[6], In 1984, U.S. officials began receiving reports of Contra cocaine trafficking. Because of the war, the Hmong depended upon opium poppy cultivation for hard currency. For years, the Corsican underworld had been involved in the manufacturing and trafficking of heroin, primarily to the United States. By Ian Stuart. 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. [36] Overholser was harshly critical of the series, "reported by a seemingly hotheaded fellow willing to have people leap to conclusions his reporting couldn't back up." By developing a system for supply of the Contras, the US built a road for drug supply into the US. Gene "Chip" Tatum, former CIA operative and pilot, was a firsthand witness to drug and weapons trafficking in the early 1980's by Bill Clinton, George H.W. According to a Pravda report in 2015 by William Edstrom titledHeroin Dealer in Chief. We have referenced this case and the secret CIA group The Finders in the past here at Health Impact News, as former FBI Chief Ted Gunderson was actively . CIA Involvement in Drug Smuggling Part 4. Three officials told journalists that they considered these reports "reliable." Many young adults will unfortunately turn to the drug trade whether they sell or use as hope fades for the lack of jobs or opportunities. [23] Former CIA Operations Officer in Vietnam and CIA historian Thomas Ahern wrote, drawing from his own recollection, that local tribesmen being trained by the CIA were prohibited from carrying opium on U.S. chartered flights. . [34] Writers such as Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall have suggested that the U.S. government's desire to conceal or protect these clandestine shipments led it to close the DEA office in Honduras when an investigation began into SETCO, allowing Matta-Ballesteros to continue and expand his trafficking. ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." 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. CIA drug trafficking. SIN was purportedly created to fight . In a follow up letter later Smith stated "I have been advised that a question arose regarding the need to add all narcotics violations to the list of "non-employee" crimes". But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. [36] Operation Just Cause, whose ostensible purpose was to capture Noriega, pushed the former Panamanian leader into the Papal Nuncio where he surrendered to U.S. authorities. [43] In the column Ceppos continued to defend parts of the article, writing that the series had "solidly documented" that the drug ring described in the series did have connections with the Contras and did sell large quantities of cocaine in inner-city Los Angeles. (See Christopher Robbins, Air America, Avon Books, 1985, chapter 9). A pair of BNDD [the predecessor of the US Drug Enforcement Administration] agents tried to seize an Air America."[13]. In the suburbs of Long Island, NY, heroin use is an increasing problem. Snowfall (2017- ) [35], The Post response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. Brian Bargar and Robert Parry, "FBI Reportedly Probes Contras on Drugs, Guns", John Lichfield and Tim Cornwell, "'America has fought the wrong war': Did US policy in central America in the 1980s assist the growth of the Colombian cocaine cartels? 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. Read more Print length 734 pages Language English Publisher Lawrence Hill Books Publication date May 1, 2003 [51], It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandn or Meneses. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "C.I.A. "[52], The report also stated that former DEA agent Celerino Castillo III alleged that during the 1980s, Ilopango Airport in El Salvador was used by Contras for drug smuggling flights, and "his attempts to investigate Contra drug smuggling were stymied by DEA management, the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador, and the CIA". Apparently it worked so well, that they did it in a big way at least twice. Three officials told journalists that . [45] The President demanded clear evidence before taking action, which the US and UK did not have. The. 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. [41] The editors met with Webb several times in February to discuss the results of the paper's internal review and eventually decided to print neither Carey's draft article nor the articles Webb had filed. ", Many follow-ups to the original series published over the next three months are in the series archive at. [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. U.S. officials, including then-CIA Director William Webster and several DEA officers, sent Noriega letters of praise for efforts to thwart drug trafficking (albeit only against competitors of his Medellin Cartel patrons). Its function of covert operations is by definition illegal and therefore requires secret funding. The CIA, DEA, State Department, and several other U.S. government agencies have been alleged to have relations with various groups which are involved in drug trafficking. The systematic involvement of the CIA in international drug running is as old as the agency itself, created in 1947 at the beginning of the Cold War. 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. [30] Ceppos also asked reporter Pete Carey to write a critique of the series for publication in The Mercury News, and had the controversial website artwork changed. Barry Seal was indicted several times in 3 different states and protected from prosecution by the U.S Attorney Generals office and the D.E.A. Additionally, the Medellin Cartels Miami accountant, Ramon Milian Rodriguez, testified that he funneled nearly $10 million to Nicaraguan contras through long-time CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, who was based at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador. ), Wisdom Quarterly; Alfred W. McCoy (voxfux.com) The author of this research is Professor of Southeast and Asian History at the University of Wisconsin -Madison Alfred W. McCoy, who wrote The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. Despite some hyped phrasing, 'Dark Alliance' appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."[37]. And in return, large shipments of narcotics flowed . [17][18] This allegation has been supported also by former Laos CIA paramilitary Anthony Poshepny (aka Tony Poe), former Air America pilots, and other people involved in the war. Despite the numerous, documented and fully admitted examples of CIA involvement in drug dealing in the past, the idea that the agency is still tied in with . However, not only heroin from Afghanistan is the major source for U.S. citizens,BigPharma,or thecorporate drug dealerswho selllegal drugsalso have a hand in the epidemic because they produce and sellOpioidssuch asOxyContinandPercocetwhich is similar to heroin. In 1986, the Agency added some more names to its payroll by creating a new Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN). U.S. cities such as Los Angeles, Miami and New York City experienced a rise in crime and disease. The CIA spokesman responding to the allegation called it "ridiculous" to suggest that the agency had anything to do with the murder of a US federal agent or the escape of his alleged killer. Comment Removing Scanfee from Billable Books scanned before June 2011 which appear to have manually set scanfees Donor internetarchivebookdrive hammsam Edition 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. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent. [23], During a PBS Frontline investigation, DEA field agent Hector Berrellez said, "I believe that elements working for the CIA were involved in bringing drugs into the country. I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. It is portrayed in the movie Air America. According to the report, "Twelve American, Nicaraguan and Cuban-American rebel backers interviewed by The Associated Press said they had been questioned over the past several months [about contra cocaine trafficking] by the FBI. Caught between the schizophrenic nature of US Foreign policy with one arm of the executive branch, the CIA, engaged in the secret trafficking of drugs for arms whilst the other, the DEA, is engaged in stopping it, Barry Seal who helped build the drug Cartels for the CIA became a DEA informant against the CIA . [55][56], Also revealed was a letter between the Attorney General William French Smith and the CIA that omitted narcotics violations among the list of crimes agency officers were required to report. To support these claims, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. [45] This was reported in 2008 by The New York Times. Fox News had a segment with Geraldo Rivera that shows how the U.S. government (in this case, the U.S. Marines) is involved in Afghanistans heroin production with Washingtons approval of course. Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Reagan administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as long as the traffickers gave support to the contras. The Politics of Heroin by Alfred McCoy. "[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. 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