Suitcases Full of Cash On Plane (New Mexico)

ABQ journal ^ | 12/5/03

[knak]

A tip from an Albuquerque aircraft charter company led Moriarty Police to an airplane with an unusual cargo— suitcases full of more than $1 million in cash.

Moriarty Police Chief Bobby Garcia said the two currency-filled suitcases seized from an airplane at the city's airport on Nov. 27 weighed more than 300 pounds. They contained $1,169,896, Garcia said Wednesday.

No arrests have been made in the ongoing investigation.

The events that led to the cash seizure began when a private plane requested an emergency landing at the Moriarty Municipal Airport due to engine problems around noon on Thanksgiving.

Garcia said Kamlesh Rana, 34, of Connecticut was piloting the 1978 Piper six-seater airplane. Rana told police he was instructed by his supervisor, Carlos Cruz, who owns the Piper aircraft, to fly his passenger from New Jersey to Arizona.

According to the flight plan, Rana and his passenger, Yuri Folks, 31, were traveling from New Jersey with a final destination of Glendale, Ariz., Garcia said.

Once the plane landed in Moriarty, however, Rana could not restart the plane. Garcia said Rana then called Bode Aviation in Albuquerque to request a charter for him and his passenger.

Bode Aviation refused to comment on the events that took place. However, Garcia said the dispatcher at the aviation company became suspicious when Rana told her he had one passenger, whose name he did not know, and 300 pounds of cargo.

After speaking to Rana, the Bode dispatcher phoned Moriarty Police to alert them of her suspicions, Garcia said.

Officers arrived on scene and separated the pilot and passenger for questioning, he said. Neither knew the other's name.

"It was odd that the pilot did not know the name of the passenger, since they had been flying together from New Jersey," he said.

Officers requested permission to search the aircraft and asked if there was anything on the plane they should know about. Both men denied there was anything unusual on the plane, removed their personal belongings and agreed to the search.

Once their items were removed a large suitcase remained in the rear cargo area. Folks and Rana both denied that the suitcase belonged to them.

Police removed the suitcase from the airplane, opened it and discovered, "a substantial amount of cash wrapped tightly in cellophane," Garcia said. At that point police requested assistance from the Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI, Garcia said.

A drug-sniffing dog from the State Motor Transportation Department was brought to the scene to search the aircraft, Garcia said. He said the dog "hit on the plane's front cargo compartment," directly behind the engine. Another suitcase filled with cellophane-wrapped cash was discovered in the front cargo area.

Garcia said no narcotics were found on board the airplane or in either of the suitcases. However, he said the suitcases could have residual narcotics on them, which would alert the drug-sniffing dog.

The money has been kept in a local Moriarty bank since being confiscated. It will be turned over to the FBI as evidence, Garcia said.

Bill Elwell, spokesman for the FBI in Albuquerque, said the pilot was questioned by FBI agents and released.

Folks, however, was not in possession of the necessary documentation to be in the United States, and it has been determined that he is here illegally, said Leticia Zamarripa, public information liaison for the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection in El Paso. "He is being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at this time," Zamarripa said.

The FBI believes Folks may be a citizen of Jamaica. Elwell said a judicial process will determine what happens to the money unless one of the parties involved can prove it is legally theirs and they have a reason for having it.

"Can it be legal cash? I don't know," Elwell said. Elwell said there is nothing illegal about carrying, or transporting, large sums of money. However, it is highly suspicious.

He said "nine times out of 10 we are thinking (in these situations) that this could be drug money."

Elwell said he could not comment further due to the pending investigation of the case.

The questioning of the pilot when he tried to rent another plane was routine, according to aviation officials.

Thomas Linn of A-1 Executive Jet Worldwide Charter in Scottsdale, Ariz., said if someone phoned in to request a charter and was not one of the company's regular customers, some preliminary checking would be conducted over the phone.

"We would do some checking for verification of address, passenger list, and (ensure) all passengers are in possession of a current, valid U.S. government-issued identification card," Linn said.

[WackyKat]

Do you get the feeling they train these dogs to sniff out money just so they can say it is drug money?

It has been proven that almost all currency has at least traces of illegal drugs on it

There is little doubt that we all have carried around money that has been in the pocket of a crack dealer at some point.

So if you have what the cops decide is "too much cash" they just call it drug money

[Ramius]

Cute, but oxycontin doesn't cost that much.

[xrp]

Coroner started on Feb 6, 2003. ZOTTTTTTT!!!

[CindyDawg]

It reminds me of that guy who was arrested for drugs and won a lottery ticket. They took it away because he had no income so it was concluded that he bought it with drug money. A dollar!

[Ramius]

It has been proven that almost all currency has at least traces of illegal drugs on it

It might be a fun idea, but there isn't enough on ordinary bills to make a drug sniffing dog alert.

[Terry Mross]

Here's something you might try. Buy a roundtrip ticket anywhere leaving and returning as soon as possible. Let's assume you buy a ticket from Houston to Nashville with a three hour stay in Nashville then right back to Houston. I promise a federal agent of some sort will approach you at the airport and ask you if you have a large sum of money. And if you have $5,000 or more in cash say goodbye to your money. That's what America has bome to. Suspicion is cause enough to confiscate your stuff.

[Cicero]

It was some perfectly innocent spare cash I had in a suitcase that went astray yesterday. I want it back.

[Ramius]

Woah... that happens to me all the time. Now I guess I know why.

Don't get me wrong... I'm the in the "no" WOD camp. But that doesn't mean I have to have sympathy for the cartel crowd.

[piasa]

In this case the authorites didn't check into the two because there was cash involved. They checked into the two because the company alerted them that there was a private plane being flown by a pilot who didn't seem to be aware of what his passenger's name is.

If you don't see anything suspicious about a pilot who flies cross country with one passenger yet doesn't even know the guy's name, carrying a suitcase which doesn't- according to the pilot and passenger- belong to them, then you wouldn't see anything suspicious about an Arab inquiring into flight lessons but not showing any interest in landing procedures.

And a simple check confirmed the passenger is an illegal. I'd say the authorities had pretty good reason to be suspicious.

And this is BEFORE the suitcase was found to have cash in it.

This is hardly a case of 'just the cash' being the trigger for an investigation, though with planes, cash and illegals involved this could as easily be a terrorist case as a drug case.

[LibWhacker]

Fifty thousand dollars in $20 bills . . .

Darnit! That should be: Fifty thousand $20 bills. Is it bedtime? I'm makin' a mistake a minute here. Goodnight all.

[coloradan]

It's not a crime to carry lots of cash.

Tell that to the judge after your cash is confiscated. (Remembering that asset forfeiture is a civil process and not criminal: you lack certain rights and must prove your innocence, while the government has a lower burden of proof.)

Is possession of cash a crime?

[BlazingArizona]

I'm sure that if someone, anyone, would step forward and claim the cash, the Feds would love to speak to them and give them their money.

No, if it's over $10,000 the feds could steal it anyway without due process, unless they were to charge you with a crime. You would have to sue to get it back.

[TexNotMex]

"Another suitcase filled with cellophane-wrapped cash was discovered in the front cargo area."

Sometimes I think they train these dogs to sniff out cellophane not drugs or cash. I guess if you are going to be smuggling drugs or cash, it would be wise to use fresh cellophane/plastic bags, not something that you had your ham sandwich in earlier. On an unrelated note, just recently, along the US-Mexico border, 80 lbs. of illegal bolonga was seized. I bet that dog pissed himself when he found that. Thats probably the biggest illegal bolonga seizure this year. I guess customs hit the mother-load.

[Spunky]

There was an article not to long ago about a truck being stopped and it was full of millions of dollars.

I wonder if it could be money coming in to fund terrorist cells here in the U.S.

[VeniVidiVici]

No, if it's over $10,000 the feds could steal it anyway without due process, unless they were to charge you with a crime. You would have to sue to get it back.

Ah, but you see then we would be reading a different story. :-)

An innocent person would scream bloody murder that the cops are stealing their money under asset forfeiture laws. And, then, if the guy is Jamaican as mentioned in the story? Profiling would get thrown around, "flying while black" would be bantied about the liberal press, etc.

Fortunately, for the feds, this money isn't owned by anybody.

[WackyKat]

It has been proven that almost all currency has at least traces of illegal drugs on it

It might be a fun idea, but there isn't enough on ordinary bills to make a drug sniffing dog alert.

That explains the failure of my attempts to get high by licking my money.

[arasina]

Kamlesh Rana? Yuri Folks?

[Hegemony Cricket]

I admit it, it's mine. Let's talk.

[I'll be your Huckleberry]

But scientists say the test the police rely on is no test at all because drugs contaminate virtually all the currency in America.

Over a seven-year period, Dr. Jay Poupko and his colleagues at Toxicology Consultants Inc. in Miami have repeatedly tested currency in Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Milwaukee, New York City, Pittsburgh, Seattle and Syracuse. He also tested American bills in London.

"An average of 96 percent of all the bills we analyzed from the 11 cities tested positive for cocaine. I don't think any rational thinking person can dispute that almost all the currency in this country is tainted with drugs," Poupko says.

Scientists at National Medical Services, in Willow Grove, Pa., who tested money from banks and other legal sources more than a dozen times, consistently found cocaine on more than 80 percent of the bills.

"Cocaine is very adhesive and easily transferable," says Vincent Cordova, director of criminalistics for the private lab. "A police officer, pharmacist, toxicologist or anyone else who handles cocaine, including drug traffickers, can shake hands with someone, who eventually touches money, and the contamination process begins."

Cordova and other scientists use gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy, precise alcohol washes and a dozen other sophisticated techniques to identify the presence of narcotics down to the nanogram level one billionth of a gram. That measure, which is far less than a pin point, is the same level a dog can detect with a sniff.

What a drug dog cannot do, which the scientists can, is quantify the amount of drugs on the bills.

Half of the money Cordova examined had levels of cocaine at or above 9 nanograms. This level means the bills were either near a source of cocaine or were handled by someone who touched the drug, he says.

Another 30 percent of the bills he examined show levels below 9 nanograms, which indicates "the bills were probably in a cash drawer, wallet or some place where they came in contact with money previously contaminated."

The lab's research found $20 bills are most highly contaminated, with $10 and $5 bills next. The $1, $50 and $100 bill usually have the lowest cocaine levels.

And what happens to the mountain of "drug-contaminated" dollars the government seizes each year? The bills aren't burned, cleaned, or stored in a well-guarded warehouse.

Twenty-one seizing agencies questioned all said the tainted money was deposited in a local bank - which means it's back in circulation.

[NewRomeTacitus]

Beat me to that amazing fact, Doc Holliday. Good work.

What's the big mystery? Just another load of cash from George Soros on its way to a "progressive" Democratic politician. "Nothing to see here...move along."