PASCO COUNTY, Fla. – In the annals of criminal history, few stories capture the public’s imagination quite like that of the daring “airplane thief” who embarked on a cross-country spree of avionics equipment theft. According to the Department of Justice, in 2019, Mario Mercier Hernandez, a 59-year-old New Port Richey, Florida resident, set his sights on a lucrative criminal enterprise. Leveraging his ownership of two companies, JWG International and JWG Aviation, Mercier began a systematic campaign of breaking into airplanes across the United States, stealing valuable avionics equipment, and t…