The Info Web

#CIADrugTrafficking

10 entries

People (6)

  • Barry Seal Louisiana pilot who flew cocaine for the Medellin Cartel from Mena, Arkansas, became a DEA informant in 1984, flew the CIA-camera-equipped Nicaragua sting, and was shot in Baton Rouge on February 19, 1986.
  • Carlos Cabezas Nicaraguan cocaine dealer convicted in the 1983 San Francisco Frogman case who later said part of his proceeds went to the Contras, a claim the Justice Department and CIA inspectors found unsupported.
  • Danilo Blandon Nicaraguan cocaine trafficker in Los Angeles from 1982 to 1991, Ricky Ross's principal supplier, arrested in 1992 and later a paid DEA informant after a sentence cut to 28 months.
  • Eden Pastora Sandinista commander who led the CIA-funded ARDE Southern Front in Costa Rica until 1984, then the only Contra commander the CIA's records tied to cocaine financing, and who received money and housing from Danilo Blandon.
  • Enrique Bermudez FDN military commander and former Somoza attaché in Washington, named in two drug allegations the CIA recorded and never substantiated, shot dead in Managua on February 16, 1991.
  • Norwin Meneses Nicaraguan cocaine trafficker, born 1943, investigated for a decade by the DEA and FBI in San Francisco while used as a DEA informant in Costa Rica, indicted in 1989 and jailed in Nicaragua in 1991.

Organizations (2)

  • Medellin Cartel The Medellín-based association of Colombian cocaine exporters whose pilots, money launderers, offers of amnesty and Central American routes recur in the Kerry subcommittee record, the Seal sting and the CIA Inspector General's Contra volumes.
  • Southern Air Transport Miami air carrier the CIA owned from August 5, 1960 to December 31, 1973, which in 1985 and 1986 serviced and supplied the Enterprise's Contra flights; later military cargo carrier.

Concepts (1)

  • Cocaine The commodity at the center of the Kerry subcommittee, CIA Inspector General and Justice Department Inspector General records on the Contras, the Colombian cartels and the Los Angeles crack market.

Places (1)

  • Mena, Arkansas Western Arkansas town where Barry Seal based aircraft from late 1982; its money-laundering inquiries, a CIA 'two week exercise' and CIA records searches ran from 1983 to the 1996 Inspector General report.