Now the story comes to light in the book Final Flight: Queen Of Air, by Jesús Romero and Steve Tochterman. This is an exceptional story about the subject of drug trafficking and its impact in the United States, told in the first person, with exclusive details and as it has never been approached before. The book is published in English and Spanish by the publishing house Bravo Zulu Publishers LLC. This publishing house is an independent entity, 100% owned by women, whose publisher She is Lina Marrero, of Cuban origin, a political exile during the Mariel exodus and a survivor of communism.
This story involves, among other points, the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia, drug traffickers in Mexico, Castroism in Cuba, and also Hugo Chavez y Nicolas Maduro in VenezuelaFortunately, Romero decided to reveal the details of the operation he was part of, which was essential to dismantling an international criminal organization that facilitated the annual entry into the United States of some 120 tons of cocaine.
As retired USAF Col. Robert Parthenais notes in one of the book’s comments, “On both sides of our border, corrupt and inept politicians stand in the way of those who serve to protect and defend our nation. Jesus and Steve clearly reveal the enormous difficulties faced by those challenged to stop this cancer.”
Indeed, this book is also a tribute to those who have served the United States on the front lines of the fight against drug trafficking.
The final flight: The Queen of the Air It is a very powerful book, as it offers operational and intelligence data, while maintaining an attractive dramatic line for the reader and, why not, it is rich material for a possible series or film, this time told from the point of view of the heroes and not from the mythification of drug traffickers.
Hard-hitting, rich in detail and revealing, this book brings us closer to the machinery of drug trafficking and its dangerous tentacles, and exposes the vulnerable points of the United States security system. It is, without a doubt, a strong blow to the immunity of Central and South American regimes in the intricacies of enrichment at the cost of deaths, corruption and contamination.
Jesús Romero unravels the many layers of drug trafficking and, with the skills of a cartographer, shows us the map of the road of death, a shock wave that affects not only drug traffickers, pilots, corrupt officials and national security itself, but also poor populations and the environment, ending with consumers, the last victims of this chain.
Maduro, the drug planes and the Queen of the Air
In a conversation with DIARIO LAS AMÉRICAS, Jesús Romero commented on some points from the book where he explains how, together with his team, he managed to unravel a complex web of fraud and drug trafficking.
It all began in 2017, when he was assigned to Guatemala as Attaché to the Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATFS) of the Department of Defense, dedicated to countering drug trafficking.
He continued: “At one point we saw an executive jet that landed on a highway on a farm in Guatemala. The drug traffickers had never brought a jet before, and that was a problem. They went from having planes like the Cessna, which could only carry 450 kilos, to this type of jet that could carry 2,500 kilos (about 64 million dollars). To give you an idea: the cartels are willing to kill an entire town for 2,500 kilos. When you manage to bring a plane of that magnitude into a country, it means that corruption is extremely high, there are political and military members involved. The cartels need those people to bring in such large planes.”
During his period of work, from 2017 to 2022, Romero estimated that some 120 tons of cocaine were transported per year, only by airplane. For those who do not understand the magnitude of this quantity of drugs, perhaps the amount of 3 billion dollars will help them understand the impact of this dirty business.
As Romero explained, in 2020 it came to light that Aircraft Guaranty Corporation, a company owned by Debra Lynn Mercer-Erwin based in Oklahoma City, had registered more than a thousand aircraft in Onalaska, a city in Polk County, Texas, where there is not even an airport. This was a key element in the investigation.
But there is more. That same year, accusations were made against Nicolás Maduro and the Venezuelan regime for drug trafficking (in association with the FARC) and terrorism: “Maduro is the head of the Cartel de los Soles, and he is allowing these planes to enter Venezuelan airspace. Furthermore, López Obrador knows what is happening and allows the planes operating for the Mexican cartels to leave Mexico and for the drugs to return through Mexico. It is a conspiracy that I think has to be brought to light.”
Romero questioned the involvement of the Venezuelan regime alongside the FARC and the ELN in facilitating the drug air bridge: “Why does a government like Venezuela’s get involved in drug trafficking? In the book we begin to tie up the loose ends. You can’t achieve this idea of carrying out a 21st century socialist agenda if you don’t have the money.”
Let’s go back to the case of Debra Lynn Mercer-Erwin. In May 2023 it was found guilty money laundering, wire fraud, conspiracy to manufacture and distribute cocaine, and conspiracy to manufacture and distribute cocaine knowing it would be imported into the United States. She was also involved in a $240 million Ponzi scheme. She is currently in federal prison and could face a lengthy sentence.
But Debra’s influence, as Romero discovered, is not recent, since as early as 2012 the American offered her airline services to Colombian businessman Alex Saab, an ally of Maduro: “Alex travels from Bogotá to Quito on an Aircraft Guaranty Corp. plane, and the person on board the plane was Piedad Córdoba, a senator in the Colombian congress who was a FARC guerrilla. Why is it important to know that? Piedad introduces (Hugo) Chávez to Alex Saab. And he (Alex) is the architect of how to get around all the American sanctions. In my opinion, he is one of the people who designs how they were going to act with drug trafficking leaving Venezuela.”
“Of the FARC leaders, Iván Márquez and Jesús Santrich were hiding in Cuba so that no one could capture them. Who was in the middle? Piedad Córdoba. It is important to understand this because the Venezuelan generals who are serving sentences for drug trafficking in the United States (Clíver Alcalá Cordones and Hugo ‘El Pollo’ Carvajal) were coordinating everything in Venezuela and Colombia with Santrich and Márquez. That is why Diosdado Cabello and Nicolás Maduro are charged with drug trafficking and narcoterrorism,” he stated.
Romero highlighted the coincidence that in 2021, a year after the Mercer-Erwin affair was uncovered, Santrich was murdered: “Santrich was in charge of the cocaine shipments that left through Catatumbo, through Zulia. Debra’s planes were loaded with cocaine, and the Venezuelan generals, the Cartel de los Soles, needed Santrich, from the FARC. Iván Márquez was in charge of putting the cocaine in Apure, Venezuela, the second place where the planes were filled with drugs. After the Colombian government made peace with the FARC, the Second Marquetalia came out, which was Márquez and Santrich, who did not want to take the peace offer. Why? Because they supplied the drugs to the Venezuelan government. That’s where you see the level of conspiracy.”
According to him, “the book explains how the planes came in, why they needed Guatemala, and who was profiting from this.” However, he was blunt in warning that “the real threat here is communism,” in relation to the drug trafficking operations that left-wing countries take advantage of to enrich their 21st Century Socialism agendas.
“This is the last straw. I cannot explain how I feel, after giving my country 37 years. The US policy towards Latin America has been a failure,” he concluded.
What needs to be improved in US security? As Romero pointed out, in 2001, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, a committee identified vulnerabilities in the US aircraft system. But nothing has changed: “Criminals can still search a plane. The bureaucracy is very extensive.”
Has the Biden administration recognized the efforts of Romero and his team in stopping the massive influx of cocaine into the United States? No, but those who read his book will see in its pages the actions of real-life heroes, those who contribute to making our nation a little safer. The truth being known will be their greatest reward.
The journey of a US patriot
As a child, Romero dreamed of being an astronaut, but ended up saving more lives in his military career, with enormous achievements that few know about. He inherited his military vocation from his father, who was a pilot in the Venezuelan Air Force, and since 1984, when he joined the US Navy, he rose through various positions until reaching the rank of commander.
He enlisted in the Navy in 1984, and was designated a Naval Intelligence Officer. He was also an intelligence operations specialist in the Army Civil Service. He was a deckhand on a nuclear missile cruiser. He then had the opportunity to become a navigator, and after 8 years he became an officer.
He spent five years on that cruise: “We pursued the Soviet fleets, we operated in the seas of Cuba, in the Arctic, in the Mediterranean, in the Atlantic, in the Black Sea.”
Romero became an officer through the Navy’s Enlisted Program, graduating with honors from Norfolk State University and receiving a bachelor’s degree in political science. Thanks to his good academic results, he was able to choose the path of intelligence. He studied aviation and then entered intelligence school. He was assigned to a squadron of A-6 Intruders, a tactical bomber operating from the aircraft carrier USS America, aboard which he went to Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan.
“I worked as an intelligence officer for attacks; part of the process was to provide the crew with information on how to attack a target. I worked for NATO, we continued to do operations in the Mediterranean. Those were the best years of my youth,” he recalled.
He then commanded an intelligence unit in Panama, working for the Defense Intelligence Agency, and supervised tactical team analysts in Central and South America and Mexico. He worked at an intelligence center in Hawaii as a duty officer for China, where he monitored military activities in the Asian country.
As he recalled in an interview with this newspaper, one of the most moving experiences of his career was in 2001: “I was the director of negotiations for a task force where we were doing research to recover bodies of soldiers lost during the Vietnam War. Operating in a communist country is not easy, I did not speak Vietnamese, I needed an interpreter, and my job was to negotiate with the government to recover the skeletal remains that could be recovered and repatriate them to the United States.”
After retiring from the Navy, Romero served as a defense contractor for the North American Division of British Aerospace Systems (BAE) in Washington, DC and also for Booz Allen Hamilton in Miami.