A Black Eye, a Florida Company & a Creative Solution
Fast forward to 2006. The company that really owned the DC9 busted with 5.5 tons of cocaine is Skyway Communications. According to Skyway’s bankruptcy trustee, Fred Geffon, a Skyway principal, was, illegally, just “borrowing” the plane.
Skyway’s chief shareholder is Argyll Equities LLC, a private investment bank in tiny Boerne, Texas (pop. 7,500).
Argyll is in the business of providing “creative financial solutions globally.”
An example of Argyll’s creative financial solutions, according to documents filed with the SEC, is arranging for Mexican businessman Jose Serrano Segovia, who now “owns” the shipping line Grupo TMM, to get a $17 million “loan.”
According to The Santiago Times, an English language newspaper in Chile, Serrano turns around and provides a “creative financial solution” of his own, to “Chilean narcotics trafficker Manuel Losada, who is linked to both the Cali and Juarez Cartel.”
When Losada is arrested in the Chilean capital of Santiago, the paper reports, “He is linked to a shipment of five tons of cocaine, which U.S. drug enforcement officials in Miami intercepted on the vessel Harbour, as it headed toward Guantanamo Bay.”
“Mexican newspaper El Universal de Mexico connected Losada to the Juarez Cartel of Mexico, referring to him as the Chilean narcotics trafficker, in September 1997,” said the Santiago Times.
Both Losada and Jose Serrano deny any connection to the Juarez Cartel. 
But Argyll Equities LLC owns nearly 21 million shares of SkyWay stock that is totally and utterly worthless.
Investment-wise, this could be considered something of a black eye… unless there are other considerations involved.
An aquatic interlude during which the crew abandons ship
It is Jan. 5, 1992, and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter is slicing through the Windward Passage, the sweep of warm blue Caribbean Sea separating Cuba from Haiti.
The Coast Guard cutter, the Campbell, is looking for the MV Harbour, a Chilean freighter steaming for Baltimore under a Panamanian flag carrying a cargo of zinc. Drug agents think a shipment of cocaine may be aboard.
It is close to midnight when the Harbour heaves into view. The Coast Guard cutter radios for permission to board. The Harbour douses its lights, and radios back, “We’re on fire and sinking.”
The crew is abandoning ship. They have been trying to scuttle the Harbour.
Coast Guard crewmen scramble aboard and put out the fire. Someone started it in the engine room. The Coast Guard finds three feet of water below decks. Another few minutes and the ship will go down. They stop the flooding in time, and begin to dig through the zinc.
They find 5 tons of cocaine. It is at the time the Coast Guard’s third-largest cocaine seizure in history.
When the Harbour sailed to Chile from Peru, it was known as the Golden Hill, the Coast Guard learns. Then it was re-registered and renamed The Harbour by a Chilean company, headed by a Chilean shipping magnate named Manuel Losada.
Operation White Tiger
Hank Gonzalez’s son is Carlos Hank Rhon. The thing to remember about him is: Hank loves wildlife.
After a sojourn in Asia he lands in Mexico City with twelve suitcases filled with jewels, ocelot pelts, and ivory tusks. He keeps a rare white Siberian tiger as a pet.
When a Tijuana gossip columnist makes fun of him in print, Jorge’s bodyguards cut him down with Uzis.
They go to prison. Not Hank.
A DEA investigation of the Hanks called Operation White Tiger accuses the family of having illicit business partnerships with some of the world’s most infamous drug smugglers. The report accuses the Hank family of being narco-kingpins who launder money through Laredo National Bank.
The Washington Post, quoting parts of the report, says the Hank family “poses a significant criminal threat to the United States.”
In 1993 a Cardinal is murdered in his car at the airport in Guadalajara. Afterwards the killers of Cardinal Jose Ocampo saunter over to board a Mexicana flight.
It is being held at the gate for their arrival. Onboard is Hank Rhon. The men fly back to Tijuana together. When the killers are caught, Hank is not charged.
Lucky Hank!