Iran linked to seizure of F-14s in Chino
Iran linked to seizure of F-14s in Chino
By Maeve Reston and Garrett Therolf
Times Staff Writers
11:30 AM PST, March 7, 2007
The trail that led to the seizure of four Tomcat fighters in San Bernardino County had stops in Bakersfield and Hollywood, but the starting point was Iran, which still uses F-14s in its active fleet.
On Tuesday, federal agents seized the four jets after investigators determined that the craft were not demilitarized and were improperly sold or transferred to private parties, including museums and the producer of the TV show "JAG," authorities said.
When the jets were retired in the mid-1990s at the Naval Air Station at Point Mugu, Navy officials failed to ensure that the aircraft were stripped of military hardware, according to a court affidavit filed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
The affidavit paints a broad picture of the investigation that has at its heart Iran's need for military supplies for its aircraft, a need difficult to fill.
Though the United States and Iran are now cautious foes, sparring over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s was a principal supplier of arms to the Shah of Iran. Among the weapons supplied by the U.S. were F-14 Tomcats as well as missile systems.
"Due to the embargo placed on Iran by the United States after the fall of the shah, a flourishing illegal trade developed to supply the Islamic Republic of Iran with components to maintain these weapons systems," the affidavit, which was filed Friday in Los Angeles, noted.
"This illegal trade resulted in the establishment of numerous front companies in international locations and an increased demand for international arms dealers," it stated.
One such front was a Bakersfield company, whose owner and two principal officers were convicted in June 2001 of violating the Arms Export Control Act. Agents from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized thousands of aircraft and missile components that were bound for Iran via intermediaries.
Some of the documents found in that case led to a Northern California man. Undercover agents contacted him and negotiated a deal to purchase an F-14 canopy to send to Iran. The man eventually backed out of the deal and contacted the FBI.
He also told the FBI that he had traded an engine lift to an air museum to get the canopy. That set investigators off to track the whereabouts of the craft.
By September 2005, federal investigators were looking for the museums that had received F-14s. They determined that three planes, which had not been properly demilitarized, were procured in April 1999 from the U.S. Naval Air Station in Point Mugu and improperly transferred to California Public Recycling, a scrap dealer in Oxnard.
The fourth craft was found at Southern California Aviation, a business at the Victorville airport. That was the plane that had been improperly released to "JAG," a television series about military lawyers. The plane is owned by an El Mirage aviation company.
On Tuesday, customs agents and DCIS agents seized two of the fighters from the Yanks Air Museum and one from the Planes of Fame air museum, both at the Chino Airport.
"The investigation has not uncovered any evidence that these planes have been plundered for parts by people with nefarious motives," said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for ICE, "but the fact that they were not properly demilitarized certainly presents a potential vulnerability."
Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, said Tuesday that no one had been charged but that the investigation was continuing. "There are some issues related to statute of limitations and we're examining those issues."
Defense Department officials have determined that the F-14s should have been destroyed by an authorized contractor when they were taken out of military service between 1996 and 1998, according to the affidavit.
Instead, the officer in charge of demilitarizing the planes "improperly and without authority" released three of them to the Oxnard company for disposal as scrap metal, even though the parts that made up the fighter jet were specifically barred from release to scrap metal recycling programs, the federal court document alleged.
Marc Keenberg, a consultant to California Public Recycling, confirmed that the company received several military airplanes at that time but described them as "already in scrap condition."
Keenberg said the recycling company sold the planes to another scrap yard and lost track of them after that.
The producer of "JAG" said his company went through proper military channels when it acquired the retired F-14.
"They didn't sell us one. They gave us one and they removed the engines," said Don Bellisario, whose company now produces the military drama "NCIS."
"The Navy said to us, 'We can give you an old aircraft, but we have to demil [demilitarize] it before we can give it to you.' I just assumed that's what happened."
The Navy also "broke its back," meaning that the F-14's fuselage was sliced in half and then welded back together, Bellisario said. Unable to fly, the jet was used as a prop for shots on the ground and had to be towed around, he said.
That plane in 2005 was sold to the company Aviation Warehouse in El Mirage, which was storing the F-14 at Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville.
Mark Thomson, president of Aviation Warehouse, said the company also bought the other three F-14s for $5,000 apiece from a middleman, who was facilitating the sale for California Public Recycling in Oxnard. They later were sold to the Yanks airplane museum in Chino for $50,000 apiece, Thompson said.
Thomson, 65 of Adelanto, said he was outraged by the seizure of the planes and plans to fight the government's actions.
"When I bought the planes, everything was 100% totally legal and aboveboard," said Thomson, whose company provides props for movie television productions.
During the 17-month investigation, former Navy Chief Warrant Officer Mark Holmes told authorities that his Point Mugu unit — known as VX-9 Detachment — handled the sale of fighter jets. He said one of his superiors instructed him to contact scrap dealers to see if they were interested in "picking up F-14s for scrap," according to the court affidavit.
Holmes said the officer in charge set the price for the aircraft between $2,000 and $4,000. The checks for the planes were placed into a fund identified as the VX-9 Morale Welfare and Recreation fund, the affidavit stated.
There was no documentation of the sales or papers showing that the planes had been demilitarized, federal officials said.
Federal officials are dismantling the planes and will ship them to a military yard in Tucson for storage and "final demilitarization."
maeve.reston@latimes.com
garrett.therolf@latimes.com
Times staff writers Jonathan Abrams, Sara Lin, David Haldane, Michael Muskal and Times researcher John Jackson contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/la-ex-f14-7mar08,0,965051.story?track=mostviewed-sectionfront
By Maeve Reston and Garrett Therolf
Times Staff Writers
11:30 AM PST, March 7, 2007
The trail that led to the seizure of four Tomcat fighters in San Bernardino County had stops in Bakersfield and Hollywood, but the starting point was Iran, which still uses F-14s in its active fleet.
On Tuesday, federal agents seized the four jets after investigators determined that the craft were not demilitarized and were improperly sold or transferred to private parties, including museums and the producer of the TV show "JAG," authorities said.
When the jets were retired in the mid-1990s at the Naval Air Station at Point Mugu, Navy officials failed to ensure that the aircraft were stripped of military hardware, according to a court affidavit filed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
The affidavit paints a broad picture of the investigation that has at its heart Iran's need for military supplies for its aircraft, a need difficult to fill.
Though the United States and Iran are now cautious foes, sparring over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s was a principal supplier of arms to the Shah of Iran. Among the weapons supplied by the U.S. were F-14 Tomcats as well as missile systems.
"Due to the embargo placed on Iran by the United States after the fall of the shah, a flourishing illegal trade developed to supply the Islamic Republic of Iran with components to maintain these weapons systems," the affidavit, which was filed Friday in Los Angeles, noted.
"This illegal trade resulted in the establishment of numerous front companies in international locations and an increased demand for international arms dealers," it stated.
One such front was a Bakersfield company, whose owner and two principal officers were convicted in June 2001 of violating the Arms Export Control Act. Agents from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized thousands of aircraft and missile components that were bound for Iran via intermediaries.
Some of the documents found in that case led to a Northern California man. Undercover agents contacted him and negotiated a deal to purchase an F-14 canopy to send to Iran. The man eventually backed out of the deal and contacted the FBI.
He also told the FBI that he had traded an engine lift to an air museum to get the canopy. That set investigators off to track the whereabouts of the craft.
By September 2005, federal investigators were looking for the museums that had received F-14s. They determined that three planes, which had not been properly demilitarized, were procured in April 1999 from the U.S. Naval Air Station in Point Mugu and improperly transferred to California Public Recycling, a scrap dealer in Oxnard.
The fourth craft was found at Southern California Aviation, a business at the Victorville airport. That was the plane that had been improperly released to "JAG," a television series about military lawyers. The plane is owned by an El Mirage aviation company.
On Tuesday, customs agents and DCIS agents seized two of the fighters from the Yanks Air Museum and one from the Planes of Fame air museum, both at the Chino Airport.
"The investigation has not uncovered any evidence that these planes have been plundered for parts by people with nefarious motives," said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for ICE, "but the fact that they were not properly demilitarized certainly presents a potential vulnerability."
Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, said Tuesday that no one had been charged but that the investigation was continuing. "There are some issues related to statute of limitations and we're examining those issues."
Defense Department officials have determined that the F-14s should have been destroyed by an authorized contractor when they were taken out of military service between 1996 and 1998, according to the affidavit.
Instead, the officer in charge of demilitarizing the planes "improperly and without authority" released three of them to the Oxnard company for disposal as scrap metal, even though the parts that made up the fighter jet were specifically barred from release to scrap metal recycling programs, the federal court document alleged.
Marc Keenberg, a consultant to California Public Recycling, confirmed that the company received several military airplanes at that time but described them as "already in scrap condition."
Keenberg said the recycling company sold the planes to another scrap yard and lost track of them after that.
The producer of "JAG" said his company went through proper military channels when it acquired the retired F-14.
"They didn't sell us one. They gave us one and they removed the engines," said Don Bellisario, whose company now produces the military drama "NCIS."
"The Navy said to us, 'We can give you an old aircraft, but we have to demil [demilitarize] it before we can give it to you.' I just assumed that's what happened."
The Navy also "broke its back," meaning that the F-14's fuselage was sliced in half and then welded back together, Bellisario said. Unable to fly, the jet was used as a prop for shots on the ground and had to be towed around, he said.
That plane in 2005 was sold to the company Aviation Warehouse in El Mirage, which was storing the F-14 at Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville.
Mark Thomson, president of Aviation Warehouse, said the company also bought the other three F-14s for $5,000 apiece from a middleman, who was facilitating the sale for California Public Recycling in Oxnard. They later were sold to the Yanks airplane museum in Chino for $50,000 apiece, Thompson said.
Thomson, 65 of Adelanto, said he was outraged by the seizure of the planes and plans to fight the government's actions.
"When I bought the planes, everything was 100% totally legal and aboveboard," said Thomson, whose company provides props for movie television productions.
During the 17-month investigation, former Navy Chief Warrant Officer Mark Holmes told authorities that his Point Mugu unit — known as VX-9 Detachment — handled the sale of fighter jets. He said one of his superiors instructed him to contact scrap dealers to see if they were interested in "picking up F-14s for scrap," according to the court affidavit.
Holmes said the officer in charge set the price for the aircraft between $2,000 and $4,000. The checks for the planes were placed into a fund identified as the VX-9 Morale Welfare and Recreation fund, the affidavit stated.
There was no documentation of the sales or papers showing that the planes had been demilitarized, federal officials said.
Federal officials are dismantling the planes and will ship them to a military yard in Tucson for storage and "final demilitarization."
maeve.reston@latimes.com
garrett.therolf@latimes.com
Times staff writers Jonathan Abrams, Sara Lin, David Haldane, Michael Muskal and Times researcher John Jackson contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/la-ex-f14-7mar08,0,965051.story?track=mostviewed-sectionfront
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