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Details of Covert CIA Airlines, described by head of the airline (chapter in book, Defrauding America)

Published on August 29, 2014

Anatomy of a CIA Proprietary Airline

As my exposure of government corruption became more widely known, additional covert agency people continued to contact me with insider information. In mid-1995, a 15-year veteran of deep-cover CIA activities called and started providing me with detailed information on highly secret covert activities, some of which corroborated what other CIA personnel had told me. Stephen Crittenden operated an airline with close CIA ties, Crittenden Air Transport (CAT), based in Bangkok, Thailand. Much of what Crittenden stated to me was corroborated by some of my sources.

Crittenden‘s described how the CIA assisted in starting up his airline, provides funds and operating expertise. He gave me details about the drugs his aircraft flew for the CIA.

CIA operative Gunther Russbacher had earlier mentioned Crittenden Air Transport as a CIA operation, and I listed it as such in the second edition of Defrauding America. But it wasn’t until Crittenden contacted me, and we spent dozens of hours in almost daily deposition-like sessions that I learned more about the secret operation of that airline. Some CIA operatives referred to that airline as the “ghost” airline because it was often seen in covert operations but little was known of it, including where it was based.

Start of a CIA Proprietary

Crittenden, at an early age, was selected by the FAA to be the “owner” of a new CIA proprietary airline. He had much to learn about operating an airline but the CIA provided management personnel and did most of the scheduling from CIA headquarters at McLean, Virginia. He was provided a mentor to organize and operate the airline that was given the name, Crittenden Air Transport (CAT). In January 1976, the airline commenced operation with five C-123s, an office building in Bangkok,[1] and $20 million in start-up operating cash, provided by the CIA. This high-level planning permitted Crittenden to fly many of the flights. This CIA operation continued until December 1988.

It was a businessman’s dream; he had no mortgage payments to make, and engine replacements and aircraft upgrading were provided by the CIA at no charge. Most of his loads consisted of arms and drugs, with payment for full loads, even when flying partial loads or empty.

First Flight to China

In January 1976, Crittenden Air Transport (CAT) made its first flight, which was to Beijing, China, delivering a load of small arms and picking up a load of heroin. CAT received a $100,000 check from the Shamrock Corporation for that flight. Crittenden, a young man given an airline by the CIA, thought he had really hit the big time. Far bigger payments would be made in the future.

The drugs from that flight were unloaded at Bangkok, Thailand, where another CIA proprietary airline, Southern Air Transport, picked it up for delivery at Los Angeles. At that time, Crittenden was flying twin-engine short-range military C-123s, and Southern Air Transport was flying long-range military four-engine C-130s.

Thereafter, CAT aircraft flew to seven different countries flying arms, including Thailand, China, El Salvador, Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and the USSR. The arms were flown from Thailand after Southern Air Transport aircraft unloaded them.

Payments to CAT for the flights were received from the CIA’s Shamrock Corporation through the Bank of Bangkok. Payments were based upon full loads and at five dollars per pound of permissible cargo weight.

>>3491106

(contd)

Gift of Additional Aircraft

Several years after the formation of Crittenden Air Transport, in 1978, the CIA provided Crittenden Air Transport with seven military C-130s and one Boeing 707, which came from Evergreen International Airline’s operation at Pinal Airport near Marana, Arizona, a small town north of Tucson. Again, no money was paid for the aircraft, and no money was owed on them. Eventually, Crittenden Air Transport had over 15 aircraft.

With these additional and longer-range aircraft, the CIA had Crittenden flying into additional countries, including the United States, Mexico, France, Germany, Great Britain, Egypt, Italy, Colombia, Bolivia, and Panama. Payments for these flights came through the CIA’s Shamrock Corporation, with checks written on various bank accounts, including the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), Valley Bank in Phoenix (a reported CIA proprietary), Bank One, and Barclays Bank in Miami. (Barclays is a major British bank, headquartered in London, with offices throughout the world.)

Common destinations in the Pacific were Sydney, Manila, and Singapore. Out of Miami, common destinations included San Salvador in El Salvador; Guatemala City in Guatemala; Managua in Nicaragua; San Jose in Costa Rica; Panama City in Panama.

The C-123s flying from Bangkok to Manila carried approximately 10 to 12,000 pounds of heroin. Because of the large amount of fuel necessary on the long over-water flights from Southeast Asia, the C-130s, normally able to carry about 40,000 pounds, would carry only 10 to 12,000 pounds.

A typical flight from Manila or Bangkok to the United States would make the first stop at Honolulu for fuel, and then go non-stop to either Miami or Mena, Arkansas, often flying over Mexico. Special codes were used in air traffic control procedures that advised customs not to inspect that aircraft.

Crittenden said that the C-123s were used primarily to haul heroin obtained from the powerful Chung family in China. The drugs were sent from China to Bangkok in old DC-3 and other aircraft flown by independent operators, and then loaded onto CAT’s C-123 aircraft. CAT’s ground personnel at Bangkok handled the unloading and loading. The drugs would then be flown to Clark Air Force Base near Manila, where the drugs would be transferred to long-range C-130s operated by Southern Air Transport. SAT then flew to the United States via Honolulu.

Branching Out

After receiving the long-range C-130 aircraft, Crittenden Air Transport then handled much of the Pacific Rim cargo for the CIA that was formerly handled by Southern Air Transport. These drug-related flights often flew direct from Hong Kong to the United States via Honolulu, often over flying Mexico. Southern Air Transport then confined its operations mostly to Central and South America, until it returned to the Pacific Rim in approximately 1987. When Crittenden shut down his Crittenden Air Transport operation in 1988 the CIA used Evergreen International to take its place. For some reason the Chung family was not satisfied using Evergreen, according to Crittenden, and entered negotiations with him to get back into the operation.

Crittenden went into detail describing the type of cargo he carried, the people he dealt with, and many specifics concerning logistics, fueling, billing, payments, and other data that could only be known by someone in a position held by Crittenden. Most of the loads were either arms or drugs, including heroin from Southeast Asia or cocaine and marijuana from Central and South America. Crittenden explained that other covert proprietary airlines, such as Southern Air Transport and Evergreen, also carried similar loads for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

>>3491117

Further Description of Drug Trafficking

Crittenden described numerous CIA flights transporting drugs into the United States. He described his contacts with Fernando Canles, then head of the Bolivian Air Force, who transported cocoa paste in their own aircraft to Medellin, where it was then off-loaded for further processing into cocaine. Crittenden described flying Canles to La Paz in 1984 in a newly overhauled Lodestar 500 (a converted piston-powered Lockheed Lodestar).

Crittenden said that he gave Canles flying lessons in the Lodestar, and that Canles had an expensive condo in Key Colony at Key Biscayne, Florida.

Crittenden had described the many drug loads that he flew for the CIA out of Southeast Asia and Central and South America. He described various contacts that he had with known high-level drug traffickers. He described his Miami meeting with Pablo Escobar in 1990 to arrange payment for a CIA drug flight out of Colombia.

Paymaster For Drug Cartels?

Crittenden described Colombian and Bolivian drug cartel figures landing their Cessna Citations and Lear jets at Marana. Stephen said they did not carry drugs on these flights. They arrived to obtain payment for prior drug shipments. These were usually flights from Cali and Bolivia, which landed at an airport outside of Mexico City, and then on to Marana, 50 miles into the United States from the Mexican border. Stephen said these planes never had to clear customs.

State Police Protecting Drug Loads

Crittenden went into detail about drug loads that he flew into Mena, Arkansas, for the CIA. He described the practice of Arkansas state police guarding the unloading operations, closing off the airport access roads during unloading, which coincided with what pilots had stated to me who had flown drugs in small and corporate-size aircraft for the DEA.

Shamrock Corporation, CIA Paymaster

Other CIA assets, including Gunther Russbacher and Robert Hunt, had described the role played by the Ireland office of the CIA’s Shamrock Corporation[2] in disbursing bribe money to federal judges and other covert agency assets. Crittenden described his relationship with Shamrock that focused on other areas of Shamrock’s activities. He said that the Shamrock Corporation paid his airline for the flights flown, and that totaled approximately $571,350,000 on flights from 1976 to 1988.

Funds in BCCI

Crittenden said that when BCCI closed down, his proprietaries had about $800,000 on deposit, and that he had a claim in for the 20 percent settlement of that amount. During one of many conference calls with another CIA asset, during which I was silently listening, James Pennington discussed this claim, showing that Pennington was familiar with it. Pennington was the CIA’s liaison to Somoza, the head of Nicaragua until the Sandinistas removed Somoza in 1980. Pennington was also the chief CIA adviser to Central America. He arranged for the purchase of arms from England and other European countries for Somoza, most of which were paid for by U.S. aid money intended to help the citizens of that country. Instead, the CIA’s conduct converted that humanitarian money into weapons against the people.

>>3491123

Somoza was the CIA’s choice to head Nicaragua, and his removal through elections was the start of the United States’ war in that country.

Crittenden described flying several flights carrying CIA money to offshore depositories on Grand Cayman Island for deposit into BCCI. In one case, he carried 40 million dollars.[3] Other CIA assets, including Trenton Parker and Gunther Russbacher, had years earlier described doing the same.

Crittenden said that the BCCI bank not only held the account for Shamrock Corporation, one of the money-disbursing proprietaries for the CIA, but handled money involved with the CIA drug and arms trafficking.

There were two BCCI accounts in which Stephen Crittenden had money. One was in the name of Crittenden Air Transport and the other was in the name of Thomas Kary. Stephen thought the account number of one of them was 09090011.

Three Levels of CIA Proprietary Airlines

Crittenden described three levels of CIA operations. As it relates to personnel, level one would be typists and other office personnel; level two personnel would have compartmentalized knowledge, and level three would have a broader knowledge of a particular operation.

As it related to airlines, Crittenden said level one would be airlines that would be suspected by the public to be a CIA proprietary, such as Southern Air Transport. Level two would be an airline that had less of a public exposure, such as Evergreen International Airlines, based in McMinnville, Oregon, with a tightly guarded base at Marana. Level three would be an airline that was virtually unknown, and which he identified as Crittenden Air Transport.

Arms Flights to Moscow During the “Cold War”

Crittenden described several flights that he made into Moscow during the Cold War period, including one flight in the summer of 1976 where a load of M-16 rifles were off-loaded. The load had been brought to Crittenden at Manila by Southern Air Transport. A load of Russian AK 47s were then loaded on the C-130 and flown to San Salvador in El Salvador. A prior load consisted of American M-16s. At San Salvador the unloading of the arms was coordinated by John Forsyth, who worked for James Pennington, the CIA’s liaison to Anastasio Somoza, who headed the Nicaraguan government.

Crittenden said that the U.S. reason for having Russian and U.S. weapons in Nicaragua was to convey the impression to the news people that both American and Russian soldiers were in the country.

Orders From CIA Headquarters

Crittenden described how he received his instructions from the CIA for his various missions. In some cases, he called his handler at the CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, named Ross Lipscomb. Crittenden remembered the confidential phone number as 202-357-1100, and when the switchboard operator answered, Crittenden would respond, “Access code 4613,” after which he would be switched to his CIA contact. Stephen said that the “3” in the code signified that he was Level Three.

In some cases his instructions came on computer floppy disks that he would then put into his computer. He described receiving floppy disks on some occasions around 1978 from CIA asset G. Gordon Liddy, who in the mid-1990s was a Washington-area and nationally known talk show host. Crittenden said that the physical handling of the disks from Liddy to Crittenden occurred in the garden area of the DuPont Center in Miami.

Included in the floppy-disk data was information about avoiding radar detection while flying drugs into the United States from Central and South America.

CIA Stolen Aircraft Operation

Crittenden described another facet of how the CIA (and the National Security Council under Oliver North) used stolen aircraft in the Contra arms and drug-smuggling operation. CIA assets Gunther Russbacher and Terry Reed described this practice. Crittenden described how twin-engine Beech D-18s were stolen and then sent to Volpar Aviation at Van Nuys Airport in California for a Volpar conversion to nose-wheel from tail-wheel con­figuration. Crittenden stated that a Sam Virse from Memphis, Tennessee, took many of these aircraft to Volpar.

Elaborating more on this operation, Crittenden stated that Aviation Materials on Sweeny Road in Memphis, Tennessee, was an aircraft salvage yard containing wrecked Beech 18s, Queenairs, Kingairs, Barons and Cessna 366 and 377s. Reportedly, the owner, Graham Lotts, would give the aircraft manufacturer’s data plates that were riveted onto the fuselages of the wrecked aircraft to Virse, who owned an airport at Bud Island in Memphis.

More at Link

Define Evergreen.

Q

McCain also supported the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act which handed out airline subsidies after 9/11 to America West Airlines, US Airways, American Trans Air, Aloha Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Evergreen International Airlines, and World Airways.