Thanks for the update.
Five on small plane detained at StinsonWeb Posted: 01/25/2005 07:48 AM CST
Four immigrants and a pilot were detained after a Homeland Security Department division helped surround their plane at Stinson Municipal Airport on Monday night.
The five are being investigated in connection with a smuggling operation involving Chinese nationals, said Capt. Jeff Humphrey, San Antonio police special operations commander.
The five had been flying in a single-engine Cessna 172P south of San Antonio.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested help from the San Antonio Police Department, which provided a Chinese linguist to translate for the two male and two female passengers.
A police dispatcher said the craft was brought down at Stinson Municipal Airport just before 10 p.m. Monday.
"They brought a plane down. They are holding it," a San Antonio Police Department dispatcher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press early Tuesday. "They asked us to assist them. The FBI is handling it now."
Online records of the Federal Aviation Administration show that the 20-year-old plane is co-owned by Afzal Hameed of Dover, Del. The other co-owner is listed as Alyce S. Taylor, but no address is given for her.
The FAA records state that the plane's last three-year registration was filed in 1999, and that the agency received no response in 2002 after mailing new registration forms to Hameed.
Authorities said the five had been flying south of San Antonio when they were intercepted and ordered to land. Federal agents and San Antonio police surrounded the plane after it landed.
The government's action comes at a time of heightened awareness.
FBI agents have been looking into an uncorroborated tip that 16 people might be planning an attack on Boston, the Associated Press reported last week. They are 13 Chinese nationals, two Iraqis and a man identified on the FBI's Web site as Jose Ernesto Beltran Quinones, whose nationality was not given.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said Friday that he has become "less concerned, not more concerned" about the threat since it was first reported Wednesday.
The original tip was received by the California Highway Patrol, said another federal law enforcement official in Washington who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
The tipster claimed that four of the Chinese - two men and two women - entered the United States from Mexico and were awaiting a shipment of "nuclear oxide" that would follow them to Boston.
FBI officials have said they haven't been able to corroborate the terror claim. A leading theory in the case is that a smuggler of illegal immigrants made up the plot to get revenge on the group, perhaps because members failed to pay.
SNIPLast week the FBI, citing a tip, notified law enforcement officials to watch out for four Chinese nationals -- two men and two women -- described as possible terror suspects who may be headed to the Boston area.
A man suspected of telling authorities about the Boston terror suspects was detained Monday by Mexican authorities in Mexicali, on the California border.
Jose Ernesto Beltran Quinones was on an FBI list of 16 people sought for questioning about the alleged terror plot. FBI special agent Kiffa Shirley told the AP that Quinones was being questioned on behalf of the FBI.
FBI officials have said they haven't been able to corroborate the terror claim. A leading theory in the case is that a smuggler of illegal immigrants made up the plot to get revenge on the group, perhaps because members failed to pay.
Thanks for the update.
Thanks for the update...a little scary...I work just down the road from Stinson Airport.
Ping Happy to #125 .....
