Jet linked to CIA crashes in Yucatan with drug shipment aboard

• Incident takes place at a time when that Mexican peninsula is a theater of war among Cuban-American drug traffickers handling the lucrative business of illegal emigration


BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Granma International staff writer—

A private jet which crashed in the vicinity of Cancun on September 24 with a cargo of six tons of cocaine and heroin aboard had been utilized by the CIA in recent months for transferring prisoners to and from the U.S. interrogation camp on Guantánamo. The aircraft, a Grumman Gulf Stream II model, with U.S. registration number N987SA, officially belongs to a company in the south of Florida, which bought it just eight days before the presumed accident, the circumstances of which are murky.
The mysterious incident that recalls the large-scale trafficking operations attributed to the CIA in the 80s, came at a time of bloody warfare among Cuban-American drug traffickers who have taken over the lucrative business of the illegal emigration of Cubans in Yucatan. The wave of violence, apparent for some months, reached an alarming level the same weekend of the air crash with the murder of another émigré Cuban in a well known public place in the tourist complex.
Press agencies in Cancun and Mexico report how the luxury Gulf Stream II was bought in August from a New York company owned by one William Achenbaum by a Florida company called Donna Blue Aircraft run by two Brazilians, Joao Luiz Malago and Eduardo Dias Guimaraes.
Achenbaum’s employees refused to answer questions. Malago and Dias Guimaraes said that they had sold the plane on September 16 to two Florida pilots, Clyde O’Connor and Greg Smith, who paid them – it is not known how – two million dollars in cash.
The Federal Aviation Administration is now saying that it was never informed of the sale and that, in consequence, never dispatched any certificate. O’Connor’s company, Execstar Aviation of Fort Lauderdale, is not answering the telephone, according to the Miami press.
Two days after the purchase, the aircraft left Fort Lauderdale, Florida for Cancun, Mexico and then for the José María Córdoba aiport in Río Negro, Colombia, 40 kilometers from Medellín, the heartland of Colombian traffickers, from where it returned to Cancun.

HAND OF THE CIA

The same jet appears on the 2003-2005 list of CIA secret flights established by a European Union commission given the intense traffic of aircraft handled by the U.S. intelligence agency for transferring prisoners, often illegally kidnapped, via various compliant countries.
However, the Mexican ¡Por Esto! daily affirmed in its September 29 edition that the CIA used the plane on four occasions in recent months.
The national press notes that all files relating to the powerful jet were blocked in the Cancun Airport information system by the airport authorities themselves.
In the midst of contradictory reports, it was stated that the pilot, a Mexican by the name of Edick Muñoz Sánchez, had been transferred to the capital for interrogation.
But ¡Por Esto! revealed on September 30 that “Edick or Eric Muñoz Sánchez was not known to the Association of Aviation Pilots (ASPA) or to various flying schools in Mexico City.
The journalist, known for his investigations, noted: “To date, the Attorney General’s Office has NOT brought before the public opinion that young man initially identified as South American and subsequently as from the Federal District, with white skin and delicate features.”
Meanwhile, two other crew members from the plane, a man and a woman, managed to escape from the location of the accident in a truck stolen in Cancun and which reappeared some few hours later in Mérida.
The incident illustrates the level of drug trafficking in that part of the Yucatan Peninsula with the complicity of Miami Mafiosi who, for a few years now, have been using Cancun as a playing field.
It is not by chance that the accomplices of Luis Posada Carriles selected Isla Mujeres, in the vicinity of Cancun, for rescuing the international terrorist, a fugitive from Venezuelan justice.

EVIDENCE POINTS TO MIAMI

The Grumman’s forced landing in a forested area of Yucatan in circumstances still to be clarified, occurred hours after the execution of a criminal of Cuban origin in right in the middle of the Cancun hotel area. The man, Maximiliano Rey Mota, aged 43 was linked to the Cuban mafia operating in Quintano Roo.
Rey Mota was killed with a single R-15 bullet in the presence of his partner in the Coral Negro handicrafts complex.
A number of aspects related to former killings in the peninsula point to members of the Cuban mafia operating in Miami. Cuban Americans recently murdered include Manuel ‘El Many’ Duarte Díaz, Luis Lázaro Lara Morejón, his friend María Elena Carrillo Sáenz, Jesús Aguilar Aguilar and Edwin Park Gómez.
The situation is so grave that Karen Martin, the US consul in Mérida in Yucatan suddenly materialized just hours after the last crime, seeking involvement in the investigation.
Karen Martin affirmed that her country is fully prepared to cooperate in order to clarify the eliminations.
While the Miami FBI has distinguished itself from the outset by its characteristic inertia in the face of activities of the Cuban-American mafia, the diplomat insisted that if it can be confirmed that these crimes are related to organized crime in the United States, her government would be prepared to cooperate in order to clarify the facts and punish the guilty.
Since January, 26 people have lost their lives in this wave of violence.


 http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/octubre/vier5/40jet-i.html





ENCOURAGED BY THE CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT

Illegal emigration mafia stealing boats from Miami

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD —Granma International staff writer—

JUICY business: Cuban-American drug traffickers who control the profitable illegal immigration racket, which benefits from a U.S. law called the Cuban Adjustment Act, steal the speed boats and luxury yachts that they use for their criminal activities from Miami and other cities in the Florida peninsula.
Immigrants "are no longer arriving as rafters on U.S. beaches; instead, they are brought over by trafficking rings that have unleashed a wave of boat thefts," according to the French news agency AFP in an article datelined in Miami.
This year, more than 300 boats were stolen in Miami-Dade County alone, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Most of them are used for trafficking immigrants, according to several government sources. Traffickers "bring people in stolen boats, and in many cases, in go-fast boats," according to Luis Díaz, a Coast Guard spokesman in Miami.
The most sought-after boats by thieves are medium or small yachts, no more than 12 meters long, which are easier to maneuver, especially speedboats, according to AFP.
The U.S. law, which is aimed at encouraging the illegal emigration of Cubans, grants them privileges that no other immigrant group receives when illegally crossing the U.S. border with Mexico.
In addition, this lucrative trafficking in people has led to a bloody war in recent months between criminal clans linked to the Cuban-American mafia.
Bello Melchor Rodríguez y Carrillo, federal prosecutor in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, revealed a few weeks ago that the city of Merida, Yucatan, is the Cuban mafia’s center of financial operations.
Cuban-Americans killed in recent weeks include Manuel "El Mani" Duarte Díaz, Luis Lázaro Lara Morejón, his friend María Elena Carrillo Sáenz, Jesús Aguilar Aguilar, Edwin Park Gómez and Maximiliano Rey Mota.
Lara Morejón was the liaison who received funds from the United States for trafficking carried out by Duarte Díaz, who was murdered in the Yucatan capital near the offices of the National Migration Institute. He later ensured payment for the polleros (smugglers) who bring Cubans to Quintana Roo’s coasts.
According to several sources, one of the gangs involved hired the thugs of Los Zetas, the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, to execute its rivals.
The lime-covered, handcuffed bodies of Aguilar, Park and Carrillo Sáenz were found in a ditch near the Cancun-Merida highway, a site known as the "Los Zetas cemetery."
The FBI in Miami has stood out for its inertia in the face of Cuban-American mafia activities since the start of these gruesome events.
[Translated by Granma International]

 http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art61.html





Mexican Attorney General Denounces Cuban Adjustment Act

Mexico’s Attorney General, Eduardo Medina Mora, said on Tuesday that Mafia networks based in Miami, tied to drug trafficking, control the smuggling "of undocumented Cubans" that takes place from Mexican territory.
Mena noted that the United States incites the smuggling operations because of its policy to accept any Cuban citizen, regardless of the methods used to arrive to US territory.
"It’s judicially known that Cuban-born persons with US nationality are involved; financing these operations with the obvious complicity of Mexican nationals," said Mena in a press conference in Mexico.
The attorney general said the operation takes place from the Yucatan Peninsula. He underlined that the trafficking of Cubans to the United States, using Mexico, is encouraged by the Cuban Adjustment Act under which the US "takes in any Cuban citizen regardless of the methods used or their immigration status."
Thousands of Mexicans are deported from the United States annually or die on the border, victims of repressive actions.
The existence in the tourist center of Cancun of an important trafficking operation has been denounced on several occasions. The business is carried out by drug traffickers belonging to the Miami Cuban-American Mafia.
For several months a bloody war between Mafia groups from Miami, with ties to the rightwing Cuban American organizations, have become involved in the lucrative human smuggling operations in the entire region. (JGA)

 http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art84.html



Mexican attorney general says:

Trafficking of people in Yucatan is encouraged by U.S. laws

MEXICAN Attorney General Eduardo Medina said on December 19 that mafioso networks in Miami linked to drug trafficking also control the trafficking of “undocumented Cubans” carried out from within Mexico with the complicity of criminals in that country.
Medina emphasized that the United States encourages the trafficking with its policy of welcoming any Cuban without consideration for the means used to arrive in U.S. territory.
It is legally documented that Cuban-born individuals with U.S. citizenship are involved, financing these operations with the evident complicity of Mexican nationals, Medina stated in a press conference for the foreign media in Mexico.
Operations are carried out in the Yucatan Peninsula, he said, emphasizing that the smuggling of Cubans into the United States via Mexico is encouraged by the U.S. law known as the Cuban Adjustment Act, under which the United States “takes in any Cuban citizen no matter the means or their migratory status.”
Meanwhile, thousands of Mexicans are deported from the United States every year or die on its borders, the victims of repressive actions.
In Cuba, it has been revealed a number of times how significant trafficking of people takes place in the Mexican resort of Cancun. It is a business run by drug traffickers affiliated with the Cuban-American mafia in Miami.
For months, a bloody war against gangs in Miami linked to the Cuban-American mafia has been taking place all over the region as they fight for control over the profitable business of trafficking in people.
Criminal organizations in Miami associated with cocaine trafficking in the Caribbean have taken over the million-dollar business created by the Adjustment Act, a murderous law that provokes extremely dangerous illegal departures from Cuba by citizens attracted by supposed privileges that are denied every year to hundreds of thousands of other potential immigrants from other countries.
At the same time, Medina explained that some $10 billion in cash is transferred from the United States to Mexico every year in drug trafficking money.
The Attorney General revealed that the vast majority of some 8,000 weapons seized in Mexico are from the United States, “where there are almost 100,000 weapons dealers, of which 12,000 are along the Mexican border.”
Despite the deployment of police in various U.S. states, the Mexican government believes that in 2007, at least 2,500 murders were documented, most of them attributed to drug trafficking.
(Jean-Guy Allard)


 http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/diciembre/mier12/50yucatan.html