The scandal surrounding two CIA-connected drug planes which flew from St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport to South America before being busted in Mexico on the way back with multi-ton loads of cocaine grew more serious last week..

A pilot arrested while awaiting the ill-fated landing in Mexico of the DC9 airliner carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine committed suicide by hanging himself... with his socks, in the maximum security Altiplano prison facility outside Mexico City.

The death of Marco Antonio Perez Gracia is just the latest to be blamed on the scandal surrounding the DC9 (N900SA) airliner, as well as a Gulfstream II (N987SA) business jet which crash-landed and broke into three pieces in September in Mexico, spilling 4 tons of cocaine across a muddy field 25 km outside Merida.

Perez Gracia was in a Falcon business jet belonging to his employer, the Government of Mexico's Water Commission when he was arrested 18 months ago, waiting for the cargo-laden DC9 to land for "emergency repairs" at a small rural airport in Mexico's Yucatan.

Recently assassinated on his way to work was the Director of Civil Aviation in the Yucatan, Jose Luis Soladana Ortiz. Earlier that same day three tortured bodies were discovered alongside a road near the Merida airport.

Also Martin Gomez Soto, a traffic controller at Cancun International Airport, abducted a month ago, and now presumed dead.