DEA seizes 3 aircraft in U.S., under investigation for ties with Ecuadorian govt.

Mystery Flights – Questions as to why names of passengers may have been missing from flight manifest.
rtunoticias.com reported United States (DEA) seized this week three planes of a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., company whose operations had been the subject of an investigation of an assemblyman from the opposition of the Ecuador suspected that one of the aircraft secretly provided services to senior officials of the Government of President Rafael Correa. The three executive aircraft with registration of United States, are reported to company name Fort Lauderdale Sky Jet Elite Corporation whose President, Juan Pablo Larrea, is the younger brother of a former director of the Ecuador civil aeronautics and partner of a school of aviation in Guayaquil. Oscar Negron, the DEA spokesman, explained that he could not give details on the reasons for the civil action imposed on airplanes because it is “an ongoing investigation”. The DEA is not only empowered to make seizures of aircraft suspected of transporting illicit drugs but also by evidence of that have been used to introduce money without declaring to the United States…..As part of the process of seizure, pilots and employees of the company will be questioned by the DEA for details of flights and the type of luggage carrying aircraft. Advocates of the company will have to demonstrate fully that it was licit goods and that they were declared…..If the federal prosecutor’s office considers compelling arguments of lawyers, the aircraft returns. In some cases the prosecutors return goods but impose a fine, but if they conclude that the defence has no reason, they come to seize them and sell them to the highest bidder in the event that it should prove that the aircraft were used in illegal activities, is at the discretion of the Prosecutor’s office to bring criminal charges……Jiménez did not rule out that the Ecuadorian officials have hired Sky Jet Elite Corp. not to use official airplanes that could be seized in the United States by the oil company Chevron, engaged in a complex trial with the Ecuadorian Government. Even so, the question that has not been answered is why, if it is a lawful activity, their names were not registered on the flight manifest. READ FULL STORY