[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. Many GIs in Vietnam became addicts. [25][26] Some theories even invoke the involvement of political figures, including Oliver North, then vice president and former CIA director George H. W. Bush and then Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. "[29], 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. 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. [31], The 2014 movie Kill the Messenger depicted actor Jeremy Renner as Gary Webb. The reason for War in Afghanistan was because Taliban outlawed opium growing which ended economic wars (opium wars) against Iran, Russia and China. [22], Following a 2009 FOIA request, the 2006 document "Undercover Armies: CIA and Surrogate Warfare in Laos" was released. "[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 Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported back in 2015 thatheroin use in the United States increased 63% from 2002 through 2013.Fast forward to 2016, heroin is sweeping across the United States at unprecedented levels. [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. After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. The drug in the shipments was provided by the Venezuelan anti-drug unit which was working with the CIA, using cocaine seized in Venezuela. We also explore the depth and breadth of the Iran Contra investigations and reports, specifically focusing on the investigations into the connections between the Contras and drug trafficking. We highlight the testimony provided by people close to the Camarena case and the allegations of CIA involvement, and we search, to no avail, for any . [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. 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." . Three officials told journalists that they considered these reports "reliable." 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. ", The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report[45] was released on July 23, 1998. [36] 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. "[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. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. 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 San Jose Mercury News series documents just one thread of the interwoven operations linking the CIA, the contras and the cocaine cartels. The contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots, airstrips, warehouses, front companies and banks) to these CIA-linked drug networks. [38] Despite the controversy that soon overtook the series, and the request of one board member to reconsider, the branch's board went ahead with the award in November. The joint Lansky-CIA operations in the international drug racket were a lucrative venture that thrived as a consequence of deep U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia as a cover for drug smuggling activities." Piper's simple one-paragraph explanation may be the most concise overview of the Vietnam War ever written. 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. 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. [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. 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. CIA and Contra cocaine trafficking Senator John Kerry's 1988 U.S. Senate Committee on . [28], In 1986, the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations began investigating drug trafficking from Central and South America and the Caribbean to the United States. In 1993, an official of the DEA called Afghanistan the new Colombia of the drug world. in Central America", "Managing a Nightmare: CIA Public Affairs and the Drug Conspiracy Story", Involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking, Official reports by the U.S. Government on the CIA, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking&oldid=1133985828, History of the foreign relations of the United States, Investigations and hearings of the United States Congress, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. 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 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. Why was the CIA involved in drug trafficking? 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. In sum, the CIA's role in the Southeast Asian heroin trade involved indirect complicity rather than direct culpability. 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. When some authority wasnt clued in and made an arrest, powerful strings were pulled on behalf of dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence, or deportation. Another example of drug trafficking is that person then going out and selling his homemade meth to the public. Blandn and Meneses high-volume supply of low-priced cocaine allowed Ross to sew up the Los Angeles market and move on. [58] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." The Crack epidemic coincidently began around the same time when the Iran-Contra Scandal was being exposed. These labs were run by Corsican gang leader Paul Carbone. Former Panamanian deputy health minister Dr. Hugo Spadafora, who had fought with the Contra army, outlined charges of cocaine trafficking to a prominent Panamanian official. It found that Blandn received permanent resident status "in a wholly improper manner" and that for some time the Department "was not certain whether to prosecute Meneses, or use him as a cooperating witness." "[57], This agreement, which had not previously been revealed, came at a time when there were allegations that the CIA was using drug dealers in its controversial covert operation to bring down the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. View Essay - CIA & drug trafficking from ECONOMICS 11023 at Michigan State University. The heroin epidemic resembles the days whenCrack cocainebecame the major drug that destroyed communities across the United States and other parts of the world including the Caribbean that began in the early 1980s. "Report: Cocaine Ring Finances Contras", Associated Press (March 16, 1986). Former contract analyst for the CIA David MacMichael[14]. A CIA internal investigation found that agents had worked with drug traffickers to support the Contra program, but found no evidence of any conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. [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. After the series' publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists had voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. 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