Saturday, February 19, 2011

Here's the Plot for Your Next African Adventure Novel

Houston Chronicle: "A Houston diamond dealer with a sketchy past is one of four businessmen being held in the Democratic Republic of Congo after being stopped shortly after arriving on a private jet with more than $6 million in cash that apparently they were to exchange for gold under the protection of a general indicted for war crimes.

Edward Carlos St. Mary, a former standout quarterback at MacArthur High School and cadet at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, is being detained in Goma, a city of 500,000 near the border with Rwanda, along with two Nigerians and a French citizen. The U.S. State Department confirmed the men are being held along with the flight crew that brought them on a chartered Gulfstream. At least one crew member, Kelly Shannon, also is from Houston. The group was detained Feb. 3, reportedly after a car chase. The businessmen are being held under close guard, and the flight crew is under house arrest at a hotel. The cash was seized by the government and the plane, owned by Dallas-based Southlake Aviation and apparently leased for the trip, was impounded."

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