investigators." July 17, 2023. These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported. The show explores long-simmering accusations of the CIA's involvement in drug trafficking, including that the agency may have sponsored Rick Ross and scar Danilo Blandn, the Los Angeles wholesaler and his Nicaraguan supplier who helped spark the crack epidemic in the 1980s. [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. It was this heroin network that eventually became known as "the French Connection". [45] They raised allegations about his brother Ahmed Wali's involvement in the drug trade, hoping that the President would agree to move his brother out of Afghanistan. In Costa Rica, which served as the Southern Front for the contras (Honduras being the Northern Front), there were several different CIA-contra networks involved in drug trafficking. [35], The Post response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. 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. Now the question is why heroin use has dramatically increased since 2002? 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. It is very clear that the CIA has been very much involved with drug dealings, Paul said. Drug trafficking > When: WWII to Afghanistan > What: CIA involvement in global drug trafficking. The Corsican Gang was protected by the CIA and the SDECE after World War II in exchange for working to prevent French Communists from bringing the Old Port of Marseille under their control.[12]. 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. it would not be the first time that the DEA has stumbled on major CIA drug . With branches in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America and the U.S., Nugan Hand Bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering and international arms dealings. It noted that Blandn and Meneses claimed to have donated money to Contra sympathizers in Los Angeles, but found no information to confirm that it was true or that the agency had heard of it. 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. A former CIA officer, John Stockwell, as well as 2 former DEA officers, Michael Levine and Celerino Castillo III, have all written books that discussed CIA drug trafficking, and a former head (administrator) of the DEA, Robert Bonner, who was later also the head (commissioner) of the US Customs Service, also accused the CIA of drug trafficking, as did former DEA . CIA Involvement in Drug Smuggling Part 4. Back in 1996, Blandon was asked in court if he ran the LA drug operation, which he confirmed. Fearing the creation of a Communist state allied with Cuba and the Soviet Union, the U.S government under Ronald Reagan, began funding and arming groups of rebels opposed to the Sandanistas known as the Counterrevolutionaries, or Contras. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. 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. Washington claims that Mexico is the source of the heroin that is flooding U.S. streetswith 10,500 hectares under poppy cultivation in 2012while Afghanistan had224,000 hectaresaccording to theUnited Nations Office on Drugs and Crime(UNODC) in a 2014 report but the numbers tell a different story. The shipments took place despite the objections of the U.S. DEA. In August 1996, Gary Webb's three-part series of articles titled Dark Alliance was published by the San Jose Mercury News. [58] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." Drug trafficking is the process by which individuals manufacture and distribute illegal drugs throughout the country. [30] In May 1997, The Mercury News executive editor Jerry Ceppos, who had approved the series, published a column that acknowledged shortcomings in the series reporting, editing, and production, while maintaining the story was correct "on many important points. This is really what has always been behind the War on Drugs; the problem that is being addressed is not drug use, but the existence of drug cartels, narco-terrorism, and political groups that use drug money to fund private wars. 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]. "[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. 2023 We Are Change | Website by Dave Cahill, er Ronald Reagan, began funding and arming groups of rebels opposed to the Sandanistas known as the Counterrevolutionaries, or Contras. [51], In the 623rd paragraph, the report described a cable from the CIA's Directorate of Operations dated October 22, 1982, describing a prospective meeting between Contra leaders in Costa Rica for "an exchange in [the United States] of narcotics for arms, which then are shipped to Nicaragua. Ross was also released early after cooperating in an investigation of police corruption, but was rearrested a few months later in a sting operation arranged with the help of Blandn. [41], Alfred McCoy has argued that the CIA had fostered heroin production in Afghanistan for decades to finance operations aimed at containing the spread of communism, and later to finance operations aimed at containing the spread of the Islamic state. In the beginning, CIA arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille to wrestle control of labor unions from the Communist Party. New Haven police said emergency responders saw at least 15 overdoses since Thursday afternoon, and possibly up to 22. Three officials told journalists that . But ultimately, the responsibility was, and is, mine. "[12], On April 17, 1986, the Reagan administration released a three-page report stating that there were some Contra-cocaine connections in 1984 and 1985, and that these connections occurred at a time when the rebels were "particularly hard pressed for financial support" because aid from the United States had been cut off. Its function of covert operations is by definition illegal and therefore requires secret funding. He concluded: "How did these shortcomings occur? In 1949, two of Chiang Kai-shek's defeated generals, Li Wen Huan and Tuan Shi Wen, marched their Third and Fifth Route. Many GIs in Vietnam became addicts. He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. The . In the late 1940s, the CIA funneled arms and funds to the Corsican Mafia in return for their assistance in breaking up widespread labour strikes in France that were threatening to establish communist control over the Old Port of Marseille. 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. His discharge paperwork is at the . Editor's Note: The ongoing relationship between Drug Trafficking and the CIA has been fairly common knowledge for the past 45 years and was well documented by Alfred McCoy's, . The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. [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. California senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein also took note and wrote to CIA director John Deutch and Attorney General Janet Reno, asking for investigations into the articles. Other revelations also point strongly to massive but clandestine U.S. government involvement in drug trafficking. Throughout its existence, it's been involved in drugs trafficking - documented by Alfred McCoy's book titled "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade." . 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. Comment Removing Scanfee from Billable Books scanned before June 2011 which appear to have manually set scanfees Donor internetarchivebookdrive hammsam Edition The members of the unit were known to torture Aristide supporters, and threatened to kill the local head of . 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. The plan involved the unsupervised shipment of hundreds of pounds of cocaine from Venezuela. Clinton brought in C.I.A front companies by awarding them state-backed low interest loans to relocate to Arkansas. While a few cases have been investigated and exposed by journalists, the issue continues to remain in the shadows. In 1986, the Reagan Administration acknowledged that funds from cocaine smuggling helped fund the Contra rebels, but . One of the Americans said "that in one ongoing operation, the cocaine is unloaded from planes at rebel airstrips and taken to an Atlantic coast port where it is concealed on shrimp boats that are later unloaded in the Miami area. In 1986, the Agency added some more names to its payroll by creating a new Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN). Bush lost patience with his brutal, drug . The lab's production was soon being ferried out on the planes of the CIA's front airline, Air America. 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. After the series' publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists had voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. [20], However, aviation historian William M. Leary, writes that Air America was not involved in the drug trade, citing Joseph Westermeyer, a physician and public health worker resident in Laos from 1965 to 1975, that "American-owned airlines never knowingly transported opium in or out of Laos, nor did their American pilots ever profit from its transport. " (G)overnments themselves, and the links they develop with major traffickers, are the key both to the drug-trafficking problem and to its solution." The CIA is a sinister, secretive, unaccountable agency, operating extrajudicially. Launched in 1970, Eagle targeted anti-Castro Cubans smuggling cocaine from Latin America to the Trafficante organization in Florida. The allegations accuse the agency of selling crack cocaine in the Los Angeles area to fund . 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. [1] Webb's series raised allegations that U.S. government officials including Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) employees either ignored or protected drug dealers in Southern California who were associated with the Nicaraguan Contras. [13] Later in the same region, while the CIA was sponsoring a "Secret War" in Laos from 1961 to 1975, it was openly accused of trafficking heroin in the Golden Triangle area. 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]. SIN was purportedly created to fight the cocaine trade, though SIN officers themselves engaged in the trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some of the Haitian military and political leaders. "[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. The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, chaired at the time by Senator John Kerry, held a series of hearings from 1987 to 1988 on drug cartels and drug money laundering in South and Central America and the Caribbean. 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 sanctuary that Cuba provides to drug traffick- ers complicates drug-enforcement efforts in the Caribbean: - Vessels carrying drugs from South America to the United States frequently use Cuban waters to avoid interdiction, with and without official Cuban sanction. According to the series, Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles, and Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. There have been several allegations that the CIA facilitated smuggling lines for cocaine, heroin . The Central Intelligence Agency's involvement in drug trafficking is back in the media spotlight after a spokesman for the violence-plagued Mexican state of Chihuahua became the latest. 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 . [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. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "C.I.A. BNDD agents immediately felt the impact of the CIA's involvement in drug law enforcement operations within the United States. He told the Examiner, "I just wanted to get the Communists out of my country." The CIA's front company, Air America was alleged to have profited from transporting opium and heroin on behalf of Hmong leader Vang Pao,[15][16] or of "turning a blind eye" to the Laotian military doing it. In the early 1970s, Alfred McCoy "accused American officials of condoning and even cooperating with corrupt elements in Southeast Asia's illegal drug trade out of political and military considerations"[2] and stated that the CIA was knowingly involved in the production of heroin in the Golden Triangle of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. 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. ", "I know specifically that some of the CIA contract workers, meaning some of the pilots, in fact were bringing drugs into the U.S. and landing some of these drugs in government air bases. The late Chalmers Johnson said its existence "shorten (s) the life of the American republic." The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of involvement in drug trafficking. 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. [52], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. 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. U.S. officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua. The CIA's history began in the 1980s. Mid-1980s to early 199Os, HAITI. officers". [45] This was reported in 2008 by The New York Times. The involvement of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in cocaine trafficking in Central America during the Reagan Administration as part of the Contra war in Nicaragua has been the subject of several official and journalistic investigations since the mid-1980s. In the interviews, some covering several days and being conducted in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado and California, several of the Contra backers told AP of firsthand knowledge of cocaine trafficking. Asking why crack became so prevalent in the black community of Los Angeles, the article credited Blandn, referring to him as the Johnny Appleseed of crack in California.It also found disparities in the treatment of black and white traffickers in the justice system, contrasting the treatment of Blandn and Ross after their arrests for drug trafficking. These tribesmen continued to grow, as they had for generations, the opium poppy. And I know so because I was told by some of these pilots that in fact they had done that."[54]. While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients drug trafficking. John E. Newhagen, "Commander Zero blasts CIA, State Department". During the Korean War, the first allegations of CIA drug trafficking surfaced after 1949, stemming from a deal whereby arms were supplied to Chiang Kai-shek's defeated generals in exchange for intelligence. Ironically drug trafficking through Panama increased after the US invasion. Americans, 5% of Earths population, take 60% of painkillers on Earth. "[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. The subject remains controversial. [19][15] McCoy stated that: In most cases, the CIA's role involved various forms of complicity, tolerance or studied ignorance about the trade, not any direct culpability in the actual trafficking [t]he CIA did not handle heroin, but it did provide its drug lord allies with transport, arms, and political protection. A pair of BNDD [the predecessor of the US Drug Enforcement Administration] agents tried to seize an Air America."[13]. Another example of drug trafficking is that person then going out and selling his homemade meth to the public. According to an NBC affiliatereported that state officials were set to declare a public health emergency in New Haven, Connecticut over the rise of heroin use which has resulted in two deaths: Officials in New Haven on Friday were set to address a public health emergency declaration brought on by a rash of heroin overdoses in the city beginning Thursday. And in return, large shipments of narcotics flowed . According to a Pravda report in 2015 by William Edstrom titledHeroin Dealer in Chief. New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003. EARLY COMPLICITY IN DRUG TRAFFICKING THE OSS: FORERUNNER TO THE CIA. [33], The Honduran drug lord Juan Matta-Ballesteros was the owner of SETCO, an airline which the Nicaraguan Contras used to covertly transport military supplies and personnel in the early 1980s. His trial took place in Miami, where he was sentenced to 45 years in prison. In addition to a 26 percent production increase over past year for a total of 5,644 metric tons the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. "[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. [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. [32], In October 2013, two former federal agents and an ex-CIA contractor told an American television network that CIA operatives were involved in the kidnapping and murder of DEA covert agent Enrique Camarena, because he was a threat to the agency's drug operations in Mexico in the 1980s. [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. The city is warning residents that there is a batch of tainted, life-threatening heroin on the streets. Citing existing federal policy on narcotics enforcement, Smith wrote: "In light of these provisions and in view of the fine cooperation the Drug Enforcement Administration has received from CIA, no formal requirement regarding the reporting of narcotics violations has been included in these procedures. 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. Several also said they supplied information about the smuggling to U.S. [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. Marseilles first heroin laboratones were opened in 1951, only months after the Corsicans took over the waterfront. ", The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. [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. Author of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. "Report: Cocaine Ring Finances Contras", Associated Press (March 16, 1986). Central Intelligence Agency. Webb was following the trial of a Contra leader named Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes who testified as to the C.I.As involvement in cocaine trafficking into Inner city Los Angeles in the 1980s. It found that "the allegations contained in the original Mercury News articles were exaggerations of the actual facts." 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