In doing research for my new spy novel The Shadow War,
I looked up the CIA’s ownership of aircraft and airlines. I found out that CIA
operatives fly on commercial, military, and private aircraft, depending on the
circumstances. The Agency owns at least twenty-six airplanes, and 10 of them
were purchased since 9/11. What was amazing to me was how it concealed its
ownership of planes and airlines behind a web of seven shell corporations that
appear to have no employees and no function apart from owning the aircraft.
The
CIA maintains airlines under the following front organizations: Aero Contractors
(United States), Air America (We’ve all heard of this one!), Air Asia (Taiwan),
American Committee for Cultural Freedom, American Committee for the Liberation
of the Peoples of Russia, American Committee on United Europe, and Arizona
Helicopters.
In the
first episode of The Shadow War,
entitled Invisible Killer, CIA spymaster Corey Pearson flies privately instead
of commercial (explained in the story) on a CIA plane that was previously used as
a rendition plane.
I
found some interesting info on the CIA’s torture program, called the “Enhanced Interrogation
Techniques” (EIT) program. For example, since 2001 until the program ended, Jeppesen
Dataplan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing, the world's largest
aerospace company, provided direct flight assistance for the EIT program for undisclosed
fees.
During one clandestine assignment, Jeppesen flew Binyam Mohamed,
Abou Elkassim Britel and Ahmed Agiza, to secret overseas locations where they
were subjected to torture. It also assisted in the transport of German
citizen Khaled El-Masri.
Jeppesen
is based in San Jose, CA, and facilitated in over 70 secret rendition flights
over a four-year period to countries where it knew that detainees are routinely
tortured. A senior Jeppesen official had stated during a board meeting:
"We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights – you know, the torture
flights. Let's face it, some of these flights end up that way."
I hope you enjoy the first episode of The Shadow War!
Robert Morton is a member of the Association
of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and enjoys writing about the U.S.
Intelligence Community in his Corey
Pearson- CIA Spymaster series. Read his newest spy thriller The Shadow War,
episode by episode, as he writes it in the new Kindle Vella program.
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