Pilot of DC9 in 5.5 ton cocaine bust escaped custody in three countries

By Daniel Hopsicker

The identity of the pilot of the American-registered DC-9 (N900SA)  from St. Petersburg FL caught carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine in Mexico's Yucatan several years ago, long a mystery, finally saw the light of day recently in Mexico.

Carmelo Vasquez Guerra, a Venezuelan, was the DC9's pilot who was said to have “escaped”  from the airport while his airplane was being seized, and four other members of his crew were arrested.

He was later taken into custody by Mexican authorities, and charged with flying an airplane packed with 128 identical suitcases filled with cocaine.

Getting caught with  5.5 tons of cocaine would seem to call for some serious jail time. Reporters in Mexico assumed he'd been sent to prison for, like... forever.

So imagine reporter Francisco Gomez of Mexico City's El Universal  surprise when he made a startling discovery:  Carmelo Vasquez Guerra—amazingly and inexplicably—had been released from prison less than two years after being arrested.

The shocking news was delivered via an international headline stating that a pilot named Carmelo Vasquez Guerra had been arrested in the West African nation of Guinea Bissau on a twin-engine Gulfstream II carrying... what else? 550 kilos—a half-ton— of cocaine.


An inexhaustible supply of get out of jail free cards

The date of Vasquez's West African arrest was July 13, 2008.

Mexican authorities had nabbed Carmelo Vasquez Guerra, Gomez learned, not long after authorities discovered him missing from the DC9. 

How was it he was out of jail, less than two years later, Reporter Francisco Gomez asked.

Authorities in Mexico refused to discuss Vasquez Guerra's release with reporter Gomez.

But news about Carmelo kept coming, and kept getting worse. Gomez discovered that Mexico was not the only country to arrest Vasquez Guerra for the presumably major offense of flying box-car sized loads of cocaine, only to let him go.

It's happened in three. Caught and released under mysterious and unexplained circumstances. in Mexico, in Guinea Bissau, and in Mali, home of Timbuktu.

Drug pilot Carmelo Vasquez Guerra—or , more likely, the global drug trafficking network to which he belongs, which has, it must be said, a strong and enduring presence in St Petersburg FL, the shuffleboard capital of the world-- has an apparent inexhaustible supply of “get out of jail free” cards.

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