On August 28, 2018 the 3rd incursion of an aircraft entering US airspace without a transponder was detected by the Mica Peak Radar Site after incidents on Aug 9, and Aug 19th. ANACON/RECON was activated and 4 US F-15 jets were dispatched on patrol. Their mission was to contact, intercept and potentially shoot down drug smuggling helicopters. The Americans were ready after the 2 previous illegal incursions into US air space that month. One fighter jet got a radar fix and might have blasted Sandher helicopters and all its criminal occupants into the afterlife. Both drug smuggling helicopters escaped back into Canada before being shot down. There were many wildfires during the summer of 2018, and the air was smoky, with limited visibility. The smoke would have provided good cover for running drugs across the border. Cherry season was well past.
Sandher helicopters flew behind Black Mountain and turned off their transponders after leaving the controlled and restricted class D airspace around Kelowna Airport at 10:20 PDT. A ping off the Carmi cell tower. A ping off the Rock Creek cell phone tower and a call from the Rock Creek cell tower placed to a Verizon subscriber in Washington state all came from a phone belonging to Gurtaj Singh Sandher.
The Mica Peak Radar site near Fairchild AFB detected an unidentified aircraft entering US airspace above Chesaw, WA. The military grade radar at Mica Peak can detect aircraft over 290 miles away. 30 minutes later the helicopter was moving east, then disappeared from radar. 50 minutes later it reappeared between Kloof Ridge and Goat Peak. US Customs and Border Patrol notified Midway RCMP, Kelowna RCMP, and Canada Border Services Agency of the illegal flights into US airspace.
The Mexican two helicopter trick is to let the radar operators believe the aircraft entered, and promptly exited US airspace, delaying an interception, while a helicopter on the ground unloads drug cargo. The landing took place at 12:50 PDT, and the first helicopter re-entered Canadian airspace at 13:15 PDT, and the other at 13:45 PDT. At 15:00 PDT the first helicopter, the decoy, landed on a Sandher property near the airport. Three phone calls were placed: at 08:05:32 PDT a call was placed to Brothers Keeper gangster Amandeep Singh Kang from Swainson Road. Another call was placed at 12:14:51 PDT to Carlos Raygozaparedes, 53, a Sinaloa Cartel operative who held the title of janitor at Saagar Fine Cuisine of India in Newport Beach. Raygozaparedes and Edgar Alfonso Lamas were busted in Southern California in 2021 with 821 pounds of meth, 190 pounds of cocaine and 20.5 pounds of fentanyl. A second call was placed to Kang. Amandeep Singh Kang, 31, pleaded guilty in November 2023 to trafficking and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. The career gangster was a founding member of the Brothers Keepers.
At 10:20 PDT, a transponder signal was picked up just east of Beaverdell. The aircraft was travelling north towards Big White. At 11:05 PDT, cops meet the helicopter at roughly the same location the other had landed, Prabtaj Singh Sandher had come to pick up Gurtaj Singh Sandher and the pilot after unloading cargo.
The Sandhers owned two early 80s Nevada registered Bell 214-ST. The aircraft is a medium-lift twin engine helicopter with enough room for 17. The heavy duty Huey derivative is usually used for firefighting or military operations. It would not be suitable for blowing rain off cherries. It would be very suitable for cross border drug smuggling. The price for a pre-owned Bell 214-ST in Canada is said to be around $1.5m.
Sandher helicopters N-214AU and N-214EB were registered by proxy through the bank of Utah in Las Vegas. The true registrant was Tenru Aviation, which is a division of Sandher Family Trust. The Sandhers set up an aircraft ownership trust to hide their non US resident ownership of the aircraft. This is another offense. The Sandhers sold their Bell 214-ST helicopters after the near bust in 2018.
The first Bell 214-ST flew in 1979 with production ending in 1993. 96 were built. Far fewer survive today. The pilot of this Bell 214-ST helicopter (the same aircraft in the video) suffered serious injuries on June 7, 2021 when his aircraft dropped to the ground from 3,000 feet in Ontario while fighting a fire. The rear tail rotor failed.
In September of 2019 swabs were taken by the DEA after the new owners of the helicopters gave their permission. Mass spectroscopy, gas chromatography, photoionization detection, magnetic resonance spectrometry, photoacoustic spectroscopy. The San Francisco Forensics lab is world class. It found methamphetamine, cocaine, fentanyl, and carfentanil had been inside both Sandher helicopters.
Sinaloa Cartel helicopter pilots were brought to work for the Sandhers under the Agricultural Stream Program. Edgar Watson was imported into Canada for the 2016, 2017, and 2018 seasons by the Sandhers. When he sets foot in Canada he is the highest ranking Sinaloa Cartel gangster in the country. He decides who lives and who dies. The other pilot was Roman Figueroa Ramirez. Both thugs are former Mexican Marines turned drug traffickers. The Sandher crime family have abused visa entry programs for years.
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