Posted on 06/23/2015 2:09:23 PM PDT by naturalman1975
A well-respected Queensland tourism operator who died in a car crash last month, has been revealed as an American drug smuggler who faked his own death more than 40 years ago to escape US police.
Dennis 'Lee' Lafferty was an admired Crocodile cruise operator in Daintree, northern Queensland, deeply mourned by the community after dying in a car accident in May.
But US newspaper The Tampa Bay can reveal that Mr Lafferty's real name was in fact Raymond Grady Stansel Jr, an alleged drug smuggler who reportedly died in a scuba diving accident in 1974.
'Our challenge was to make a living and keep a low profile,' his ex-wife Janet Wood recently told the paper.
Stansel was charged with smuggling more than 12 tonnes of cannabis into Florida, and was allegedly carrying $25,000 in cash, signed blank tourist visas that would allow him into Nicaragua at any time, receipts for two $25,000 Rolex watches and unused checks on a Swiss bank account at the time of his arrest.
He reportedly received bail for a $500,000 cashier's check, and left the Jail after handing in his U.S. passport to await his trial scheduled for January 5, 1975, in Daytona Beach.
On the morning of his trial however, his lawyers announced that Stansel had disappeared in a scuba diving accident in Honduras.
Few believed the story to be true, but an aerial search of the coastline was unable to recover his body, and Stansel was never found.
Stansel on the other hand, was well and truly alive, settling in Queensland where he founded the Daintree River Cruise Centre in the late 80s, the Times reports.
'I'm surprised no one ever came looking for him, 'Ms Wood said.
His secret past was successfully kept for 40 years, until his death earlier this month.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Sounds like he rehibilitated his self.
Earth to DORKbama,
Black lives matter.
As for lying, sleazy, moon god terrorist slave holding Muslims...meh.
Shove your silly little thoughts up your obamahole.
Oops, wrong post, but what the heck.
Obama still sux.
I would’ve liked to ask him: was it more dangerous working with crocs or with drug dealers?
Nah, it still works.
Good for him! I knew a bunch of folks like this growing up in Florida and working on the fishing boats. Modern day freemen. Grandsons of the rum smugglers. Glad he got away.
LOL!
Yup, appropriate comments for any post.
Impressive. Faking one’s own death has a very low success rate.
+3
Stansel probably had some high-powered help from corrupt elements of the US intelligence community. He had been a business partner in an Honduras seafood company with Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, who reportedly provided protection and aircraft. Stansel was considered a “major” drug smuggler according to Peter Dale Scott’s book “Cocaine Politics.”
That comment is appropriate for any thread on FR.
Oh, that’s extremely interesting. I checked my library catalog for the book, but they don’t have it.
Thanks. Only $5 (with shipping) for that one, but then I thought, “What else could I get?”
Oh, well.
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