Narco News Investigation: Cocaine Planes Cross Paths with Corporate America’s Green Movement

Narco News Investigation: Cocaine Planes Cross Paths with Corporate America’s Green Movement
Men Who Sold Three Planes Later Used by Narco-Traffickers Also Run Biofuel Company Together With Government Communications Contractor


By Bill Conroy
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
February 25, 2008

The web of U.S. government connections to the Gulfstream II jet that crashed in Mexico in late September last year with some four tons of cocaine onboard has taken on an eco-friendly green hue.

The jet, which had a tail number (N987SA) linked by European investigators to past CIA rendition operations, was owned, just prior to its crash landing, by a gringo duo, one of whom was Greg Smith — whom a CIA asset named Baruch Vega claims served as a pilot for past CIA, DEA and FBI undercover missions.

Smith and his partner, Florida pilot Clyde O’Connor, purchased the jet, according to a bill of sale, about a week before its cocaine payload unexpectedly hit the ground in Mexico’s Yucatan on Sept. 24, 2007. The seller was a Florida company called Donna Blue Aircraft Inc. — which is owned by two Brazilians, one of whom is Joao Malago.

Howard Altman of the Tampa Tribune reported recently that Malago is a business partner in a “green” company called Atlantic Alcohol with an individual named Larry Peters, who owns Skyway Aircraft Inc. in St. Petersburg, Fla. Skyway also happens to have sold two planes to Venezuelan buyers in recent years that have since been identified as aircraft that were subsequently used in drug-trafficking operations.

Peters’ company sold a Beech 200 aircraft 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. In addition, a recent FBI affidavit filed in federal court in Miami identifies another plane, a Cessna Conquest II (tail number N12DT), that was sold by Skyway in 2006 to a Venezuelan purchaser allegedly linked to a drug trafficking organization (DTO).

“This particular type of aircraft was utilized by DTO’s to transport cocaine from Venezuela to Africa,” the FBI complaint alleges.

The FBI affidavit characterizes the seller of the aircraft (Skyway) as an “unwitting” party in the aircraft’s eventual use as part of a money-laundering and narco-trafficking racket.

But the facts are the facts, nonetheless. Peters and his business partner, Malago, between them have sold a total of three aircraft over the past four years that were subsequently used in Latin America for narco-trafficking operations. At least two of those aircraft, the Beech 200 as well as the Gulfstream II, as Narco News has previously reported, also have been linked to past CIA use.

The Beech 200 was found in Nicaragua bearing a false tail number (N168D), which Federal Aviation Administration records show is registered to a North Carolina company called Devon Holding and Leasing Inc. (The Beech 200’s real tail number was N391SA.)

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.

In addition, the Gulfstream II, according to DEA sources
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