WebFor 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

Guatemala, whose military intelligence service closely associated with the CIA harbored many drug traffickers, according to the DEA, was another way station along the cocaine highway.

Trafficking in illicit drugs at the wholesale and retail level-which involves processing, smug- gling, and distribution-continues to be largely con- trolled by criminal organizations with international connections. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras. He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. But in 2000, a #CIA report produced for Congress claimed the #KLA had disarmed, disbanded, and reformed into a friendly civil defense organization. 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." If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all ran their own investigations that disputed many points in Webbs story though all three of those pieces had their own reporting problems, according to TIMEs Jack E. White. While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients drug trafficking. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), the CIA's parent and sister organizations, cultivate relations with the leaders of the Italian Mafia, recruiting heavily from the New York and Chicago underworlds, whose members, including Charles `Lucky' Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Joe Adonis, and Frank Costello, help the agencies keep in touch with Sicilian Mafia leaders exiled by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. By 1972, the KMT controls 80 percent of the Golden Triangle's opium trade. It only concluded that the State Department gave money to companies with the intent of helping the Contras that were involved in drug trafficking. While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients' drug trafficking. "[52], The report also stated that former DEA agent Celerino Castillo 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". Felix Gallardo's main partner is Honduran drug lord Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, who began amassing his $2-billion fortune as a cocaine supplier to Alberto Sicilia Falcon. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [6]

SINs mandate included countering the cocaine trade, though SIN officers themselves engaged in trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some Haitian military and political leaders.

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.

[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 kilograms (220lb) cocaine shipment and that the money would go 'for the cause' of fighting the Nicaraguan government."

Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Amencans whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. According to the U.S. Justice Department, the CIA quashed the case because it may `prove embarrassing because of Mr. Khramkhruans's involvement with CIA activities in Thailand, Burma, and elsewhere.'. U.S. officials, including then-ClA 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). Ironically, drug trafficking through Panama increased after the U.S. invasion. [48] The second volume, "The Contra Story," was issued in a classified version on April 27, 1998, and in an unclassified version on October 8, 1998. While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients' drug trafficking.

Even sources who are routinely skeptical of the official line on the contras agree that the idea that the agency was behind drug smuggling by the contras is fantasy, journalist Eliane Shannon, who covered the war on drugs, told TIME shortly after the Mercury New ran the articles.

. For many years, the Panamanian was on the CIA payroll despite Washington knowing he was involved in drug trafficking since at least 1972. They, in turn, had long dominated the drug traffic in the area of north-east Afghanistan that they controlled during the Taliban years. [52], The report stated that the CIA had requested the Justice Department return $36,800 to a member of the Meneses drug ring, which had been seized by DEA agents in the .mw-parser-output .vanchor>:target~.vanchor-text{background-color:#b1d2ff}Frogman raid in San Francisco. WebOne of the biggest connections between the CIA and Crack Cocaine lies in a single individual, Freeway Ricky Ross, a drug trafficker from LA, who sold up to $3 million worth of cocaine a day during his height, and namesake of rapper Rick Ross. Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, drug money laundering in South and Central America, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Communications and International Economic Policy, Trade, Oceans, and Environment of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, "C.I.A. Guatemala, whose military intelligence serviceclosely associated with the CIAharbored many drug traffickers, according to the DEA, was another way station along the cocaine highway. Southern Air Transport, formerly CIA-owned and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as well. After the series' publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists had voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. 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 CIAs drug network, wrote Webb, opened the first pipeline between Colombias cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the crack capital of the world. Black gangs used their profits to buy automatic weapons, sometimes from one of the CIA-linked drug dealers.

WebCIA has had a solid rule against being involved in drug trafficking. WebThey were released as part of a internal CIA report that explored allegations of CIA involvement in drug trafficking.

They deny that Bay Area-based Nicaraguan drug dealers, Juan Norwin Meneses and Oscar Danilo Blandon, worked for the CIA or contributed millions in drug profits to the contras, as Webb contended. The Agencys principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and leading heroin refiner. "[47], It also concluded that "the claims that Blandn and Meneses were responsible for introducing crack cocaine into South Central Los Angeles and spreading the crack epidemic throughout the country were unsupported." This article was first published on August 31, 2008. A 1996 Peter Dale Scott affidavit on CIA drugs trafficking explained his research into longstanding US government involvement. A CIA informant on narcotics trafficking in northern Thailand, he claims that agency had full knowledge Carlos Cabezas, convicted of conspiracy to traffic cocaine, said that the profits from his crimes "belonged to the Contra revolution." One described the series' evidence as "thin";[19] the second, citing interviews with current and former intelligence and law-enforcement officials, questioned the importance of the drug dealers discussed in the series, both in the crack cocaine trade and in supporting the Nicaraguan Contras' fight against the Sandinista government. Mexican police, assisted by U.S. drug agents, arrest Alberto Sicilia Falcon, whose Tijuana-based operation was reportedly generating $3.6 million a week from the sale of cocaine and marijuana in the United States. Among the top Mexican politicians, law enforcement and intelligence officials from whom Sicilia enjoyed support was Miguel Nazar Haro, head of the Direccion Federal de Seguridad (DFS), who the CIA admits was its `most important source in Mexico and Central America.'

While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients drug trafficking. . WebThe CIA Was Behind a Massive Drug Trafficking Operation in Argentina, Russian Drug Smuggler Claims. Spadafora was later found murdered.

Web40.

WebFrom its very inception, the CIA has been embroiled in the murky underworld of drug trafficking. WebThe United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of involvement in drug trafficking. Representative Maxine Waters, a congresswoman for South Central Los Angeles the heart of the drug wars requested both federal and congressional inquiries into the role that the U.S. government played in bringing cocaine into her community. 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. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. The story attracted hundreds of thousands of readers to the newspapers site at a time when going viral was still a twinkle in the Internets eye. Still, Webbs reputation as an investigative journalist was tarnished. [34], Ceppos' column drew editorial responses from both The New York Times and The Washington Post. in Central America", "Prepared Statement of Frederick P. Hitz inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency Before The House Committee On Intelligence subject Investigation Of allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras In Drug Trafficking to the United States", "Inspector: CIA Kept Ties With Alleged Traffickers", "Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories & the C.I.A.

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.

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was for years a useful tool of the United States, until President George H.W. ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." WebThis entry gives information on the five categories of illicit drugs - narcotics, stimulants, depressants (sedatives), hallucinogens, and cannabis. [6], In 1984, U.S. officials began receiving reports of Contra cocaine trafficking. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of involvement in drug trafficking. Attorneys' Offices.

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"[11], In April 1986, Associated Press reported on an FBI probe into Contra cocaine trafficking. When Danilo Blandn was finally arrested in 1986, he admitted to drug crimes that would have sent others away for life. by LostKingOfPortugal. [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.

In 1985, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Celerino Castillo reported to his superiors that cocaine was being stored at the CIAs contra-supply warehouse at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador for shipment to the U.S. DEA agent Enrique `Kiki' Camerena is kidnapped and murder in Mexico. We believe that Cuban involvement in drug trafficking may help to promote Cuban political objec- tives in the Western Hemisphere. When Nazar was linked to a multi-million-dollar stolen car ring several years later, the CIA intervenes to prevent his indictment in the United States. Brian Barger and Robert Parry, "Reports Link Nicaraguan Rebels to Cocaine Trafficking". Seeking to rekindle anticommunist resistance in China, the CIA provides arms, ammunition and other supplies to the KMT. Global Research [40] By January, Webb filed drafts of four more articles based on his trip, but his editors concluded that the new articles would not help shore up the original series' claims. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. And major mediathe New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Posthave run long pieces refuting the Mercury News series. 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 dealing. On talk radio and in the street, others have taken those charges further--alleging that the CIA was directly, and deliberately, involved in drug trafficking.

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