Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Al-Saadi, and his family had to call off their plan to settle in a Mexican paradise after Mexican authorities pulled the plug on a covert operation to smuggle the colonel’s family into the country using false names.

Al-Saadi Gaddafi, who is currently under house arrest with his family in Niger, was reportedly plotting an escape to a comfortable asylum in Punta Mita, a city on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. But local authorities managed to break up that operation “of international dimensions.”

A Canadian company, Can/Aust Security and Investigations International, was involved in the operation to bring Al-Saadi to Mexico. The company’s CEO, Gary Peters, reportedly offered private security contractors some $1,000 per day for the extraction mission.