They were dubbed the “torture-taxi.”

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operated aircraft that were used to ferry kidnapped suspected terrorists in the now infamous U.S. rendition program to countries that permitted torture and where the suspects were held in anonymity beyond the reach of attorneys.

The CIA had authority to carry out renditions under a presidential directive dating to the Clinton administration. The Bush administration renewed the directive.

In 2006 MGM Mirage Corporation purchased a 2001 Boeing 737-7ET, serial number 33010, from a CIA shell company and flew the jet until it was sold by MGM Resorts International in 2016. That jet was previously used for the CIA’s rendition program.

MGM Mirage was formed when MGM Grand, Inc. acquired Mirage Resorts, Inc. on May 31, 2000, in what was at that time, the largest transaction of its kind in the gaming industry, valued at $6.4 billion. MGM Mirage acquired Mandalay Resort Group in March 2005 for $7.9 billion and retained the MGM Mirage name until 2010, when the company was renamed MGM Resorts International.

US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records track history of the 2001 Boeing 737 serial number 33010

May 30, 2001 – Correspondence from the Boeing Company, Seattle WA. to the FAA that Model number 737-7BC, manufacturers serial number 33010 request United States registration number N104QS.

June 1, 2001 – FAA confirms that US identification mark N104QS has been assigned to Boeing 737-7BC, serial number 33010.

December 12, 2001 – Aircraft description change. N-number 104QS, model number changed to 737-7ET, error made in model number.

November 30, 2001 – Aero Contractors Ltd., Johnson County Airport, Smithfield, NC. in a letter to the FAA reserves US Registration number N313P and that be relinquished to the owner of the aircraft, Premier Executive Transport Services, Inc. Dedham, MA.

November 30, 2001 – Premier Executive Transport Services in letter to the FAA gives their permission for Boeing to use registration number N313P for fleet testing purposes prior to the delivery of the aircraft.

December 3, 2001 – Boeing notifies FAA that Premier Executive Transport Services will take delivery of the aircraft, N313P, on December 16, 2001.

December 12, 2001 – N313P officially assigned to Boeing 737-7ET, serial number 33010 by FAA.

December 20, 2001 – Aircraft Bill of Sale. Boeing N313P sold by the Boeing Company to Boeing Domestic Sales Corporation.

December 20, 2001 – Aircraft Bill of Sale. N313P sold by Boeing Domestic Sales Corp. to Premier Executive Transport Services, Dedham, MA.

December 20, 2001 – FAA Certification for Boeing N313P signed by a Bryan P. Dyess, President of Premier Executive Transport Services.

November 10, 2004 – Aircraft Bill of Sale. Boeing N313P sold by Premier Executive Transport Services, signed by a James J. Kershaw, Secretary/Treasurer to Keeler and Tate Management LLC, 245 East Liberty Street, Suite 510, Reno, NV.

November 10, 2004 – Letter from Tyler E. Tate of Keeler and Tate Management LLC to the FAA requesting registration change from N313P to N4476S

December 1, 2004 – FAA Certification for Boeing N313P issued to Keeler and Tate Management LLC, signed by Tyler E. Tate, member of the company.

January 10, 2005 – FAA changes the registration to N4476S for the Boeing 737 serial number 33010 owned by Keeler and Tate Management LLC, Reno, NV.

July 6, 2006 – Aircraft Bill of Sale. Boeing 737, N4476S, serial number 33010 sold to MGM Mirage Corporation, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South, Las Vegas, NV. by Tyler E. Tate of Keeler and Tate Management LLC, Reno, NV. (3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South is the address of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino).

July 7, 2006 – Aircraft Bill of Sale. MGM Mirage sells aircraft N4476S to MGM Mirage Aircraft Holdings LLC.

September 29, 2006 – FAA registration changed from N4476S to N720MM to MGM Mirage Aircraft Holdings LLC.

July 27, 2010 – FAA certification for N720MM states aircraft owned by MGM Resorts Aircraft Holdings, LLC.

November 30, 2016 – Aircraft Bill of Sale. Boeing 737 N720MM sold to Embraer Executive Aircraft Inc., Melbourne, FL. by MGM Resorts Aircraft Holdings, LLC.

Nevada public records indicate that James Murren, Chairman, and CEO of MGM Resorts International and Corey Sanders, COO, were listed as managers of MGM Resorts Aircraft Holdings, LLC. The company was dissolved in September 2017.

How the CIA shell companies worked

The CIA didn’t lease the civilian aircraft themselves used in the rendition program.

According to prior published reports the aircraft were owned by CIA “shell (dummy)” companies. These shell companies normally have no employees, no business premises and no website. The CIA contracts lawyers who provide a mail drop and registers the company with the state and the planes with the FAA. The lawyer provides the legal services needed by a normal company, including a place to serve legal papers and court documents on the company. Journalists have tried many times to track down CIA shell company directors and officers and have found that they are usually fictitious persons. In other instances the CIA may use figureheads, citizens who will lend their names to the endeavor, however more than not, the only real people associated with these shell companies are the attorneys.

What happens when an innocent man is kidnapped and tortured by the CIA?

The three companies associated with the Boeing 737, serial number 33010, as listed in the FAA records, Aero Contractors Ltd., Premier Executive Transport Services Inc., and Keeler and Tate Management LLC, all were listed as defendants along with former CIA Director George Tenet in a civil case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on December 6, 2005 in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of Khaled El-Masri.

Excerpts from that civil complaint as follows:

On December 31, 2003, Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was forcibly abducted while on holiday in Macedonia, detained incommunicado, handed over to United States agents, then beaten, drugged, and transported to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was subjected to inhumane conditions and coercive interrogation and was detained without charge or public disclosure for several months. Five months after his abduction, Mr. El-Masri was deposited at night, without explanation, on a hill in Albania.

Not long after Mr. El-Masri was flown to Afghanistan, Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) officials realized that they had abducted, detained, and interrogated an innocent man. Defendant George Tenet, former director of the CIA, was notified about the mistake, yet Mr. El Masri’s unlawful detention and inhumane treatment continued for two additional months.

Mr. El-Masri’s abduction, detention, and interrogation without legal process were carried out pursuant to an unlawful policy and practice devised and implemented by defendant Tenet known as “extraordinary rendition”: the clandestine abduction and detention outside the United States of persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activities, and their subsequent interrogation using methods impermissible under U.S. and international laws. The current Director of Central Intelligence, Porter Goss, has described this practice in congressional testimony as “a ‘kinetic’ solution on foreign soil.”

Mr. El-Masri brings this action against Mr. Tenet, who promulgated this unlawful policy and who directed the agents and subordinates who carried out the unlawful acts described herein; against current and former employees of the Central Intelligence Agency who participated directly in Mr. El-Masri’s abduction, detention, and interrogation; and against the aviation corporations that supplied the aircraft and personnel used in the unlawful transfer, knowing that they were to be used in Mr. El-Masri’s secret detention and interrogation in Afghanistan, thereby conspiring in and aiding and abetting the violation of Mr. El-Masri’s rights under the United States Constitution and the law of nations, including his right to be free from prolonged arbitrary detention, torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Defendant Premier Executive Transport Services, Inc. (“PETS”) is a corporation doing business in Massachusetts, with corporate headquarters in Dedham, MA. PETS was the owner of a Boeing business jet, 737-7ET, formerly registered with the Federal Aviation Authority (“FAA”) as N313P and now as N4476S, when the jet was used to transport plaintiff from Skopje, Macedonia to detention and interrogation in Afghanistan. On or around November 14, 2004, Federal Aviation Authority records show that PETS sold the Boeing business jet, to defendant Keeler and Tate Management LLC.

Defendant Keeler and Tate Management LLC (“KTM”) is a corporation doing business in Nevada, with corporate headquarters in Reno. Defendant KTM is the current owner of a Boeing business jet, now registered with the FAA as N4476S, which was used to transport plaintiff from Skopje, Macedonia to detention and interrogation in Afghanistan. Defendant KTM is the corporate successor to defendant PETS.

Defendant Aero Contractors Limited (“ACL”) is a corporation doing business in North Carolina, with corporate headquarters at Johnston County Airport, North Carolina. Defendant ACL was contracted by defendant PETS to operate the above-mentioned Boeing business jet, and specifically to transport plaintiff from Skopje, Macedonia to detention and interrogation in Afghanistan.

Plaintiff does not know the true names and capacities of defendants sued herein as Does 1-20, inclusive, and therefore sues these defendants by such fictitious names and capacities. Does 1-10 are current or former employees of the Central Intelligence Agency who directed or participated in the unlawful seizure, transport, detention, and interrogation of plaintiff. Does 11-20 are current or former employees of defendant corporations who directed or participated in the unlawful transport of plaintiff for the purpose of detaining and interrogating plaintiff outside the law? Plaintiff will amend this complaint to allege the true names and capacities of Doe defendants when ascertained. Each Doe defendant is responsible in some manner for the occurrence of the unlawful actions herein alleged and that the injuries suffered by plaintiff were proximately caused by the conduct of such defendants.

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION POLICY

On information and belief, beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to this day, the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”), together with other U.S. government agencies, has developed an intelligence-gathering program involving the transfer of foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism to detention and interrogation in countries where, in the CIA’s view, federal and international legal safeguards do not apply.

Suspects are detained and interrogated either by U.S. personnel at U.S.-run detention facilities outside U.S. sovereign territory or, alternatively, are handed over to the custody of foreign agents for interrogation. In both instances, interrogation methods are employed that do not comport with federal and internationally recognized standards. This program is commonly known as “extraordinary rendition.”

During the September 11 Commission of Inquiry, defendant Tenet, then Director of Central Intelligence, described “rendition to justice” as a key counterterrorism tool and testified that, in an unspecified period before September 11, 2001, the United States had undertaken 70 such renditions.

On information and belief, since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the use of this policy and practice by the United States has expanded considerably. Extraordinary rendition has become a routine means of abducting and detaining foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism. On information and belief, defendant Tenet was one of the persons primarily responsible for the expansion of the program and for devising the specific methods employed in its implementation.

Pursuant to the policy, foreign nationals suspected of terrorism have been transported to U.S.-run detention and interrogation facilities in Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Diego Garcia, Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and elsewhere. Memoranda prepared by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel have consistently advanced the position that foreign nationals held at such facilities, outside U.S. sovereign territory, are unprotected by federal or international laws. Government lawyers have advanced the same argument in habeas corpus proceedings brought on behalf of foreign nationals detained and interrogated at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

On information and belief, the “extraordinary rendition” program serves two discrete functions: it permits agents of the United States to detain foreign nationals that it considers terrorist suspects outside U.S. sovereign territory and without legal process; and it permits those agents, primarily through counterparts in foreign intelligence agencies, to employ interrogation methods on suspects that would not be permissible under federal or international law as a means of obtaining information from suspects.

DEFENDANT CORPORATIONS

On information and belief, U.S.-based, private aviation corporations, including defendants PETS, KTM and ACL, have played and continue to play an integral role in the implementation of the “extraordinary rendition” policy. Defendants PETS, KTM and ACL have authorized the use of aircraft owned by them to transfer terrorist suspects to detention and interrogation in countries where the corporations know or reasonably should know that the suspects will be subjected to prolonged arbitrary detention, torture, and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Defendants PETS, KTM and ACL have also furnished staff and other resources to operate the aircraft, knowing that that purpose of the transport is the transfer of suspects to countries known to practice prolonged arbitrary detention, torture, and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, particularly on terrorist suspects.

On information and belief, defendants PETS and ACL entered into an agreement with defendant Tenet to provide an aircraft and crew to transport Mr. El-Masri to detention and interrogation in Afghanistan.

In entering into this unlawful agreement, defendants PETS and ACL knew or reasonably should have known that Mr. El-Masri would be subjected to prolonged arbitrary detention, torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in violation of federal and international laws during his transport to Afghanistan and while he was detained and interrogated there.

On information and belief, the terms of the agreement included flying the aircraft registered by the FAA as N313P from Palma, Majorca, Spain, to Skopje, Macedonia, where Mr. El-Masri would be picked up, and from there to Afghanistan, where Mr. El-Masri would be detained and interrogated in the CIA’s “Salt Pit” detention facility.

On information and belief, on or around November 14, 2004, defendant PETS transferred the Boeing business jet aircraft, then registered with the FAA as N313P, to defendant KTM. The transfer occurred shortly after media reports identified the N313P aircraft’s involvement in the extraordinary rendition program. That aircraft is now registered with the FAA as N4476S. On information and belief, PETS continues to exist as a corporate entity but no longer possesses any assets.

On information and belief, the transfer of the aircraft to KTM was fraudulent in that it was done in order to avoid detection and potential liability for defendant PETS’ unlawful acts. In the alternative, on information and belief, KTM’s business is merely a continuation of PETS’ transportation business. On information and belief, despite the transfer of the aircraft, there remains a continuity of business operations, management, personnel, and assets between the two corporations. KTM continues in the same business as its predecessor PETS.

Defendant Premier Executive Transport Services, defendant Keeler and Tate Management, defendant Aero Contractors Limited, and defendants Does 11-20 are liable for the torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of plaintiff because they conspired together with defendant Tenet and other U.S. government officials to subject plaintiff to such treatment. Specifically, defendant Premier Executive Transport Services, defendant Keeler and Tate Management, defendant Aero Contractors Limited, and defendants Does 11-20 conspired together by entering into an agreement, the direct consequence of which were the acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment suffered by plaintiff? Each defendant participated in or committed a wrongful act in furtherance of said conspiracy, which resulted in the injuries to plaintiff.

Further or in the alternative, defendant Premier Executive Transport Services, defendant Keeler and Tate Management, and defendant Aero Contractors Limited are liable for the torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of plaintiff because they aided and abetted defendant Tenet and other U.S. government officials in subjecting plaintiff to such treatment. Specifically, defendant Premier Executive Transport Services, defendant Keeler and Tate Management, and defendant Aero Contractors Limited knew or reasonably should have known that the aircraft and crew which they provided to defendant Tenet and other U.S. government officials would be used to abduct plaintiff in Macedonia and to transport him to detention and interrogation in Afghanistan, where he would be subjected to acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Even with this knowledge, defendant Premier Executive Transport Services, defendant Keeler and Tate Management, and defendant Aero Contractors Limited, authorized the use of their aircraft and operating staff to abduct plaintiff in Macedonia and transport him to detention and interrogation in Afghanistan. In addition, defendant Premier Executive Transport Services, defendant Keeler and Tate Management, and defendant Aero Contractors Limited provided substantial assistance to defendant Tenet and other U.S. government officials in subjecting plaintiff to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in Macedonia and Afghanistan.

What was the outcome of the civil lawsuit?

On May 18, 2006, US Federal District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III, dismissed the lawsuit El-Masri filed against the CIA, Aero Contractors Ltd., Premier Executive Transport Services Inc., and Keeler and Tate Management LLC, based on the government’s position that it would “present a grave risk of injury to national security.” This legal doctrine is known as the state secrets privilege. Ellis said that if Masri’s allegations were true, he deserved compensation from the US government.

On July 26, 2006 the ACLU announced that it would appeal the dismissal of the lawsuit.

On March 2, 2007 the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the lawsuit.

In July 2007, the CIA prepared an internal report examining the CIA’s handling of El-Masri, stating “The report notes that all agency attorneys interviewed agreed that Masri did not meet the legal standard for rendition and detention, which required that a suspect be deemed a threat.”

On October 9, 2007, the ACLU’s petition was declined for hearing by the US Supreme Court, without comment.

Aero Contractors, Ltd.

The Washington Post in a February 9, 2012 article, “Ten years later, CIA ‘rendition’ program still divides N.C. town,” stated that there was a 20-year relationship between the CIA and the Smithfield, North Carolina based Aero Contractors. Ltd., a company that was founded by James Rhyne, a former chief pilot for Air America, the former CIA-run company that flew clandestine missions for the agency during the Vietnam War. According to the article, after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, when the CIA needed transportation help in dealing with detained terrorist suspects from Afghanistan and Pakistan, Aero Contractors already had a record of supporting the agency’s international missions with complete discretion. Its small jets and experienced pilots could be summoned quickly for missions anywhere in the world, free of the risk of being directly traced to the CIA.

Premier Executive Transport Services Inc.

The Washington Post’s Dec. 27, 2004 article, “Jet is an open secret in terror war,” paints a clearer picture. The Post reported that Premier Executive Transport Services Inc. lists directors and officers who appear to exist only on paper. Each of the officers of Premier Transport Services are linked in public records to one of five Post Office box numbers in Arlington and Oakton, Virginia, Chevy Chase, Maryland and the District of Columbia. A total of 325 names were registered to the five post office boxes, according to the Post’s investigation.

The Washington Post reported that an extensive database search of a sample of 44 of those names turned up none of the information that usually emerges in such a search: no previous addresses, no past or current telephone numbers, no business or corporate records. In addition, although most names were attached to dates of birth in the 1940s, ’50s or ’60s, all were given Social Security numbers between 1998 and 2003.

The Post said that it showed their research to the CIA, including a chart connecting Premier Executive’s officers, the post office boxes, the 325 names, and the recent Social Security numbers. A CIA spokesman declined to comment.

According to a December 29, 2005, Reno News and Review article, “The CIA’s torture taxi,” as soon as Premier Executive Transport Services acquired the Boeing 747 the company began making modifications to what is normally a short-range aircraft, modifications you would make to fly longer distances without refueling. The wings were installed with vertical fins designed to help planes take off from short runways, boost fuel efficiency. An auxiliary fuel tank system, adding seven extra fuel cells. In 2002, the plane was sent to a hangar in Dallas, TX. Where technicians added a sophisticated data and antenna system, a 24-inch flat panel TV, and a new “executive interior.”

Keeler and Tate Management LLC

On December 9, 2005 Tom Darby of the Daily Sparks Tribune, in Nevada published an exclusive report about Keeler and Tate Management LLC and raised the question, “does Tyler Edward Tate even exist?”

Darby wrote that a search of commercial databases turned up no information on Tyler Edward Tate. Tate has no residential address, no telephone number, no Social Security number, no credit history, no automobile or property ownership records.

It appears that Tyler Edward Tate is nothing more than a name on a piece of paper filed with the Nevada State Secretary’s Office Commercial Recordings, Darby wrote.

In 2005 when Darby was conducting his investigation, he wrote that the address of Keeler and Tate is 245 245 E. Liberty Street, Suite 510, Reno, NV. The corporate information provided by the Nevada Secretary of State lists the registered agent as Steven F. Petersen, an attorney whose address is the same as Keeler and Tate’s. The only company officer listed is Tyler Edward Tate of the same address.

According to Darby’s report, the address of Keeler and Tate and of the lawyer Petersen is shared by Laxalt Group West, the law firm of Paul D. Laxalt and Peter D. Laxalt (brother). Paul Laxalt is the former governor of Nevada and the former Republican senator from Nevada.

Darby noted that Laxalt, the former US senator whose address and phone number are used by the owners (Keeler and Tate) of the CIA’s 737, was a close friend of President Ronald Reagan.

When Darby phoned, the receptionist answered, “attorney’s office.” She could not tell the Sparks Tribune which attorney worked at the offices other than there was one who is retired and comes in every once in a while. She did confirm that the office was used by Laxalt Group West. She claimed to have no knowledge of Keeler and Tate Management Group.

Finally, when the Sparks Tribune called Paul Laxalt’s public relations firm in Washington D.C., his secretary gave explicit instructions to e-mail all questions to the business. The Tribune compiled and sent a communique telling Laxalt that Tyler Edward Tate could not be found and Petersen seemed not to want to cooperate. It explained that the newspaper wanted to prove or disprove that there was a “shell company involving the CIA,” working out of his Reno address. Lastly, it asked how Laxalt came to be involved in this situation.

Darby wrote that the e-mail was sent to Laxalt, who incidentally resides in McClean, Va. near CIA headquarters, on December 22, 2005. Neither he nor representatives of his PR firm responded to the inquiry.

Just to note that Paul Laxalt died on August 6, 2018, in McClean, Virginia, four days after his 96th birthday.

A.C. Thompson one of the authors of the book “Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights” in a 9/20/2006 Huffington Post article speaking about CIA shell companies said that the lawyers are the only humans you can find who actually exist in those companies. Thompson said they went to talk to people at Keeler and Tate, another shell company implicated in the abduction of Khalid El-Masri. When they went to the only address for Keeler and Tate—a law office in Reno, Nevada and told the secretary “One of the lawyers here is a registered agent and you have been named in a lawsuit alleging a connection to the CIA and extraordinary rendition, what do you think of that?,” Thompson said she didn’t seem at all surprised, but threw them out pretty quickly.

According to Amnesty International the Boeing 737, registration number N313P (Premier Executive Transport Services) and N4476S (Keeler and Tate Management) had 396 recorded landings or takeoffs between November 22, 2002, and September 8, 2005, while it was used during the CIA renditions.

Interesting note: records indicate that on December 5, 2002, N313P departed Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland (now known as Joint Base Andrews) and landed at Desert Rock Airport in Nevada. It then departed Desert Rock Airport and went to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. Desert Rock Airport is a private operational airport located on the Nevada Test Site and is owned by the US Department of Energy.

If you hit on this link below you will see the first photograph posted on the Internet of the Boeing 737 when it was owned by Keeler and Tate Management, bearing its registration number N4476S. The photograph was taken by a plane spotter on January 18, 2005, at Palma de Mallorca airport in Spain.

https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/410132

Conclusion

The acquisition of the Boeing 737 by MGM Mirage from the CIA shell company was mysterious.

While doing my research for this story I did my own investigation on Keeler and Tate Management Group, LLC.

Nevada public records from the Secretary of State indicate that the company filed with the state on October 17, 2003 as a domestic limited-liability company. The registered agent is Steven F Petersen with the address of 245 E. Liberty Street, Suite 510, Reno, NV. The only listed managing member is Tyler Edward Tate with the same address as Petersen. The company was dissolved on November 16, 2007.

According to FAA records the only aircraft that was ever owned by Keeler and Tate Management Group was the Boeing 737-7ET, serial number 33010 that was purchased from Premier Executive Transport Services on November 10, 2004, and later sold to MGM on July 6, 2006.

Based on my investigation, Keeler and Tate Management Group, LLC never had an actual business location anywhere. I could find no records on any database that a Tyler Edward Tate ever existed.

I would love to see the background investigation that was conducted by MGM corporate security on Keeler and Tate Management Group prior to the purchase of the aircraft. Gaming companies conduct investigations with companies they intend to do business with to determine if they are legit.

However, you might not conduct an investigation if you knew you were entering into a business transaction with a CIA shell company.

The FAA aircraft bill of sale indicates that the MGM purchased the aircraft directly from Keeler and Tate Management Group, a company that apparently never existed except on paper.

Please contact the Baltimore Post-Examinerif you have any verifiable information on Keeler and Tate Management Group, LLC and or Tyler Edward Tate, not covered in this story.

General Alexander M. Haig Jr. and MGM

Retired General Alexander Alexander M. Haig Jr. served on the board of directors for MGM Mirage Corporation for nineteen years, from May 1990 until he resigned on October 7, 2009. He was also a consultant to the company.

Haig was also chairman of Worldwide Associates, Inc., an international business advisory firm.

Haig was vice chief of staff of the US Army (1973), White House chief of staff under Presidents Nixon and Ford (1973-1974), Supreme Allied Commander of NATO Forces (1974-1979), and secretary of state under President Reagan (1981-1982).

Haig died on February 20, 2010 in a hospital from complications of staphylococcal infection. He was 85.



