another recent example is Juan Carlos Abadia. The DEA called him the biggest drug cartel boss since Pablo Escobar, the leader of the world's biggest drug cartel, and the man responsible for exporting more than 500 tons of cocaineworth in excess of $10 billion to the United States.
Yet when Abadia pled guilty to drug trafficking and racketeering in a US Federal Court in 2011, not one newspaper in America covered his conviction. It went completely unreported. The DEA didn't didn't even issue a press release.
Compounding this "anomaly"is another strange fact: Although Abadia was sentenced to 25 years in Federal prison, a search of the prisoner locater at the Federal Bureau of Prisons website does not list his name as among those currently incarcerated. Phone calls asking about his whereabouts to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons were met with a terse "no comment."
"Gaming the system" is "Call of Duty" for elite deviants

The DEA affidavit details a year-long investigation of aircraft dealer Reginald "Don" Whittington, 67.
The Whittington's, the affidavit states, are suspected of illegally leasing aircraft from Florida to cocaine cartels and laundering drug-related profits through a hot springs resort hotel and a ranch in Colorado.
It contains startling information about the ease with which Mexican and Colombian drug cartels are able to purchase US aircraftas well as a certain amount of protection from brokers like Whittington, or the unmentioned Larry Peters of Skyway Aircraft in St Petersburg, who has also sold numerous drug planes to Mexican cartels with apparent impunity.
The scheme works like this: the Whittington's company would sell airplanes at inflated prices to drug traffickers, but maintain the title and American registration number in the name of World Jet or a designated nominee. Then, after the smugglers were done with the planes, World Jet would "repossess" them, at a tidy profit.

The clear virtue of this strategy is it provides "plausible deniability." And even if the airplane is caught, by claiming to be an "innocent owner," there's a good chance the participants will get back the plane.
"In the event that the aircraft is seized pursuant to a narcotics interdiction, both parties can deny responsibility and World Jet Inc. can reclaim the aircraft." In the affidavit, a DEA informant states Don Whittington then launders the drug proceeds through his spa and resort in New Mexico.

Donna Blue, Donna Blue, wherefore art you?

The affidavit confirms reporting published here which called into question the very existence of Donna Blue Aircraft, the Florida company which the FAA listed as the owner of a Gulfstream II which went down in the Yucatan on September 24 2007 carrying four tons of cocaine.
Suspicions about the two plane's "unusual" chain of ownership turned out to be right on the money.

The affidavit states, "On September 24, 2007, a 1975 Gulfstream II turbo jet bearing tail number N987SA crashed in the Yucatan Peninsula while carrying 3723 kilograms of cocaine, which was recovered by the Mexican Government, as documented by DEA Mexico City."
"N987SA was owned by Donna Blue Aircraft Inc, which was subsequently identified as a front company for a Tampa Florida-based ICE undercover operation named Operation Mayan Jaguar." (emphasis mine.)
The "Tampa-based ICE undercover operation" likely provided "cover" for a CIA operation, which "sheep-dipped" an already-owned CIA plane, the Gulfstream II, to a dummy front company, Donna Blue Aircraft.

As I reported five years ago, the registration history of the Gulfstream II (N987SA) indicated the plane had been "parked" or "sheep-dipped" in and out of the hands of a motley crew of politically well-connected straw' owners, whose ranks included a secretive Midwestern media magnate who bought more than a million dollars of billboard advertising for Presidential candidate George W Bush in 2000; a lieutenant to Saudi "fixer' and long-time CIA asset Adnan Khashoggi; and most recently individuals in New York with strong connections to the Russian Mafiya.
"Hail hail, the gang's all here!"

Several days after the crash of the Gulfstream II in the Yucatan, I paid a visit to the address4811 Lyons Technology Parkway #8 in Coconut Beach FLthat "Donna Blue Aircraft Inc" listed as its home address on FAA documents.
What I found was an empty office suite, with a blank sign out front. There was no visible sign of any entity called Donna Blue Aircraft, Inc.
What there was, however, were a half-dozen unmarked police cars parked directly in front of the empty suite.
Donna Blue Aircraft (d-b-a- doing business as, get it?) was a dummy front company cut from the same cloth as decades-worth of CIA dummy front companies.

Moreover the brief description of Donna Blue on its Internet page was such a clumsy half-hearted effort that it defeated its purpose of constructing a plausible "legend," or cover.
The website featured a quote from a satisfied Donna Blue Aircraft customer whose name, unfortunately is "John Doe." The company's listed phone number was right out of a movie: 415.555-5555.
A "pilot of interest" flying loads all over
Here is where the affidavit reveals perhaps more than was intended.
"Earlier in 2007 this aircraft was sold from a Delaware-based company SA Holdings LLC of Donna Blue Aircraft, which in turn produced bill of sale for the aircraft to Clyde O'Conner and Greg Smith."

A little later, the affidavit states that Federal agents had Don Whittington under surveillance on a flight from Fort Lauderdale to their resort in Pagosa Springs New Mexico in mid-April of last year.
The flight was piloted by "Gregory Dean Smith."
"Gregory Smith has been identified in other DEA investigations as a pilot of interest due to intelligence that indicated he was a contract pilot who had flown loads of cocaine from South and Central America to points in the US and Mexico."
Brazilian Joao Malaga of Donna Blue Aircraftnow known to have been fronting for an ICE operation explained to authorities that pilots Greg Smith and Clyde O'Conner paid him $2 million in cash to purchase the Gulfstream.
Malago's statement was greeted with derision by insiders at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport who know both men, I reported. Neither man is anywhere near wealthy. One, Smith, is anything but.
"Greg Smith's a good pilot, and dependable, and I never thought twice about hiring him to fly a charter for me," a charter aviation manager told me. "Except I always had to be sure to always front him money for expenses, or I'd get phone calls from the backside of nowhere telling me they didn't have enough money to gas up the plane to fly home."
"Operation Mayan Jaguar"

Bill Conroy of NarcoNews had reported that the now-mangled drug plane had been used for at least a decade by the CIA to fly "extraordinary renditions "to the US base in Guantanamo and to ferry extradited drug traffickers from Colombia to the USA.
The DEA affidavit, which states that the two pilots had been under investigation for drug trafficking, would seem to indicate otherwise.
"Clyde O'Conner and Greg Smith had long been targets of DEA investigations for the trafficking of cocaine from South America to Central America and Mexico," states the affidavit.
"As well, Gregory Smith currently works as a contract pilot for World Jet. Don Whittington and World Jet were implicated in brokering the sale of N987SA from SA Holdings LLC to the undercover company Donna Blue Aircraft."
On the other hand, is it possible the DEA was looking at pilots O'Conner and Smith as "persons of interest" in drug trafficking investigations at the same time the CIA was employing them as pilots?
Anyone who remembers Barry Seal would seem to have no trouble answering, at least tentatively, "yes."
The DEA affidavit called the Tampa-based ICE operation "Operation Mayan Jaguar." Bill Conroy called it "Operation Mayan Express."
Especially when dealing with a government which jealously guards information on drug trafficking that they themselves aren't sponsoring as a matter of (usually grave')national security, that's close enough for television. Or government work.
So far, so good. Kudos to Bill Conroy of NarcoNews, the only other reporter following the story, and to (immodestly) me as well.
ICE running amok?

This is a case of ICE running amok," a DEA source told Conroy. "If this [operation] was being run by the book, they would not be doing it unilaterally" without the participation of DEA "and without the knowledge of the Mexican government."
For my part, I'd interviewed the No 2 DEA official in Miami, who insisted on anonymity for reasons which will soon become obvious.
In my whiniest citizen-journalist voice, I asked him plaintively, "How come you guys aren't investigating the planes out of St Petersburg busted with 10 tons of cocaine?"
He calmly replied that one Federal Agency does not, as a matter of course, investigate the operations of another Federal Agency.
What had been exposed by the Dc-9 and Gulfstream II seizures, he said, was a rogue U.S. Customs operation (ICE is part of Customs, which in turn is part of Homeland Security).
For further answers, he pointed my to the Homeland Security's Office of Professional Responsibility, charged with investigating internal misconduct.
Five years later, I'm still waiting to hear back from them.
Disneyland for Spooks

The Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport looms so large in recent American history that it may one day get national landmark status. It's the hub of one of Florida's biggest and most lucrative industries. A playground for elite deviants from both North and South America.
It's Disneyland for Spooks. An otherwise unprepossessing local airfield that's just a hop skip and a jump from almost anywherethe Bahamas, the Caymans, Turks & Caicos, Puerto Ricothat anyone in the drug trafficking/money laundering industry needs to go.
The Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport is the Little Airfield That Could.
Yet local state and federal authorities have been unable to summon the will to plug what is by now a glaringly visible national security loophole, perhaps because the enormously lucrative traffic in money, weapons, drugs, diamonds, and even terrorists that takes place using business jets cruising at up to 40,000 feet and available only to a select few among the international elite.

In the coming days, I will begin to detail some of the truly shocking revelations contained in the DEA affidavit that somehow has wiggled its way into the public domain.
But it strains credulity to think there is much there that the DEA didn't know five or ten or even twenty years ago.
Now that the notorious Whittington brothers are once againthe target of a major DEA investigation, the real question is: Why now?