[35], The Post response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. [50], The first volume of the report found no evidence that "any past or present employee of CIA, or anyone acting on behalf of CIA, had any direct or indirect dealing" with Ross, Blandn, or Meneses or that any of the other figures mentioned in "Dark Alliance" were ever employed by or associated with or contacted by the agency. Webbs Dark Alliance series, appeared in the Mercury News in 1996. The third article, by Mitchell and Fulwood, covered the effects of crack on African Americans and how it affected their reaction to some of the rumors that arose after the Dark Alliance series. In his book "Politics of Heroin",[43] McCoy alleges CIA complicity in the global drug trade in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Central America, and Colombia, arguing that the CIA follows a similar pattern in all their drug involvement. [27] McManus found Blandn and Meneses's financial contributions to Contra organizations to be significantly less than the "millions" claimed in Webb's series, and no evidence that the CIA had tried to protect them. Apparently it worked so well, that they did it in a big way at least twice. CIA supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan Pakistan border. African Americans, especially in South Central Los Angeles where the dealers discussed in the series had been active, responded with outrage to the series' charges.[18][19]. The U.S. government only turned against Noriega, invading Panama in December 1989 and kidnapping the general once they discovered he was providing intelligence and services to the Cubans and Sandinistas. After the publication of a 1996 news article in The San Jose Mercury written by Webb, who exposed the complicity of the CIA in the L.A. crack epidemic of the 1980s, Waters called for an investigation. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to support their struggle. ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." Theonline news sourceThe Huffington Postpublished an article titledRon Paul Had Accurate Conspiracy Theory: CIA Was Tied To Drug Traffickershighlights what the former Libertarian Presidential nominee Dr. Ron Paul said on the involvement of the CIA in the drug trade which was not aConspiracy Theorybut a fact when taking into consideration the Iran-Contra Scandal: Drug trafficking is a gold mine for people who want to raise money in the underground government in order to finance projects that they cant get legitimately. Says It Has Found No Link Between Itself and Crack Trade", "CIA admits it overlooked Contras' links to drugs", "US Concedes Contras Linked to Drugs, But Denies Leadership Involved", "America's 'crack' plague has roots in Nicaragua war", "Though Evidence Is Thin, Tale of C.I.A. BNDD agents immediately felt the impact of the CIA's involvement in drug law enforcement operations within the United States. To support these claims, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. These included CIA assets, pilots who ferried supplies to the Contras, as well as Contra officials and others. Hull and other CIA-connected contra supporters and pilots teamed up with George Morales, a major Miami-based Colombian drug trafficker who later admitted to giving $3 million in cash and several planes to contra leaders. "[44], In 2006 the US Ambassador in Kabul, the CIA station chief and MI6/SIS's station chief held meetings with President Hamid Karzai, according to several participants in those meetings. 1) It presented only one interpretation of conflicting evidence and in one case "did not include information that contradicted a central assertion of the series." ", "Ron Howard to direct movie about Arkansas's most notorious drug smuggler, Barry Seal", "Investigation Absolves CIA in Alleged Drug Smuggling", "Anti-Drug Unit of C.I.A. Before the creation of the CIA in 1947, Allen Dulles assembled the Flying Tigers, an inner clique within the Office of Strategic Services . The late Chalmers Johnson said its existence "shorten (s) the life of the American republic." They were hauling down weapons and drugs back. The CIA has been accused of moneylaundering the Iran-Contradrug funds via the BCCI, the former U.S. Commissioner of Customs William von Raab said that when customs agents raided the bank in 1988, they found numerous CIA accounts. Blandn and Meneses high-volume supply of low-priced cocaine allowed Ross to sew up the Los Angeles market and move on. When some authority wasnt clued in and made an arrest, powerful strings were pulled on behalf of dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence, or deportation. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. Before long, someonethere were unproven allegations that it was a Mafia family from Floridahad established a heroin drug refinery lab in Region Two. According to unnamed sources in the mid 1980s, the CIA created a unit in Haiti, whose purported purpose was anti-drug activity, but was in reality "used as an instrument of political terror", and was heavily involved in drug trafficking. The incident, which was first made public in 1993, was part of a plan to assist an undercover agent to gain the confidence of a Colombian drug cartel. One of those groups is The Finders, which Gunderson said is operated by the CIA. Spadafora was later found murdered. [29] The Post ultimately refused to print his letter. Launched in 1970, Eagle targeted anti-Castro Cubans smuggling cocaine from Latin America to the Trafficante organization in Florida. "[2] Subsequent investigations by the Inspector General of the CIA,[4] United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs,[5] and United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (i.e. Only large packages were inspected, so that small amounts of opium for local consumption might have been carried by individuals, but the prohibition of commercial traffic was unequivocal. He was murdered in 1986 after he started openly bragging about being a C.I.A operative. Drug abuse is the excessive use of any licit or illicit chemical substance that results in physical, mental, emotional, or behavioral impairment in an individual. This short documentary is evidence that proves The CIA has been importing drugs into our country. [40] Because Venezuela does not extradite its citizens, Guillen was not tried in the U.S., but his civilian aide was arrested while in the United States and sentenced to 20 years. In 1999 Congress released a report on the history of CIA involvement in drug trafficking. The contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots, airstrips, warehouses, front companies and banks) to these CIA-linked drug networks. Like the CIA and Justice Department reports, it also found that neither Blandn, Meneses, nor Ross were associated with the CIA. The review was conducted primarily by editor Jonathan Krim and reporter Pete Carey, who had written the paper's first published analysis of the series. The Subcommittee's final report, issued in 1989, said that Contra drug links included: According to the report, the U.S. State Department paid over $806,000 to "four companies owned and operated by narcotics traffickers" to carry humanitarian assistance to the Contras.[1]. The main-stream media (MSM) establishment mouthpiece The Washington Post admitted in 2006 that heroin production in Afghanistan broke all records while under U.S. occupation: Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the worlds heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday. [33] He did this in a column that appeared on November 3, defending the series, but also committing the paper to a review of major criticisms. A two-year investigation produced a 1,166-page report in 1989 analyzing the involvement of Contra groups and supporters in drug trafficking, and the role of United States government officials in these activities. The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. The Royal Laotian Air Force had almost no light planes that could land on the dirt runways near the mountaintop poppy fields. [25][26] Some theories even invoke the involvement of political figures, including Oliver North, then vice president and former CIA director George H. W. Bush and then Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. Author of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. The US repeatedly thwarted Costa Rican efforts to extradite Hull back to Costa Rica to stand trial. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell, and Sam Fulwood. Why was the CIA involved in drug trafficking? These factors, rather than anything as spectacular as a systematic effort by the CIA or any other intelligence agency to protect the drug trafficking activities of Contra supporters, determined what occurred in the cases we examined. His articles asserted that the CIA was aware of the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S. by the Contra personnel and directly aided drug dealers to raise money for the Contras. United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency Office of Inspector General, United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking, United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), CIA transnational anti-crime and anti-drug activities, "Venezuelan General Indicted in C.I.A. [7], In 1985, another Contra leader "told U.S. authorities that his group was being paid $50,000 by Colombian traffickers for help with a 100-kilo cocaine shipment and that the money would go 'for the cause' of fighting the Nicaraguan government." [41] After discussions with Webb, the column was published on May 11, 1997. Let me be frank about what we are finding. The War in Afghanistan was mainly about producing opium which did end up in thestreets of Iran, Russia and China. The lab's production was soon being ferried out on the planes of the CIA's front airline, Air America. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths, the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt. [36] However, when CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinistas, documents aboard the plane revealed many of the CIA's activities in Latin America, and the CIA's connections with Noriega became a public relations "liability" for the U.S. government, which finally allowed the DEA to indict him for drug trafficking, after decades of allowing his drug operations to proceed unchecked. In 1979 the Sandanistas overthrew Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Debayle. General Manuel Noriega, head of Panama's government, had been giving military assistance to Contra groups in Nicaragua at the request of the U.S.which, in exchange, allowed him to continue his drug-trafficking activitieswhich they had known about since the 1960s. [20] Maxine Waters, the Representative for California's 35th district, which includes South-Central Los Angeles, was also outraged by the articles and became one of Webb's strongest supporters. To fight its "Secret War" against the Pathet Lao communist movement of Laos, the CIA used the Miao/Meo (Hmong) population. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported back in 2015 thatheroin use in the United States increased 63% from 2002 through 2013.Fast forward to 2016, heroin is sweeping across the United States at unprecedented levels. 3) The series oversimplified how the crack epidemic grew. Bush lost patience with his brutal, drug . Southern Air Transport, formerly CIA-owned, and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as well. 2) The series' estimates of the money involved was presented as fact instead of an estimate. Season 5 of the Archer series (Archer Vice) depicts Archer trying to sell cocaine in America which they later discover is a part of a drugs for arms deal between the CIA and the dictator of the fictional Country of San Marcos. 7.6 Rate this 82 Metascore An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico. [46] Ahmed Wali Karzai denied the allegations stating that he had provided intelligence to the United States but was not compensated. Operation Eagle was the flashpoint. "[44], Ceppos noted that Webb did not agree with these conclusions. And the CIA and government officials were closing their eyes, fighting a war that was technically illegal.. Alfred McCoy writes, "According to several unproven sources, Air America began flying opium from mountain villages north and east of the Plain of Jars to CIA asset Hmong General Vang Pao's headquarters at Long Tieng."[14]. The NBC news report said that the CDC admitted that heroin has become an epidemic since 2002, The CDC reports that between 2002 and 2014 the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths more than quadrupled and more than 10,500 died nationwide in 2014.. [38] The CIA issued a statement on the incident saying there was "poor judgment and management on the part of several C.I.A. Scheme", Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities 1976, Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Inspector General, Investigations Staff, "Suit Alleging Plot by Contras, CIA Dismissed: Arms-Drug Smuggling, Conspiracy Charges Unproven, Judge Says", "Christic Institute Ordered to Pay $1 Million", "Court lets stand $1 million award against Christic Institute", "The CIA Drug Connection Is as Old as the Agency", The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, "Frontline: Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories & the C.I.A. in Central America", United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "Key Figures In CIA-Crack Cocaine Scandal Begin To Come Forward", The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Report of Investigation Concerning Allegations of Connections Between CIA and The Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Central Intelligence Agency Office of the Inspector General, Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, And The Crack Cocaine Explosion, "PBS Frontline: Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories & the C.I.A. [2] Investigation by the United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency Office of Inspector General, and United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence rejected the main charges. The Nationalist Chinese army, organized by the CIA to wage war against Communist China, became the opium barons of The Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand and Laos), the worlds largest source of opium and heroin. The Taliban banned the production of opium in 2000. In 1989, after the Costa Rica government indicted Hull for drug trafficking, a DEA-hired plane clandestinely and illegally flew the CIA operative to Miami, via Haiti. The report said that the agency had conducted a training exercise at the airport in partnership with another Federal agency and that companies located at the airport had performed "routine aviation-related services on equipment owned by the CIA". Senior U S policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras funding problems. (Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, a Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and Intemational Operations, 1989). According to Tim Weiner, the Central Intelligence Agency "has been accused of forming alliances of convenience with drug traffickers around the world in the name of anti-Communism" since its creation in 1947.[1]. A number of writers have alleged that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in the Nicaraguan Contras' cocaine trafficking operations during the 1980s Nicaraguan civil war. Various sources allege the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (WP) has been involved in drug trafficking operations throughout Asia, Australia, the Americas, and the Middle East: opium planting, growing, harvesting and smuggling; processing of heroin, development of heroin processing capability and smuggling . Many had long been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking They used contra planes and a Costa Rican-based shrimp company, which laundered money for the CIA, to move cocaine to the U.S. Costa Rica was not the only route. "[24], Several journalists assert that the CIA used Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport in Arkansas to smuggle weapons and ammunition to the Contras in Nicaragua, and drugs back into the United States. [36], In 1990, a failed CIA anti-drug operation in Venezuela resulted in at least a ton of cocaine being smuggled into the United States and sold on the streets. "[1], The charges of CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking were revived in 1996, when a newspaper series by reporter Gary Webb in the San Jose Mercury News claimed that the trafficking had played an important role in the creation of the crack cocaine drug problem in the United States. "Allegations linking CIA secret operations and drug trafficking have persisted on and off ever since the Agency's founding in 1947. "[46] In an article for Washington Decoded, former CIA operations office Merle Pribbenow said, like claims leveled toward former South Vietnamese Lieutenant General ng Vn Quang, the allegations against Ahmed Wali Karzai appeared to be "vague rumors unsupported by solid evidence" and he cautioned readers about accepting news based solely on anonymous sources and unsubstantiated rumors. New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003. Its function of covert operations is by definition illegal and therefore requires secret funding. The members of the unit were known to torture Aristide supporters, and threatened to kill the local head of . It was a way to raise large amounts of "hard to trace" cash. CIA and Drug Trafficking Drug Trafficking in Recent Years Drug trafficking in the United States dates back to the 19th century. Read more Print length 734 pages Language English Publisher Lawrence Hill Books Publication date May 1, 2003 [2][3][4] The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post launched their own investigations and rejected Webb's allegations. "[10], On December 20, 1985, these and other additional charges were laid out in an Associated Press article after an extensive investigation, which included interviews with "officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Customs Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Costa Rica's Public Security Ministry, as well as rebels and Americans who work with them". The Agencys principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and leading heroin refiner. CIA drug trafficking. Sign up on lukeuncensored.com or to check out our store on thebestpoliticalshirts.com. Surname1 CIA involvement in Drug Trafficking Name Professor Course Date The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [21] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. search query for foia err: -a a + aa a + a. laotian official involvement in drug trafficking From its very inception, the CIA has been embroiled in the murky underworld of drug trafficking. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. Air America, the CIAs principal airline proprietary, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia. Although it did find that both men were major drug dealers, "guilty of enriching themselves at the expense of countless drug users", and that they had contributed money to the Contra cause, "we did not find that their activities were responsible for the crack cocaine epidemic in South Central Los Angeles, much less the rise of crack throughout the nation, or that they were a significant source of support for the Contras. And I know so because I was told by some of these pilots that in fact they had done that. Regarding issues raised in the series' shorter sidebar stories, it found that some in the government were "not eager" to have DEA agent Celerino Castillo "openly probe" activities at Ilopango Airport in El Salvador, where covert operations in support of the Contras were undertaken, and that the CIA had indeed intervened in a case involving smuggler Julio Zavala. The first book to prove CIA and U.S. government complicity in global drug trafficking, The Politics of Heroin includes meticulous documentation of dishonesty and dirty dealings at the highest levels from the Cold War until today. John E. Newhagen, "Commander Zero blasts CIA, State Department". A 1986 investigation by a sub-committee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (the Kerry Committee), found that "the Contra drug links included", among other connections, "[] payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies. [45] The President demanded clear evidence before taking action, which the US and UK did not have. The "multinational" business of drug trafficking can be traced back to the 1940s, even before the CIA was created following World War II. Back in 1996, Blandon was asked in court if he ran the LA drug operation, which he confirmed. it would not be the first time that the DEA has stumbled on major CIA drug . There are instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity or take action to resolve the allegations. In August 1996, Gary Webb's three-part series of articles titled Dark Alliance was published by the San Jose Mercury News. The Report concluded that "it is clear that individuals who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply network of the Contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers. The charges linked the Contra trafficking to Sebastin Gonzlez Mendiola, who was charged with cocaine trafficking on November 26, 1984, in Costa Rica. When he became de facto dictator of Panama in 1984, little changed. A CIA internal investigation found that agents had worked with drug traffickers to support the Contra program, but found no evidence of any conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. It is portrayed in the movie Air America. The lieutenant trafficker was also a Contra, and the CIA knew that there was an arms-for-drugs shuttle and did nothing to stop it. Although the Carter administration suspends payments to Noriega, he returns to the U.S. payroll when President Reagan takes office in 1981. July 17, 2023. Brian Barger and Robert Parry, "Reports Link Nicaraguan Rebels to Cocaine Trafficking". As I said earlier, we have found no evidence in the course of this lengthy investigation of any conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. [34], Ceppos' column drew editorial responses from both The New York Times and The Washington Post. Long Island is home to some of the wealthiest communities in New York State which goes to show that heroin is affecting all neighborhoods rich and poor. The lead of the first article set out the series basic claims: For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. This drug ring opened the first pipeline between Colombias cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles and, as a result, The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America.. One of the businesses that relocated there was Rich Mountain Aviation Inc.that did illegal modifications to the planes which allowed Seal to fly weapons to Nicaragua and transport cocaine back into the United States.
Happy Planner Calendar Refills 2023, Articles C