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Christian Eduardo Esquino Núñez to testify on Friday
The owner of the jet in which U.S.-born singer Jenni Rivera died is scheduled to testify on Friday, December 14, with regard to the alleged plot to smuggle Saadi Gaddafi to Mexico in 2011.
(For an update on Christian Eduardo Esquino Núñez's appearance at the hearing see Christian Eduardo Esquino Núñez's crash landing).
Christian Eduardo Esquino Núñez is the proprietor of Starwood Management, an aircraft leasing company run out of Toluca, approximately 45 minutes west of Mexico City. Ms. Rivera was en route to Toluca from Monterrey on a Starwood-owned Lear Jet on December 9 when it went down near Iturbide, Nuevo León. The plane, carrying Rivera and six other people – including the 78 year-old pilot – disintegrated upon impact. There were no survivors.
Esquino Núñez...A no-show in the past
Esquino Núñez, who has done time in a United States prison for aircraft fraud, has previously indicated to Mexico's attorney General's office, the PGR, that he was told of a plot to smuggle the son of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi during a drive from Toluca to Mexico City in late September, 2011.
The alleged sources of this information, business partners Gregory Gillispie and Gabby de Cueto, who brokered an aircraft deal with Esquino Núñez, have denied the conversation ever took place.
Also set to testify is Esquino Núñez's wife, Bertha Cruz de la Cruz. Bertha, formerly a good friend of Ms. de Cueto's, claims to have received an email on August 25 2011 from de Cueto which included a passport image of Saadi Gaddafi and bogus names and birth information for his wife and two children.
At this time Ms. de Cueto is imprisoned in Chetumal, Mexico, along with the Canadian mediator Cynthia Vanier, whom the Mexican's claim was the organizer of the alleged the plan.
La politica's sources in Mexico indicate that the authorities are now on the hunt for Mr. Esquino Núñez, but have been unable to find him. The Lear Jet, manufactured in 1969, was one of the earliest ever made and has had at least a dozen owners. Given its age, the plane had a remarkably clean record: only one incident in 2005, in which an imbalance in fuel loads caused it to veer off a runway.
Mr. Esquino Núñez has had a rough go of it lately. In February 2010, Starwood and Wing Financial Management, another company owned by Esquino Núñez, filed for bankruptcy and sought protection from creditors. And in February of this year the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) seized one of Esquino Núñez's Gulfstreams in Tucson, Arizona. He is under suspicion of using the aircraft to transport narcotics. Witnesses were subpoenaed to testify against him. Esquino Núñez has fought back, filing suit in federal court in Tucson, demanding the return of the aircraft, valued at $ 1.5 million.
Esquino Núñez is scheduled to testify on Friday with his wife Bertha via video link from Mexico City. He has been a no-show in the past. Presumably, Mr. Esquino Núñez will be asked to confirm that the alleged Gaddafi plot was mentioned to him, thus corroborating his statements to the PGR.
In the past Mr. Gillispie has claimed that Esquino Núñez has threatened to produce a tape recording of the alleged conversation. None has been provided. As far as La politica is aware, Mr. Esquino Núñez, who was imprisoned briefly in Mexico in March of this year, and then released, does not face any criminal charges in Mexico.
(TE Wilson is the author of Mezcalero, a Detective Sánchez novel.)
Twitter: @TimothyEWilson
Email: lapoliticaeslapolitica [at] gmail [dot] com
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Posted by TimothyEWilson at 09:19
Bludshotiiiiis 10 December 2012 at 21:20
what??he own this plane that crashed with the singer? this whole story is just to much craziness
Podcast: Notes From The Underground
In the podcast Notes From The Underground TE Wilson discusses historical and contemporary attitudes toward crime. Each episode features a one-on-one interview that explores a unique topic. Interviewees include authors, experts, and individuals with personal experiences of crime. These podcasts were originally broadcast through the facilities of Trent Radio in Peterborough, Canada.
Mezcalero, a Detective Sánchez novel
Bicultural and transgender, detective Ernesto Sánchez seeks a missing Canadian woman on Mexico's Pacific coast. Moving uneasily in a world where benign tourism co-exists with extreme violence, he becomes a pawn in a shadowy power-play between corrupt police and drug cartels. Forced to make hard choices – desperate, wounded, and friendless – Sánchez takes refuge in the lawless mountains of Oaxaca. And discovers his fate.
Praise for Mezcalero:
"Wilson's Mezcalero is a real-pager turner…While the milieu of Wilson's novel is reminiscent of the hard-boiled tradition, his creation of P.I. Ernesto Sánchez is original, and helps Wilson push the boundaries with respect to genre. Sánchez is a hard-hitting private eye, but Wilson also depicts him as struggling with many of the issues that transgender individuals typically face; in this manner, Wilson creates both a riveting mystery and timely story about navigating life as a gender nonconforming individual."
Heather Duerre Humann, author of Gender Bending Detective Fiction: A Critical Analysis of Selected Works.
"Mezcalero is a remarkable read, with sustained suspense, surprise explosions of poetry and violence, and some new answers to old questions...Wilson understands something about violence and gender that I have never encountered before: that women's violence is perhaps the most feared. Sanchez's womanly violence in his manly body is a mystery revealed, a truth told that we suspected all along. This is a profoundly feminist book. The women in the book are the power brokers, the activators of action; even the most oppressed empleada is a container of her own complete power. Mezcalero is deftly plotted, and deploys an acrobatic narrative that is, frankly, exhilarating. Sanchez has a lot to teach us. Wilson, too."
Janette Platana, author of A Token of My Affliction (2015 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize; 2016 English Language Trilium Book Award finalist).
"T.E. Wilson's Mezcalero is, as a novel, a tacit consequence of the author's real-world work as a reporter/journalist in Mexico. His work is rich in essence, and rich in detail, of how widespread organized crime and corruption permeate Mexican society. Highly recommended. This is great, well-grounded fiction."
Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia, Senior Research Scholar in Law and Economics, Columbia University, and President of the Citizens' Action Institute (Instituto de Acción Ciudadana).
"T.E. Wilson has crafted a terrific, terrifying and yet sensationally witty portrait of modern Mexico. Detective Sánchez is irresistible. You won't soon forget his journey through that unpredictable jungle that is Mexico today."
León Krauze, Mexican journalist, author and news anchor.
You can order a paper copy here, and the Kindle edition here. To find out more, go to DetectiveSanchez.com.
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