DEA Case Threatens to Expose US Government-Sanctioned Drug-Running
We lost the War on Drugs when Reagan was President. Thats when the CIA first got involved in the drug smuggling business to fight communism in Central America. Yet the federal government continues to waste billions of dollars pretending to fight the war on drugs. Bill Conroy at the Narcosphere gives us an update on government sanctioned drug running:
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, spear headed 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.
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.
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 OConnor 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.
Read the rest of the intriguing story of government sanctioned drug running HERE