Less than two weeks before the company declared bankruptcy which owned the DC9 recently busted in Mexico with 5.5 tons of cocaine onboard, Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s Department of Transportation issued a press release touting the firm’s bright future in Homeland Security and announcing it had been selected to be the state’s primary provider of airport security applications.
 This is not the first time Jeb Bush has been involved endorsing a drug trafficking aviation company. Nor is it the first time SkyWay Aircraft has been the recipient of unexplained government favoritism.  

The Federal Aviation Administration, for example, has been doing SkyWay a major solid…

Two months and eleven days after the firm’s American-registered DC9 was caught carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine in Campeche, Mexico destined for distribution in the U.S., the FAA is still stonewalling requests for the release of what are—by statue— public records of the registration and ownership of the plane.

In a twisted perversion of the U.S. Government’s so-called War on Drugs, the FAA is “Just Saying No” to the American people, who are not allowed to know if an American Drug Lord may have been responsible for the last doomed flight of “Cocaine One.”

We're not cleared for that information.

Be a Citizen Journalist! Win big prizes! Pressure the FAA

We first became interested in the story of the orphan 5.5 tons of coke after learning  that Cocaine One's registered owner, “Royal Sons LLC,”  had once been housed in a hanger owned by terror flight school Huffman Aviation at the Venice Fl Airport.

That's a real unlucky little airport, we thought to ourselves. Maybe they should shut it down before something really bad happens.

Compounding the seriousness of FAA malfeasance is that the DC9 airliner had been apprehended while painted to resemble an aircraft from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. That makes the FAA’s refusal to release the plane’s records a matter of urgent national security.

Today the MadCowMorningNews is issuing an urgent appeal to readers and all Americans who believe in real moral values, like democracy and government accountability, to demand the FAA immediately release the registration records of the DC9 (N900SA) in question.

Take a moment to help put some pressure on the FAA. If you’re someone interested in making our Government answer, if only occasionally, to the governed, click here.

Help us send the FAA a message.

The Homeland Security Inc. Scandal

The current unpleasantness combines a witch’s brew of elements from the Iran Contra scandal—CIA-led cocaine trafficking in “support” of, well, let’s see: Oliver North, Adnan Khashoggi, and, oh yes, the Contras—mixed with the massive corruption and insider-led looting of the Savings & Loan Scandal which eventually cost American taxpayers over a half trillion dollars.

The burgeoning industry which has rapidly grown up under the rubric of “Homeland Security” is not only running roughshod over American concepts of equal justice under law while simultaneously looting the American Treasury for billions and billions of dollars, which we will all ultimately pay for with crippling inflation, just like the double-digit inflation at the end of the Vietnam War…

It is also bankrupting—to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars—public companies whose bankruptcies have heretofore been viewed merely as isolated events.

Experienced and respected aviation executives cited in “Welcome to TERRORLAND” stated they had witnessed the FAA protecting—both before and after the 9.11 attack—corrupt aviation companies in Florida which played host to Mohamed Atta and the other terrorist hijackers. So the current FAA stonewall should not be viewed as an isolated instance, but part of a pattern of deliberate acts.

We became curious about the huge size of the Mexican haul,5.5 tons, and where it stood in the Big Busts of History. And what we found is either a statistical anomaly or a brand new unit of measurement like the English yard, in a system of weights and measures to which ordinary mortals are not privy.

There have been sixteen separate seizures of precisely 5.5 tons of cocaine in the past 20 years, we discovered. You can count them. We did.

Who knows? Maybe 5.5 tons is like an Eight-Ball to the Gods.

Saudis, Ultra-Zionists…and Jeb Bush

Why is the FAA keeping the American people in the dark about the names of individuals or companies trafficking tons of cocaine under the protective cloak of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security?

Perhaps it is because SkyWay is owned by an international assortment of spooks, Saudis (like the long-time lieutenant of Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi) and a number of other “connected” individuals.

And… SkyWay was founded by a Miami lawyer who is also the U.S. President of a banned Israeli ultra-nationalist political party.

And…SkyWay has provided material assistance to Florida Republicans associated with Jeb Bush, for example, like current Florida Senator Mel Martinez, who barnstormed around Florida during his run for office in a plane provided—gratis, natch—by SkyWay Aircraft.

Just who are the guilty? How are they doing it? How can they be spotted?

Let’s take a look.

"The 28th Parallel is where the real money is."

While we won’t be able to finger with any certainty  those responsible until the FAA releases the public records they have so far been concealing, it is possible to learn by observing the the pond these fish are swimming in…

For example, it is remarkable how those involved in the 5 tons-of-coke saga share similar characteristics with players involved with Bagman Jack Abramoff.

People working for seemingly disparate entities in seemingly disparate industries seem to somehow be working out of the same dog-eared playbook, for example, their faces all seem to wear the same smirk.

They’re fraudsters. But fraudsters with a difference: fraudsters with  immunity… which Abramoff himself possessed, in spades, until the stench wafted all the way to Heaven, a very long ways indeed.

Abramoff may be going to jail, but although he was the chief beneficiary, it doesn't appear at all likely that he will face trial for the capital crime of murdering Gus Boulis. Jack Abramoff is proof that “Being connected means never having to say you’re sorry.”

Speaking of smirks…Remember the in-your-face ridiculous stated purpose of Bagman Jack's phony foundation, an “international think tank” whose stated goal, according to their literature, was “enhancing the methods of empowerment in possession of and within the United States?”

The description of the foundation’s purpose proudly made not the slightest bit of sense… or attempt to seem plausible. That kind of arrogance comes with immunity.

No wonder these guys all wear a permanent smirk.

Like SkyWay, Glen Kovar’s earlier "business venture" went bankrupt as well, drat the luck… Satellite Access Systems had something vaguely to do with satellites, at least according to an interview with Kovar in The Tampa Business Review headlined “Satellite firm scans universe of new markets.”

“Some men follow their dreams,” it began. “Glenn Kovar chased the 28th parallel. Which is primarily why several weeks ago the 64-year-old president of Satellite Access Systems moved his company from Pasadena, Calif., to St. Petersburg. Fl.”

Electronic lifeblood from Nigerian Scamsters

The Long Island native explained why his offices sit atop the 16-story Plaza Towers, near the St. Petersburg Pier:

“Of the umpteen imaginary lines encircling the globe, the northern hemisphere's 28th happens to be among the most popular parallels for high-flying communications satellites, SAS' electronic lifeblood,” said Kovar.

"And if you look at a globe, there aren't that many cities in the world on the 28th parallel that are nice to live in. St. Petersburg is."

We know a man who used to design satellites for Hughes, the world’s leader in satellite technology. We read him the quote.

“Its utter horseshit,” he told us bluntly. “The man obviously doesn’t know the first thing about satellites.”

Well now. Competency has never been a requirement for getting ahead in corrupt cultures, has it?

While SkyWay was running out of money, its executive cadre was busy cashing out. The heavy lifting involved nothing more serious than issuing increasingly rosy press releases. In late December 2004, SkyWay announced a new $24 million dollar loan from Lantax, Ltd, described as “a Private Investment Group consisting of four Western European and Northern African families.”

A representative of Lantax, Dr. Thabo Stephens, waxed enthusiastic. "We are confident in the technology and the business plan presented by Messieurs Kovar and Hansen. With anticipated organizational changes and the proposed funding presented by us, we believe that SkyWay will meet its business objectives. We will stand behind SkyWay Communications, with additional funding if necessary, as they enter the security and in-flight broadband communication sector."

Worried investors must have breathes a sigh of relief. Nobody goes belly up right after getting a $24 million dollar loan, right?
 
That Bush boy is a chip off the ol block

Alas… “Dr. Thabo Stephens” isn't a Doctor, and he probably doesn't know how many zeroes go after 24 when you're lending out $24 million. He's a Nigerian fraudster, one of those people who send emails addressing you as "Esteemed Sir" while asking for assistance in the delicate matter of getting money out of Nigeria, or, um, expatriating funds… grown too large, you see, to store comfortably anymore, even at the country estate…

Don't people go to jail for fraud anymore?

Apparently not, because less than a month later the Manager of Aviation Systems and Support for Jeb Bush’s Florida Department of Transportation issued a press release praising the "esteemed Sirs" at SkyWay, stating, "This is a great accomplishment for the FDOT's Aviation Test Center. The FDOT wants to make Florida's airports safe and secure with the use of the latest technology available. We are looking forward to working with SkyWay."

Two weeks after this ringing public endorsement SkyWay's biggest stockholders sued the firm's management for fraud. Bankruptcy was just around the corner. And while this might look like a mid-level government bureaucrat's executive boner having nothing whatever to do with Governor  Bush, that's sadly not the case…

The Florida Governor himself had provided a celebrity endorsement to terror flight school owner Wally Hilliard's operation well after the company's Lear (N351WB) had been busted by DEA agents armed with machine guns, who, during the same month Atta arrive at his school, found 43 pounds of heroin onboard.

Slim to none. And Slim left town.

What are the odds that a harried state government is going to unknowingly heap praise and pass out state contracts to two aviation companies serving as fronts for drug trafficking?

 Hilliard's air charter service was even being utilized at virtually no cost––despite the fact that rentals for Lear jets can run as high as $1,800 an hour––by Florida Governor Jeb Bush… at the same time their planes were flying back and forth from Venezuela loaded with smack…

Isn't that whack?

A sitting Governor would seem well-advised to steer clear of heroin trafficking front companies that also train terrorist, no?

Yet Governor Jeb Bush honored Hilliard's operation––called at various times Florida Air, Sunrise Airlines and Discover Air––with a personal visit, even posing for photos with the "Discover Air family."

Here’s a question that needs to be asked:

What did Jeb know, and when did he know about it?

The Genesis of the hidden hand of history

The motley assortment of international players involved in the caper in one capacity or another appear on the surface to have little in common. But there are hidden connections between them, we have learned, some going back years, which remain unexplained.

We’ll cite just one of a number of examples:

As described in a previous story, the “Cocaine One” DC9 had a twin, whose records we have been able to pry out of the hands of the FAA. And we retailed the long list of CIA front companies which owned the this plane before SkyWay, including the owner just before SkyWay, Adnan Khashoggi lieutenant Ramy El-Batrawi.

This association is no accident. SkyWay founder Farkas is a major investor in one of El-Batrawi’s other front companies, Genesis Realty.

SkyWay Aircraft was a phony company which lost $40 million of shareholders money before going bankrupt. But that was okay: the company’s reason for being wasn’t to enhance the well-being of stockholders.

They never even bothered to develop a product.

\

What really hit the Pentagon? Maybe Mars & Venus snake oil

SkyWay's purpose was providing an excuse for twin DC9’s to sit on a runway in St. Petersburg, FL, painted to impersonate official U.S. Government planes.

A few of the names we’ll be hearing more about include:

Saudi billionaire and long-time CIA asset Adnan Khashoggi, who first emerged in the 1970s as a middleman for U.S. defense contractors looking to do business with Saudi Arabia, and then later helped arrange the sale of U.S. arms to Iran to fund the anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua. He's currently wanted by Thailand on suspicion of embezzling $64 million from a failed bank in 1996.

…And Khashoggi’s henchman Ramy El-Batrawi, currently under indictment with Big K for looting over $120 million from a bankrupt company called GenesisIntermedia, the company that owns the marketing rights to the creative output of Mars & Venus snake oil salesman John Gray.

In what must be the Mother of All Coincidences, Gray is also the man who funded the disinformation campaign  calling itself the 9.11 Truth movement.

Imagine that.

…And Michael Farkas, a Miami attorney who founded and was a major stockholder of  SkyWay Communications Holding Company, the last registered owner of the Cocaine One DC9. Farkas serves double duty as the American representative of an ultra-nationalist Zionist party in Israel; hr is as well a sales agent for anti-missile technology developed by Israel Aircraft Industries' for the Israeli Defense Force.

…And we mustn't forget Al Ali Al Sabah, Chief of the National Guard of Kuwait as well as the oldest member of the ruling Kuwaiti Royal Family, one of the dozen Saudi and Kuwaiti "investors" in SkyWay brought to the deal by Nazar Talib, a native of Baghdad Iraq who is today a securities trader in Arkansas.

Finally let's take a quick peek at what the disgraced owners of SkyWay are doing today. Sweating out indictments, perhaps?

 

Hardly. They're already waist-deep in their next big  score. Check out SkyWay President Bernie Kovar's old business card, above.

Then his–Mon Dieu!– his new business card, just below it, from his new company.

La plus ca change!

There used to be a saying: "Crime doesn’t pay."

You don't hear it much anymore.