Wednesday, 15 April 1998
Mexican drug runners may have used C-130
from Arizona
By Tim Steller
The Arizona Daily Star
A Mexican company used an ex-military cargo plane, apparently
obtained from Arizona, to ship drugs to the United States, a Mexico
City newspaper reported yesterday.
The federal attorney general's office froze the assets of Aero Postal
de Mexico in October after seizing a shipment of cocaine from one of
its planes, the newspaper Reforma reported.
Mexican federal officials suspect the cargo-carrying company of
transporting drugs for the Tijuana-based cartel of the Arellano Felix
family, an unidentified official told Reforma. Aero Postal's owner,
Jesus Villegas Covallos, became one of the principal allies of the
organization in the transfer of drugs outside Mexico, the official said.
A C-130A belonging to the company remains confiscated under guard
at a hangar in Mexico City's international airport, Reforma reported.
The airplane may be one of two C-130As purchased by Aero Postal de
Mexico from a Chandler company. T&G; Aviation sold the C-130As in
1993 for $3.6 million, said T&G; president William ``Woody'' Grantham.
They were two of about six aircraft T&G; has sold in its 23-year
history, he said.
The two C-130As left military hands in the early 1980s at the
Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center, the surplus airplane
yard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, according to Lockheed Hercules
Production List, a publication that tracks all C-130s ever produced.
The airplanes were registered to companies in California before
returning to Arizona and eventually being sold to T&G.;
Grantham said as far as he knew in 1993, Aero Postal was a
legitimate cargo company.
``At the time the transaction took place, our embassy knew about it,
Civil Aeronautics in Mexico knew about it. They all spoke of (Aero
Postal) as upstanding people and an upstanding company,'' Grantham
said.
If the company worked for the Arellano Felix organization, it dealt
with one of the biggest and most violent criminal groups in Mexico.
Ramon Eduardo Arellano Felix, one of its leaders, is on the FBI's 10
Most Wanted list. He was indicted in San Diego for conspiracy to
import cocaine and marijuana.
The organization is attempting to gain sway in Sonora, said John
Bryfonski, acting assistant special agent in charge of the Tucson Drug
Enforcement Administration office. That territory was left somewhat
open after the death last year of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, former head
of the Juarez cartel.
The Arellano Felix organization has used a variety of means to
transport drugs, including planes, but C-130s would likely be too
large to fly drugs all the way into the United States, Bryfonski said.
C-130s ``are better designed for long-haul transport either within the
interior of Mexico or from South or Central America,'' he added.
If Aero Postal did work for the Arellano Felix organization, it is not
the first time that drug traffickers have crossed the path of T&G;
Aviation.
For eight months in 1990-91, T&G; leased a C-130A - one of the
airplanes it later sold to Aero Postal de Mexico - to a Panamanian
company called Trans Latin Air. Trans Latin Air was indicted in 1994
in Chicago as one of several aviation companies hired to transport
drugs by the Cali cartel.
Charges against Trans Latin Air, which had no assets to seize, were
excused last year.
But Luis Carlos Herrera Lizcano, a Colombian aviation executive,
admitted using Trans Latin Air and other companies to smuggle tons
of cocaine into the United States and Canada between 1982 and 1994.
Herrera pleaded guilty in 1995 and is serving an eight-year sentence
at a federal prison in Miami.
Grantham disputes whether the indicted company is the same Trans
Latin Air company to which he leased a C-130A, but he could not
provide evidence of two Panamanian companies with similar names.
He said that every time the T&G; airplane came into the Panama
airport, ``It was sniffed with dogs, checked thoroughly for drugs. It
was totally clean all the time.''
Within a year of T&G;'s getting its C-130A back from Trans Latin Air,
T&G; agreed to sell C-130A aircraft to Aero Postal de Mexico,
according to court documents from T&G;'s bankruptcy case in Phoenix.
The sale was financed by a Mexican bank, which was assured of
repayment by the Export-Import Bank of the United States, a
government agency, T&G;'s attorney said in court documents.
The C-130A aircraft sold by T&G; Aviation apparently may not have
been the last that Aero Postal de Mexico tried to purchase.
In a sworn declaration, M. Gene Wheaton said a man named Joseph
Kelso was trying through 1997 to broker C-130A sales to Aero Postal.
Neither Kelso nor Aero Postal officials could be reached for comment.
Wheaton's declaration was presented as evidence in the sentencing
early this month of Roy Reagan and Fred Fuchs. Those two were
convicted last year in Tucson's U.S. District Court of conspiring to
illegally transfer 22 C-130A and six P-3 aircraft from the military,
through the Forest Service, to six private companies - including T&G;
Aviation.
They are scheduled to begin serving prison sentences May 4.
An ongoing civil lawsuit accuses the six companies of fraud or unjust
enrichment in obtaining the 28 aircraft.
This document resides at http://speech.csun.edu/ben/news/cia/980415.steller.html