Hielo Negro Peligroso #Drogas (1)

Para quien crea que mirando las novelas de narcotraficantes sabe cómo funciona el mundo de las drogas y quien lo maneja, esta lectura es indispensable para darse cuenta que lo que sale en la televisión es pura basura comercial, marketing. La verdad jamás será dicha en series baratas mercantilistas, la verdad nunca será mostrada a los que creen en los noticieros o en cuentos de pseudo-expertos en drogas que andan dictando conferencias y ganando dinero mintiendo a la gente. El problema de la droga va más allá de capos conocidos, de humanos adictos o de legalización de la droga. La legalización no es la solución, es el inicio del conflicto, los verdaderos capos son dueños del mundo, ellos son los únicos beneficiados con la legalización, la adicción y la producción de drogas. Falta mucho por conocer pero estas lecturas pueden ser un inicio.

Daniel Hopsicker
Final

La noticia de que en una declaración de la DEA implicando al empresario de aviación Don Whittington de Fort Lauderdale en la negociación del ahora famoso jet Gulfstream II que se estrelló con 4 toneladas de cocaína en la península de Yucatán, a una operación oscura de la Agencia de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE) en Tampa, fue una sorpresa completa, incluso para aquellos que seguían el caso de cerca.

Pero en retrospectiva, tiene cierto sentido. Whittington ha estado por mucho tiempo entre las historia de piratas más conocidas del sur de la Florida.

Y el Aeropuerto Ejecutivo de Fort Lauderdale es para la aviación general estadounidense como lo fue Sodoma y Gomorra para la Biblia.

La nueva información en la declaración jurada de la DEA fue el primer movimiento en el caso en seis años, casi desde el momento en que el avión registrado en EE.UU. de St Petersburg FL se impactó, derramando cuatro toneladas de cocaína a través de un área del tamaño de tres campos de fútbol americano .

Don Whittington negoció la venta del jet Gulfstream (N987SA) al Departamento de la Agencia de Inmigración y Aduanas del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional en Tampa, el documento de la DEA reveló, como parte de una operación denominada Operación Maya Jaguar.

Fue una operación controvertida. Un funcionario superior de la DEA en Miami la llamó una "operación deshonesta". En la evidencia de documentos judiciales recientes en Miami en un caso relacionado (perfiladas en una próxima historia), el Fiscal Asistente de EE.UU. en Miami acusado de manipular todos los casos importantes de narcotráfico en el sur de la Florida parece estar de acuerdo.

Está en marcha un guerra de tira y afloja entre Agencias internas, la clase de embrollo en el que algo de verdad se puede resbalar.

No preguntes por quién suena el teléfono celular.

El caso del Gulfstream se ha asentado muerto en el agua-sin que ningún estadounidense sea juzgado, a pesar de que se trataba de un avión de más de seis años registrado en EE.UU.

En México, sin embargo, fue una historia completamente diferente:

Se encontraron tres cuerpos torturados asociados con el caso en una carretera cerca del aeropuerto de Mérida. Una docena de agentes federales en Cancún fueron a la cárcel. Cuatro policías del aeropuerto también fueron apresados. Un piloto se suicidó mientras cumplía su condena.

Y el Director de Aviación Civil en la península de Yucatán, José Luis Soladana Ortiz, fue asesinado. Soladana había estado en contacto directo por radio con los pilotos en el Gulfstream cuando se aproximaban al aeropuerto de Cancún, donde los observadores locales afirmaron que había aterrizado sin incidentes en numerosas ocasiones.

Esta vez, sin embargo, Soladana negó el permiso para que el avión aterrizara. El Gulfstream voló en la noche. Horas más tarde, cuando se quedó sin combustible el avión hizo un aterrizaje forzoso de emergencia en la selva cerca de Tixkobob, una aldea a 50 millas de Mérida.

Soladana Ortiz pagó por su decisión con su vida. Su cuerpo fue encontrado a lado de la carretera, boca abajo, sosteniendo su teléfono celular con ambas manos delante de su pecho. Mientras las autoridades lo examinaban su teléfono comenzó a sonar, extrañamente, en repetidas ocasiones. Sus asesinos, todavía cerca, se burlaban de los investigadores.

Pilotos desafortunados con los bolsillos vacíos configurados para soportar el calor

Que el Gulfstream no había pertenecido a una empresa a toda prisa configurada llamada Donna Blue Associates, propiedad de dos brasileños, se hizo evidente cuando, menos de dos semanas después del accidente, hice una visita a la dirección en Coconut Beach FL. que "Donna Blue Aircraft Inc" aparece como su centro de trabajo en los documentos de la FAA.

Lo que encontré fue una suite de oficina vacía con un cartel en blanco en el frente. No había ninguna señal de Donna Blue Aircraft. Sin embargo, había una media docena de coches de policía sin distintivos aparcados justo en frente de la suite vacía.

Tampoco era propiedad de los dos pilotos desafortunados en Fort Lauderdale, que se establecieron como chivo expiatorio para los brasileños, que juraron que habían vendido el Gulfstream a ellos por $2 millones en efectivo la semana antes de que se estrellara. Estaba claro en las entrevistas con los ejecutivos de la aviación que -a menos que la parte trasera de un camión de bloques de repente se abriera delante de ellos - ningún piloto podría haber alcanzado a pagar lo suficiente sino para para pagar una cerveza en el almuerzo

Ya parecía claro (“Sloppy Tradecraft Exposes CIA Drug Plane”) que el avión había sido propiedad de una Agencia del Gobierno de los EE.UU. Durante el tiempo que he reportado sobre el tráfico de drogas desde hace más de una década me he familiarizado con la forma en que la CIA esconde o sumerge la propiedad de su flota de aviones.

Engañando al sistema 101

Durante los meses siguientes identifiqué a un variopinto grupo con buenas conexiones políticas a motley crew of politically well-connected quienes eran los propietarios de “paja” en cuyas manos el avión había sido temporalmente "aparcado" o "escondido", durante la década anterior. Estas historias se vuelven altamente relevantes cuando el Tampa ICE fue forzado a admitir, como lo será, que la Agencia también estaba detrás de la operación del DC-9 (N900SA) de San Petersburgo que fue capturado llevando 5,5 toneladas de cocaína dieciocho meses antes del accidente del Gulfstream II.

La empresa World Jet de Bill y Don Whittingtonen en Fort Lauderdale presuntamente corrían un esquema diseñado para proteger a los aviones de la droga de la sospecha oficial, proporcionando aviones con registro estadounidense a los carteles de la droga, de acuerdo con la declaración jurada de la DEA.

"Ellos negocian un contrato con el representante de una OTD (organización de tráfico de drogas) para arrendar una aeronave a la OTD pidiendo una gran cantidad de dinero sucio, a menudo más de lo que vale el avión. A cambio, Whittington mantiene la aeronave y el número de registro estadounidense.

"Después de una cantidad de tiempo no especificada que el avión es devuelto. Si es aprendido en una redada, ambas partes niegan la responsabilidad y World Jet puede reclamar el avión porque poseen el embargo financiero".

Significado incluso si el avión de drogas fue capturado, World Jet podría ofuscar su verdadera propiedad, y a menudo será capaz de evitar que sea incautado por el gobierno. En resumen, los "chicos" de World Jet, como la élite parasitaria de Wall Street antes de la caída de la economía mundial en 2008, habían estado engañando al sistema.

La CIA ha utilizado (The CIA has used) el mismo esquema durante años.

La historia de un solo avión nos cuenta una historia

Citando siete informantes confidenciales diferentes, la declaración de la DEA de 34 páginas (the 35-page DEA affidavit) acusó a los Whittington de dirigir un esquema que vendió por lo menos 12 aviones a narcotraficantes de Venezuela, Colombia, México, e incluso África.

La historia de uno de esos aviones, un Hawker 700 (N49RJ), que la declaración jurada de la DEA alega que World Jet finalmente vendido a traficantes de drogas, ofrece una mirada al interior de los 30 años de tráfico de drogas en el sur de Florida.

Hay revelaciones sorprendentes y llamativas para hacer que incluso un agotado observador se estremezca de encoentrar en prácticamente todas las páginas en el documento de la DEA.

Mientras era propiedad de los Whittington, el lujoso jet de negocios, Hawker 700, que lleva número de cola N49RJ tenía una colorida historia. Un punto destacado (o no tanto) se produjo en 2005.

Dangerous Black Ice -Drugs- (1)

For those who believe that watching TV novels about drug traffickers, knows how the world of drugs works and who manages this business, reading this post is essential to realize that what goes on TV is pure commercial trash, marketing. The truth will never be told in mercantilist cheap TV series, the truth will never be shown to those who believe in news programs or in stories of pseudo-drug-experts that wonder around lecturing and winning money by lying to people. The drug problem goes beyond known capos, human addicts or drug legalization. Legalization is not the answer, is the beginning of the conflict, the true capos own the world, they are the only beneficiaries of legalization, addiction and drug production. There is too much to know about this matter, but these readings can be a start.

Daniel Hopsicker

News that a DEA affidavit implicated Fort Lauderdale aviation impresario Don Whittington for brokering the now-famous Gulfstream II jet that crashed with 4 tons of cocaine in the Yucatan to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) black operation in Tampa came as a complete surprise, even to those closely following the case.

But in hindsight it makes a certain sense. The Whittington's have long been among South Florida's most storied 'pirates.'

And the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport is to American general aviation what Sodom and Gomorrah were to the Bible.

The new information in the DEA affidavit was the first movement in the case in six years , almost since the moment the American-registered plane from St Petersburg FL burst open on impact, spilling four tons of cocaine across an area the size of three football fields.

Don Whittington brokered the sale of the Gulfstream (N987SA) jet to the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency in Tampa, the DEA document disclosed, as part of an operation called Operation Mayan Jaguar.

It was a controversial operation. A top DEA official in Miami called it a "rogue operation." On the evidence of recent court filings in Miami in a related case (profiled in an upcoming story), the U.S. Asst Attorney in Miami who is charged with handling all major drug trafficking cases in South Florida appears to concur.

An inter-Agency tug-of-war is underway; the kind of imbroglio during which some truth may slip out.

Do not ask for whom the cell phone rings.

The case of the Gulfstream has sat dead in the water— with no Americans ever charged, even though it was an American-registered plane—for more than six years.

In Mexico, however, it was a whole different story:

Three tortured bodies associated with the case were found lying across a road near the Merida airport. A dozen Federal agents in Cancun went to prison. Four airport policemen served time. One pilot committed suicide while serving his sentence.

And the Director of Civil Aviation in the Yucatan, Jose Luis Soladana Ortiz, was assassinated. Soladana had been in direct radio contact with the pilots on the Gulfstream as it approached Cancun Airport, where local observers stated it had landed without incident on numerous occasions.

This time, however, Soladana denied the plane permission to land. The Gulfstream flew on into the night. Hours later when it ran out of fuel the plane made an emergency crash-landing in the jungle near Tixkobob, a hamlet 50 miles from Merida.

Soladana Ortiz paid for his decision with his life. His body was found on the side of the road, face down, holding his cell phone with both hands in front of his chest. As authorities examined it his phone began ringing, eerily, repeatedly. His killers, still nearby, were mocking investigators.

Hapless pilots with empty pockets set up to take the heat

That the Gulfstream hadn’t belonged to a hastily set-up company called Donna Blue Associates, owned by two Brazilians, became obvious when, less than two weeks after the crash, I paid a visit to the address in Coconut Beach FL. that “Donna Blue Aircraft Inc” listed as its place of business on FAA documents.

What I found was an empty office suite with a blank sign out front. There was no sign of Donna Blue Aircraft. However, there were a half-dozen unmarked police cars parked directly in front of the empty suite.

Nor was it owned by the two hapless pilots in Fort Lauderdale who were set up as patsy’s by the Brazilians, who swore they’d sold the Gulfstream to them for $2 million in cash a week before it went down. It was clear in interviews with aviation executives that—unless the back end of a Brinks truck suddenly fell open in front of them—neither pilot could have raised enough to pay for more than one beer with lunch

It already seemed clear (“Sloppy Tradecraft Exposes CIA Drug Plane”) that the plane had been owned by an Agency of the U.S. Government. During the course of reporting on drug trafficking for more than a decade I had become familiar with how the CIA hides or sheep-dips the ownership of its fleet of planes.

Gaming the System 101

During the following months I identified a motley crew of politically well-connected ‘straw’ owners in whose hands the plane had been temporarily “parked” or “sheep-dipped” during the previous decade. These stories will become highly relevant when Tampa ICE is forced to admit, as it will be, that the Agency was also behind the operation of the DC-9 (N900SA) from St Petersburg that was seized carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine eighteen months before the crash of the Gulfstream II.

Bill and Don Whittington’s World Jet in Fort Lauderdale allegedly ran a scheme designed to shield drug planes from official suspicion by providing planes with American registration to drug cartels, according to the DEA affidavit.

“They negotiate a contract with the representative of a DTO (drug trafficking organization) to lease an aircraft to the DTO requiring a large amount of money down, often more than the plane is worth. In return, Whittington maintains the aircraft and the American registration number.

“After an unspecified amount of time the plane is repossessed. If its seized in a bust, both parties deny responsibility and world jet can reclaim the plane because it holds the financial lien.”

Meaning even if the drug plane was caught, World Jet could obfuscate its true ownership, and often be able to keep it from being seized by the government. In short, the “boys” at World Jet— like Wall Street’s parasitic elite before the 2008 crash of the global economy—had been gaming the system.

The CIA has used the same scheme for years.

The history of a single plane tells us a story

Citing seven different confidential informants, the 35-page DEA affidavit accused the Whittington’s of running a scheme that sold at least 12 planes to drug traffickers from Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and even Africa. 

The story of just one of those planes—a Hawker 700 (N49RJ)—which the DEA affidavit alleges that World Jet eventually sold to drug traffickers, offers an inside look at 30 years of drug trafficking in South Florida.

There are astonishing disclosures and eye-popping revelations to make even a jaded observer shudder to be found on virtually every page in the DEA document.

While owned by the Whittington’s, the Hawker 700 luxury business jet carrying tail number N49RJ had a colorful history. One particular highlight(or lowlight) occurred in 2005.

#Feds Raid #CIA - Connected #Air #Charter in #FortLauderdale

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.

• 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."
• 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.
• 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 Airport—if 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.”

Narco-jet in Costa Rica scandal tied to Iran Contra figure

http://obligatoriorecordar.blogspot.com/2013/08/costa-ricas-president-flew-narco-jet-to.html

Daniel Hopsicker

A key employee in Bogotá of the Canadian oil company owners of the drug plane flown by Costa Rica’s President Laura Chinchilla was at the heart of the Contra Cocaine pipeline profiled by the late author Gary Webb in his 1996 best-seller “Dark Alliance.”

David Scott Weekly was both a CIA agent and drug trafficker, according to Webb’s book. His nickname was "Dr. Death."

Today that same man is in Bogotá, reports Colombian newspaper “El Tiempo," lobbying the Colombian government for oil leases for an oil company exploring in the jungles of the Amazon Basin, with ties to drug trafficker Gabriel Morales, whose drug plane took Laura Chinchilla for a ride.

In Colombia today, there is a a brand new type of oil venture: the narco-energy play.

El Tiempo reported, "Nobody has explained how a man with a past as singular ends litigation on behalf of a company whose promoters have ties to the oil Ricardo Morales, star of judicial scandals in Colombia."

“Why does a Vietnam veteran, an expert on weapons and the training of mercenaries, so frequently visit the offices of the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) in Bogota?” asked El Tiempo..

The question may have been rhetorical. The answer is anything but.

 

A spy novel come to life

The scandal embroiling Costa Rica’s President Laura Chinchilla for flying aboard an American-registered (N93CW) luxury Citation 3 jet continues with surprising new disclosures.

Costa Rica's President, sounding defensive and shrill, sacked three officials of her Aministration for what she conceded had been a "mistake."

But many seem convinced the coziness they saw between major drug traffickers and their elected officials was evidence of far more than a lapse in judgment. And despite being Central America’s first elected woman leader, Dona Laura Chinchilla is not beloved by her people.

Polls consistently show her to be the most unpopular President in modern Costa Rican history, perhaps because populations in third world countries have grown increasingly wary of the type of neo-liberal NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) based in Washington DC, for whom Chinchilla has worked for much of her career.

The Latin American press dubbed the aircraft in question the “Plane of Shame,” and focused on identifying the powerful government officials who, like Laura Chinchilla, had availed themselves of its use, pointing out that the sheer number of senior Colombian and Costa Rican officials who had rubbed elbows on the plane with lieutenants for one of the worlds biggest drug lords was a measure of the corruption and hypocrisy of their ruling Latin American elites.

 

Gary Webb, American hero

According to Gary Webb’s Dark Alliance, David Scott Weekly was a crucial component in the major cocaine-trafficking ring headed up by Danilo Blandon in Southern California to support the Contras.

When federal and local law enforcement officials executed warrants on a dozen locations in October of 1986, a major focus was the home to a former Laguna Beach police officer named Ron Lister.

In an official report, a detective on the raid wrote: “Lister … told me he had dealings in South America and worked with the CIA and added that his friends in Washington weren't going to like what was going on. I told Mr. Lister that we were not interested in his business in South America. Mr. Lister replied that he would call Mr. Weekly of the CIA and report me.''

After the controversy erupted, the CIA conducted an internal investigation, which cleared itself of wrongdoing, an act so audacious as to render satire useless.

In seeming contradiction to its own report, however, the OIG’s report also stated that Weekly was heard on tape saying that he was "tied into the CIA and (Eugene) Hasenfus" and reported to the "people reporting to Bush."

“Hasenfus” of course, is Eugene Hasenfus, who was wearing a parachute and survived—he wasn’t supposed to—when his military cargo plane (Barry Seal’s old C123) was shot down over Nicaragua. His capture, as well as documents found on the plane, set off the Iran Contra Scandal.

"Shell" oil companies without the "Royal Dutch" in front

Today the Contras are nothing more than a long-forgotten nightmare. But David Scott Weekly is very much alive, and working in Bogotá, for an outfit called Montco Energy.

Even though the drug plane was controlled by Gabriel Morales Fallan, a man of many aliases, none of them truly convincing, the Citation 3 is leased in the name of Thorneoloe, the predecessor to THX Energy. (See FAA registration pdf here.)

So David Scott Weekly's Montco Energy and THX Energy would be competitors, seeking the same prize: oil leases granted by the government of Colombia.

In theory, perhaps. In real life, not so much. The reason: Montco Energy and THX Energy are owned by the same people, or perhaps even the same person: Andy Defrancesco.

How did that happen? Let’s take a look.

In Panama in 1995 Fallan incorporated a company called Thorneloe, which is the name the plane is listed under in official FAA documents.

Thorneloe, a Panamanian-registered company, has since changed its names three times. It has been listed variously as Thorneloe Corp, Thorneloe Energy, THX Energy, and, currently, THX Oil & Gas SA.

In turn, THX is owned by a Canadian equity firm called Birch Island Capital.

Birch Island, itself, in turn, is owned by Delavaco Capital, a US firm located in—of all places—Fort Lauderdale, Florida, America’s long-standing drug smuggling capital.

Finally, Delavaco Capital is owned by Andy DeFrancesco.

 

Where the drugs come in

In 2003, Gabriel Morales was fingered by officials as a lieutenant of Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, alias el Chupeta, who ran Colombia’s largest remaining drug cartel, the Norte del Valle Cartel. While on the run he apparently had plastic surgery to hide his identity. The result looks a little like a cross between Michael Jackson and a chupacabra.

El Chupeta, from one of Columba’s wealthiest and most prestigious families, was trained as an economist, but despite his fine manners and careful elegance, he ended up as the boss of the Norte Valle Cartel.

While Fallan, also Colombian, spent much of the past decade pretending to look for oil—incorporating a dozen companies in Panama with names implying brawny men in hard hats facing down the elements—he was not-so-secretly working, according to numerous published reports, as a lieutenant of El Chupeta, who became almost by default one of Colombia’s biggest drug traffickers when the last Cali Cartel boss went down in the 1990's.

Fallan left Colombia in 2002. He was afraid, he said, of retaliation from the FARC for snitching on their evil commie drug trafficking ways. In exile, he spent several years in, of all places, Texas. Little is known about his stay there (but much is suspected.) Finally he settled in Costa Rica, where he changed his name, married a local girl and became a citizen.

Then El Chupeta was captured, in Brazil in 2007, and extradited to the United States a year later.

On learning this, Fallon, no dummy, didn't wait for the DEA to come for him. He went to the U.S. looking for them, and came to an arrangement, according to published reports, that in exchange for information about drug trafficking and money laundering the DEA would allow him to relocate in Costa Rica without molestation.

For her part, the details of this agreement were kept from her, sniffs Laura Chinchilla.

 

Back to the budding Petro-Coke Mergers

Several years ago the government of Colombia launched an ambitious program to bring foreign investment into the country’s oil sector. Called Round Colombia 2010, the government let exploration and exploitation contracts on 76 blocks. For whatever reasons—and surely they were plenty and various—CIA Contra Cocaine veteran Scott Weekly’s Montco Energy, the darkest of dark horses, won big.

Hearing whispers from the wings of Mob involvement, the Colombian government experienced a relatively rare phenomenon called seller's remorse, got cold feet, and nixed the Montco contract, citing several reasons: Montco’s records weren't in order. Montco's offices in Texas and Canada were just post office boxes. And an oil well Montco claimed to own in the west African nation of Gabon doesn’t exist.

A Colombian business magazine published a story about it under the headline: “Mob attempt to penetrate the oil sector?”

 

Proving it’s a small world, after all

Riding to the rescue to attempt to salvage the situation for Montco came Andy DeFrancesco (who owns Delavaco Capital, and THX Energy, remember?)

In the strangest of coincidences, Andy DeFrancesco is reported to be on the board of Montco energy, along with two shady lawyers linked to Gabriel Morales through another company.

Given his colorful history, if Scott Weekly is today working for an oil company which owns a drug plane, then things all seem to fit, do they not? David Scott Weekly’s presence in Bogotá now becomes understandable.

And once again, and unsurprisingly, Gary Webb's reporting is verified.

Talk about shades of Iran Contra..

One big question remains: Authorities said the Gabriel Morales-THX Energy-David Scott Weekly drug plane flown by Laura Chinchilla was being watched and suspected of moving drugs for more than three years… Why, then, was it allowed to continue flying? And also… is it still flying?

In the absence of a definitive answer, and given what's known today about state involvement in drug trafficking everywhere from Colombia to Honduras, from Venezuela to the good ol US of A… it does not seem wildly unrealistic to conclude the plane was hauling drugs with official impunity.