The CIA's Mystery Plane?

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The first question is: what does River City Companies LLC actually do? The next question is who runs it? But the more interesting question may be whether it does anything at all.

The questions arise because, according to federal records and flight-tracking data, River City Companies LLC of Virginia was the listed owner of a business jet that is reportedly linked to a secret CIA program behind the attacks on Ecuadorian fishing boats near the Galápagos Islands this year. Eight people went missing in the strikes and are presumed dead.

The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment on questions about River City Companies LLC. But The After-Action Report was able to identify it as the unnamed owner of the specially-modified Cessna Citation Longitude identified in reports on the strikes by The Washington Post and The New York Times.

No agency has claimed responsibility for the strikes, which the Post reported on August 13 were part of a CIA covert action program. The CIA program is separate from Operation Southern Spear, the US military campaign that has carried out multiple strikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing 221 people.

The secret CIA operation has been linked to the disappearance in January of the Fiorella, a fishing boat, and its eight-member crew. Two other vessels, the Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca, were attacked in March. All aboard those two boats survived.

The attacks occurred near the Galápagos, a chain of islands off the coast of Ecuador known for its rare natural beauty that has reportedly become a logistical hub for drug traffickers, who have recruited local fishermen to resupply smuggling boats with fuel at sea. Ecuador’s navy seized nearly 25 tons of cocaine in Galápagos waters in 2023 alone.

Survivors of the strikes told the Post that small quadcopter drones either dropped munitions on the vessels or detonated by crashing into them. The men said they were then taken aboard a nearby ship, hooded and cuffed by armed men, and transported to El Salvador, only to be returned later without explanation to Ecuador.

The Post and the Times both reported that the Cessna Citation Longitude arrived in El Salvador from Tennessee in November with a crew of six,. Flight-tracking data cited by both papers shows it later flew toward the boats' location in the days surrounding the attacks.

What the newspapers didn’t report is that those records also show that the plane left a small airport in Cleveland, Tennessee, on November 15 and landed at Ilopango International Airport in San Salvador. The plane flew under a US registration number, N883EE. River City Companies LLC reserved that N-number with the FAA on October 24.

Almost everything about River City Companies LLC appears designed to reveal as little as possible. It has no website, unlike other similarly named companies in other states. Its principal office is listed as a UPS Store in Henrico, Virginia, a Richmond suburb. Richmond’s nickname, “River City,” likely inspired the company’s name—and made it easy to overlook. A search of the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s database returned more than 1,000 businesses with “River City” in their names. Most businesses try to stand out. River City Companies LLC seemed happy to be ignored.

It filed its articles of organization with the Virginia State Corporation Commission in 2021. River City Companies was registered by Northwest Registered Agent LLC, a commercial filing service based in Spokane, Washington. Under Virginia law, an LLC need not disclose its members or managers on its public formation filing. The original filing listed only the company’s organizer, Jessica Lynn Sanford. Calls to Northwest Registered Agent could not establish whether someone with that name worked for them in 2021.

If the company’s ownership is hard to pin down, so is the plane’s. Within two weeks of its arrival in El Salvador, the plane appears to have picked up a second identity. Pucará Defensa, a Latin American defense publication, reported on November 29 that the Salvadoran Air Force was incorporating the Cessna Citation Longitude. The plane was designated as “Fenix 701.”

It is unclear whether River City Companies sold the aircraft or still retains ownership. The plane carried a base price of $30 million, well above the $14 million threshold for congressional notification under the Foreign Military Sales program. The After-Action Report could find no records of such a sale to El Salvador.

On subsequent flights that the Post and the Times tied to surveillance of, or attacks on, the Ecuadorian boats, Fenix 701’s transponder returned unresolvable data, appearing on flight-tracking sites as an aircraft of unknown type with a “misconfigured” transponder. Flight-tracking records reviewed by The After-Action Report show no flights logged under the plane’s registration, N883EE, at any point between its November arrival and the present.

Pucara reported that Textron Aviation of Kansas had specially outfitted the plane for maritime patrol. It came equipped with a belly radome for maritime radars, a Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) radome, an electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensor turret, and optional lighting compatible with night vision goggles.

The plane operated out of Ilopango International Airport, which once served as the center of CIA-supported operations to supply Nicaraguan rebel forces in the 1980s. Both the Times and the Post obtained air traffic control communications that revealed that the plane was piloted by men speaking English with American accents.

Other signs of a military buildup were underway in El Salvador. Records reviewed by The After-Action Report show the US Coast Guard, acting on behalf of El Salvador's government, is currently soliciting bids for a 200-ton mobile boat hoist and communications equipment under Foreign Military Sales cases opened this summer

It would not be the first time a CIA-linked aircraft has been traced to a shell company whose ownership dissolves under scrutiny. John Crewdson of The Chicago Tribune reported in 2005 (in a story whose lede inspired my own) that a Gulfstream V used in CIA “rendition” flights was owned by an Oregon company called Bayard Foreign Marketing, whose sole listed principal, Leonard T. Bayard, did not appear to exist.

Unlike Bayard, Jessica Lynn Sanford’s name is shared by several people. Whether any of them have a connection to River City Companies LLC, or to Northwest Registered Agent, could not be determined.