DALLAS — Six years ago, I reported on a tiny East Texas town that didn’t even have an airport — yet somehow had more than a thousand planes registered to it. That story, Broken Trust , began as an investigation into a loophole in U.S. aviation law. I never imagined it would one day shake the political establishment of another country.

“The story begins with you — with your big investigation,” said Fabricio Dietrich, speaking to me from 5,000 miles away in Argentina.

“I don’t know how I reached this,” he added, holding up a letter bearing WFAA’s Broken Trust logo.

Dietrich, an aide to an Argentine congressman, was talking about our 2019 investigation in Onalaska, Texas — a town that at one point had more aircraft registered to it than cities like Seattle, San Antonio, San Diego, and

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