14. CIA Drug Running in LA:
Pulitzer Prize Award winning journalist Gary Webb exposed
this alongside LAPD Narcotics Officer turned whislteblower and author Michael
Ruppert, CIA Contract Pilot Terry Reed, and many others. In August 1996 the San
Jose Mercury Newspublished Webb’s “Dark Alliance”, a 20,000 word, three-part
investigative series which alleged that Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold
and distributed crack cocaine in Los Angeles during the 1980s, and that drug
profits were used to fund the CIA-supported Nicaraguan Contras.
Webb never asserted that the CIA directly aided drug dealers
to raise money for the Contras, but he did document that the CIA was aware of
the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of cocaine into the U.S. by
the Contra personnel. “Dark Alliance” received national attention. At the
height of the interest, the web version of it on San Jose Mercury Newswebsite
received 1.3 million hits a day. According to the Columbia Journalism Review,
the series became “the most talked-about piece of journalism in 1996 and
arguably the most famous—some would say infamous—set of articles of the
decade.”
-----------------------------------
Allegations of CIA drug trafficking [1]
Some sources say that the United States Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been involved in several drug
trafficking operations. Some of these reports claim that congressional
evidence indicates that the CIA worked with groups which it knew were involved
in drug trafficking, so that these groups would provide them with useful
intelligence and material support, in exchange for allowing their criminal
activities to continue, and impeding or preventing their arrest, indictment,
and imprisonment by U.S. law enforcement agencies.
Afghanistan (Soviet Union)
This section requires expansion.(February 2010)
The CIA supported various Afghan rebel commanders, such as
Mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who were fighting against the
government of Afghanistan and the forces of the Soviet
Union which were its supporters. Historian Alfred W. 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. In sum, the CIA's role in the Southeast Asian heroin
trade involved indirect complicity rather than direct culpability."
Golden Triangle
CIA and Kuomintang opium smuggling operations
In order to provide covert funds for
the Kuomintang (KMT) forces loyal to General Chiang Kai-shek,
who were fighting the Chinesecommunists under Mao Zedong, the CIA
helped the KMT
smuggle opium from China and Burma to Bangkok, Thailand,
by providing airplanes owned by one of their front businesses, Air
America.
United States
Iran-Contra affair
Main articles: CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in
the US and Iran–Contra affair
Released on April 13, 1989, the Kerry Committee
report concluded that members of the U.S. State Department "who
provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking... and
elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material
assistance from drug traffickers."
In 1996 Gary Webb wrote a series of articles
published in the San Jose Mercury News, which investigated Nicaraguans
linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had smuggled cocaine into the U.S. which
was then distributed as crack cocaine into Los Angeles and funneled profits to
the Contras. 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.
Although he heavily implied CIA involvement, Webb never
claimed to have made a direct link between the CIA and the Contras.
Moreover, Webb's articles were heavily attacked by many
media outlets who questions the validity of his claims, although the unusual
response led some to question if the CIA was involved.[citation needed] Webb
turned the articles into a book called, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the
Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion." On December 10, 2004, Webb
reportedly committed suicide.
In 1996, CIA Director John M. Deutch went to Los
Angeles to attempt to refute the allegations raised by the Webb articles, and
was famously confronted by former Los Angeles Police
Department officer Michael Ruppert, who testified that he had
witnessed it occurring.
The CIA has been accused of moneylaundering
the iran-contra drug 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. The CIA also worked with
BCCI in arming and financing the Afghan mujahideen during
the Afghan War against the Soviet Union, using BCCI to launder
proceeds from trafficking heroin grown in the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands,
boosting the flow of narcotics to European and U.S. markets.
Mena, Arkansas
A number of allegations have been written about and several
local, state, and federal investigations have taken place related to the notion
of the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport as a CIA drop point in
large scale cocaine trafficking beginning in the latter part of the 1980s. The
topic has received some press coverage that has included allegations of
awareness, participation and/or coverup involvement of figures such as future
presidents Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, as
well future Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Saline County prosecutor
Dan Harmon (who was convicted of numerous felonies including drug and
racketeering charges in 1997[15]). The Mena airport was also associated
with Adler Berriman (Barry) Seal, an American drug smuggler and aircraft
pilot who flew covert flights for the CIA and the MedellÃn Cartel.
A criminal investigator from the Arkansas State
Police, Russell Welch, who was assigned to investigate Mena airport
claimed that he opened a letter which released electrostatically
charged Anthrax spores in his face, and that he had his life saved
after a prompt diagnosis by a doctor.[who?] He also claimed that later,
his doctor's office was vandalized, robbed, and test results and correspondence
with the CDC in Atlanta were stolen.
An investigation by the CIA's inspector general concluded
that the CIA had no involvement in or knowledge of any illegal activities that
may have occurred in Mena. 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".
Mexico
See also: Mexican Drug War
According to Peter Dale Scott, the Dirección
Federal de Seguridad was in part a CIA creation, and "the CIA's
closest government allies were for years in the DFS". DFS badges,
"handed out to top-level Mexican drug-traffickers, have been labelled by DEA
agents a virtual 'license to traffic.'" Scott says that
"The Guadalajara Cartel, Mexico's most powerful drug-trafficking
network in the early 1980s, prospered largely because it enjoyed the protection
of the DFS, under its chief Miguel Nazar Haro, a CIA asset."
Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of Ismael Zambada
GarcÃa one of the top drug lords in Mexico, claimed after his arrest to
his attorneys that he and other top Sinaloa cartel members had received
immunity by U.S. agents and a virtual licence to smuggle cocaine over the United
States border, in exchange for intelligence about rival cartels engaged in
the Mexican Drug War.
Panama
See also: Illegal drug trade in Panama
The U.S. military invasion of Panama after which
dictator Manuel Noriega was captured.
In 1989, the United States invaded Panama as part
of Operation Just Cause, which involved 25,000 American troops.
Gen. Manuel Noriega, head of government of Panama, 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 activities—which they had known about since the 1960s. When
the DEA tried to indict Noriega in 1971, the CIA prevented them from doing so.
The CIA, which was then directed by future president George
H. W. Bush, provided Noriega with hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as
payment for his work in Latin America. 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. 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. His
trial took place in Miami, where he was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Noriega's prison sentence was reduced from 30 years to 17
years for good behavior. After serving 17 years in detention and imprisonment,
his prison sentence ended on September 9, 2007. He was held under U.S. custody
before being extradited to French custody where he was sentenced to 7 years for
laundering money from Colombian drug cartels.
Venezuelan National Guard Affair
See also: Illegal drug trade in Venezuela
The CIA, in spite of objections from the Drug Enforcement
Administration, allowed at least one ton of nearly pure cocaine to be shipped
into Miami International Airport. The CIA claimed to have done this as a
way of gathering information about Colombian drug cartels, but the cocaine
ended up being sold on the street.
In November 1993, the former head of the DEA, Robert C.
Bonner appeared on 60 Minutes and criticized the CIA for
allowing several tons of pure cocaine to be smuggled into the U.S. via
Venezuela without first notifying and securing the approval of the DEA.
In November 1996, a Miami grand jury indicted
former Venezuelan anti-narcotics chief and longtime CIA asset, General Ramon
Guillen Davila, who was smuggling many tons of cocaine into the United States
from a Venezuelan warehouse owned by the CIA. In his trial defense, Guillen
claimed that all of his drug smuggling operations were approved by the CIA.
See also
CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US
CIA transnational anti-crime and anti-drug activities
War on Drugs
MKULTRA
Air America (airline)
Air America (film)
War crimes committed by the United States
Castle Bank & Trust (Bahamas)
Nugan Hand Bank
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