I found the AMERICA WEST AIRLINE drug trafficking trial fascinating. Patrick Thurston, Vice President of Operations AMERICA WEST, Bob Russell, Chief of Pilots, and Carl Wobser, a captain, all pleaded guilty to multiple counts of narcotics trafficking. They had purchased a DC 6 and embarked upon aT h) Tcareer in the drug trade. Unfortunately for them their plane, which they maxed out electronically, had chronic engine problems which required them to touch down unexpectedly in several countries. This was more than embarrassing since they had not filed flight plans. On one such emergency stop in Aruba, on the way back from Columbia, their plane was found packed with marijuana. There is reason to believe that their intended cargo was cocaine and that after a mix)up they did not wish to fly back empty. Dispite the lofty positions these men held with AMERICA WEST they seemed to have no dificulity getting time off for their drug flights and AMERICA WEST wanted to rehire Russell after his 6 months in the Federal country club.
Twenty percent of the stock of AMERICA WEST was owned by ANSETT AIRLINES of Australia and 55% of ANSETT was held by Sir Peter Ables and Rupert Murdock. We know from Jonathan Kwitney's book THE CRIMES OF PATRIOTS that Burny Houghton, perhaps the key figure in the founding of the CIA drug money laundering bank NUGAN)HAND in Australia, had coffee with Sir Peter Ables the night of his first day in Australia.
I watched Assistant U.S. Attorney James Lacey prosecute both rounds of this case. The three AMERICAN WEST pilots had all plea bargained out. If they did not testify truthfully about the others in the case they would be looking forward to serious time. Lacey prosecutes all the large narcotics cases in Arizona. Because he is the son of Frederic Lacey, the federal judge appointed by the Justice Department to be administrator of the TEAMSTERS UNION, Jim Lacey has unusual clout in the U.S. Attorney's office here. Although Lacey could not deny the pertinence of the information I gave him it was clear that he did not want to know where this case ultimately led. I watched him play patty cake with the defendants when he should have been playing hard ball.
The plot began in July of 1986 when Helmut Bubbel called Thurston from Alaska and arranged a meeting at the ARIZONA BILTMORE RESORT HOTEL with Thurston and the other pilots. Ten days later they met again in Bangkok Thailand to arrange their first cargo. Their original plan was to make their pick up in communist Laos. One doesn't go to the great difficulty to travel to restricted Laos to purchase marijuana or Thai stick as the pilots claimed. Pot is legal in Thailand. One goes to Laos for heroin. Thurston testified that his cut of this first flight was to be one million dollars. When I ran the numbers for Lacey it was obvious that only a heroin cargo would generate this amount of profit. With the DC 6 three or four flights a year would have provided the entire US requirement for heroin.
