Argentina: Undeclared weapons and drugs found on US military plane
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
- Página/12 photo
[Translation of an article from Página/12 of Buenos Aires for February 13. See original article here and related article here.]
By Horacio Verbitsky
The federal government has blocked the entry of secret “sensitive cargo” that arrived at the Ezeiza international airport aboard a United States air force flight with no satisfactory explanation of what it would be used for.
The expression “sensitive cargo” was used last Monday by [United States] embassy management counselor Dorothy Sarro when she requested authorization to have a truck with an attached trailer enter the operations area. The enormous C17, a Boeing Globemaster III cargo plane, larger than the well known Hercules, arrived on Thursday afternoon with an arsenal of powerful weapons aboard for a course on management of crisis and hostage taking offered by the United States government to the federal police Grupo de Operaciones Especiales Federal (GEOF – Federal Special Operations Group), which was to be held through the entire months of February and March. The government estimates that the total cost for transportation and for conducting the course approaches two million dollars. The course was authorized by the Argentine govnernment, but when personnel checked the content of the cargo against a list submitted beforehand, machine gun and rifle barrels and a strange suitcase were discovered which had not been included on the manifest. (more…)