PHOENIX -- The man who runs the business that owns a luxury jet that crashed and killed Latin music star Jenni Rivera says he has never been involved in drug trafficking and that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has dogged him for more than two decades without ever proving a single narcotics connection.
DEA spokeswoman Lisa Webb Johnson has said two planes owned by Las Vegas-based Starwood Management were seized by the agency in Texas and Arizona this year, but she declined to discuss details of their ongoing investigation. The agency has subpoenaed all the company's records, including any correspondence it has had with a former Tijuana mayor suspected by U.S. law enforcement as having ties to organized crime.Christian Esquino, 50, who runs the business and has a long and checkered legal past, told The Associated Press on Friday that the DEA has been investigating him since the 1980s around the time he sold a plane in Florida to a major trafficker who later used it as part of a massive smuggling operation.Esquino said the government has also claimed that he is involved with Tijuana's Arellano Felix cartel, which he denies.Rivera died when the plane she was traveling in nose-dived into the ground last week. She was an internationally known star who sold more than 15 million records in her career.Esquino said that the singer was considering buying the aircraft from Starwood for $250,000.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
