CIA/Drug trafficking

 CIA/Drug trafficking (Illegal drug trade,  Drug trafficking,  Third rail topic)  

Date	1946 - Present
Exposed by	Bo Abbott, Richard Brenneke, Manuel Buendía, Celerino Castillo, Daniel Hopsicker, Michael Levine, Terry Reed, Joël van der Reijden, Chip Tatum, Gary Webb
Interest of	Peter Abeles, Paul Lir Alexander, Jack Blum, Christic Institute, Bill Conroy, Bo Gritz, Guerrilla News Network, Paul Helliwell, Alfred McCoy, Jose Rodriguez, Michael Ruppert, Phao Siyanon, Gary Webb
Interests	Drug epidemic
Subpage	•CIA/Drug trafficking/Cover-up •CIA/Drug trafficking/Exposure •CIA/Drug trafficking/Premature death
Description	Drug trafficking by the CIA makes up a large contribution to its black budget

Drug trafficking by the CIA makes a major contribution to its black budget. Joël van der Reijden names this area as one of the most important covered up conspiracies of all time. After the CIA took over the heroin trade from the SDECE they upscaled it during the Vietnam War. This formula has been repeated in South America with cocaine, a process well documented and placed on the internet in the 1990s by Gary Webb. Post 9-11, the CIA has managed the drug trafficking out of Afghanistan. Drug trafficking is closely integrated with official US/Foreign Policy, although the official narrative remains that the CIA doesn't engage in drug trafficking as a matter of policy.

Official narrative

How the CIA Created a Cocaine Dictator - VICE NEWS In December 1989, 25,00 US troops invaded the small, Central American republic of Panama. But this was not a war against some communist regime or terrorist group – this was a drugs bust, aimed at arresting Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama, who was wanted on trafficking charges in Miami. Awkwardly for the US, Noriega had been a major CIA asset for decades – even as they knew he was becoming massively embedded with the cartels flooding the streets of the US with coke. This is how US intelligence shielded Noriega, even as he trafficked cocaine and laundered cartel millions – and also how the War on Drugs came to replace the Cold War as the central feature of US foreign policy.

Wikipedia has a page entitled "Allegations of CIA drug trafficking", as if there were any doubt as to the matter. As of 2018, there was also a page on "CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking", a limited hangout, the lead paragraph of which concludes that "The subject remains controversial." The official line still promoted as of 2017 by corporate media such as the BBC denies that the CIA has been systematically trafficking in drugs for decades. This is a highly selective interpretation of the available evidence, which Eric Umansky summarised in a 1998 Mother Jones article under the headline: "The CIA has a long and sordid history with drug traffickers. And it’s all in the Congressional Record."

Origins

CIA spooks have been connected to drug traffickers even before the agency was formally set up, In 1955 Colonel Edward Lansdale demanded the French Intelligence and the Corsican Mafia give up their control of the heroin trade from the Golden Triangle. They refused and a battle ensued in which the CIA had emerged victorious by 1956. The Vietnam War was by many accounts a tremendous boost to its scaling up of operations prolonged by what contemporary military commanders see as ineffective war strategy's and bombing campaigns that dropped more ammunition than was used in WW2, which however did not change the situation towards a victory for the US.

Exposure

Full article: CIA/Drug trafficking/Exposure

One of the first systematic treatments of CIA drug dealing was Alfred W. McCoy's 1972 book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, which the agency tried but failed to suppress.

1990s

In the 1990s Gary Webb brought the topic of CIA Drug trafficking to the attention of the US public by publishing exhaustive evidence in 1996 on the WWW, naming those involved and sharing his the documents he had used. The commercially-controlled media and the establishment in general showed little interest, (even when he published the material in 1998 as Dark Alliance). On November 15, 1996, Mike Ruppert dramatically confronted CIA Director John Deutch and testified that he has personally witnessed CIA complicity in drug trafficking. After a moment of confusion, Deutch asked for Ruppert to submit evidence, and promised to follow up - Ruppert submitted evidence, which was again ignored. Innumerable independent efforts on the internet have probably done more to expose the CIA's drug dealing than any reporting in the commercially-controlled media.

Vietnam War

In 1993, Harry Miller, a Vietnam veteran, sued Larry Silverstein, together with Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Ross Perot and Colin Powell, alleging that they had perpetrated acts including serial murder for 25 years, since the Vietnam War, as part of a conspiracy to distribute heroin. In January 1994, a New York court threw out the suit; an appeal by Miller was later rejected. The suit was not reported by the commercially-controlled media at the time.

Internet

The public record of CIA drug trafficking has greatly expanded though the internet following Webb's groundbreaking Dark Alliance website. GNN published a short interview with Gary Webb in the 2000s.

Premature deaths

Full article: CIA/Drug trafficking/Premature deaths

Bo Abbott, who appears to have disappeared after testifying about his drug smuggling flights

Dozens (at least) of people connected to the CIA drug trafficking have suffered premature deaths of one sort or another. Prominent among these is Gary Webb, the journalist who broke the story with his 1996 Dark Alliance expose. Officially, depression lead him to shoot himself twice in the head. Various CIA pilots have suffered sudden death, sometimes just before or after testifying. A leading CIA pilot, Barry Seal, was assassinated when confined due to his bail conditions. Edward Cutolo died a supposedly accidental death after having signed an affidavit that helped expose Operation Watchtower. Bo Abbott, who also testified, appears to have disappeared.

Drug routes

Cocaine

Gary Webb detailed various different import routes and strategies to smuggle cocaine from South America to USA, increasing in volume over time as the CIA refined their methods, from suitcases to cars to plane loads (such as Cocaine 1 and Cocaine 2). The main hub of CIA cocaine delivery in USA in the 1980s was Mena, Arkansas.

Cocaine 1, painted up to resemble a US government plane, made an emergency landing in Mexico, carrying over 5 tonnes of cocaine.

Opium

The USA's invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 saw a huge rise in the cultivation of opium. Sibel Edmonds stated that most of the opium exported from Afghanistan is shipped in military planes via Turkey.

Synthetic drugs

Trafficking in totally synthetic drugs is less predictable, since they can be made almost anywhere, and so circumstances depend less on geography and more on the regulatory climate and relative power of deep state factions. In 1984, Oswald LeWinter was sentenced to 6 years after being found guilty of involvement in a scheme to smuggle methamphetamine precursors into the United States.

Methods

Operation Watchtower

Full article: Operation Watchtower

Operation Watchtower used beacons to facilitate the use of military planes for smuggling purposes. It was exposed by Bo Gritz and Edward Cutolo.

Extraordinary rendition

Planes used for "extraordinary rendition" have also been used to traffic drugs (see for example Cocaine 1 or Cocaine 2), suggesting the possibility that they are used for both purposes simultaneously, that extradition routes might therefore yield insight into smuggling routes.

Money laundering

Drug trafficking operations tend to require money laundering of some kind. One CIA connected plane that might provide insight into this process is Western Global Airlines N545JN which landed in Harare with a dead body and 67 tonnes of fresh banknotes. As with the 2006 Mexico DC-9 drug bust, no legal proceedings ensued and the plane was allowed to proceed unhindered.

External links

• Washington Post - 14 July 1971 - Facts Surface on the Heroin War, by Flora Lewis
• New York Times reporting:
  • 3 December 1993 - The CIA Drug Connection Is as Old as the Agency, by Larry Collins
  • 30 January 1998 - C.I.A. Report Concludes Agency Knew Nothing of Drug Dealers' Ties to Rebels, by Tim Weiner
  • 17 July 1998 - C.I.A. Says It Used Nicaraguan Rebels Accused of Drug Tie, by James Risen
• House of Representatives - 17 July 1998 - CIA admits ties to Contra drug dealers
• Los Angeles Times - 18 July 1998 - CIA Admits to Using Nicaraguan Rebels With Drug Ties
• CNN - 3 November 1998 - CIA admits it overlooked Contras' links to drugs

 

Examples

Page name	Description
2014 Australia turboprop drug bust	35 kg of heroin were accidentally found by local police aboard a CIA plane
Air America	A CIA front company
Angel Fire	A hub of deep state guns and drug running in the 1980s, similar to Mena, Arkansas, but much less known.
Mena/Intermountain Municipal Airport	Center of drug trafficking in the 80s.
Operation Watchtower	A project to streamline clandestine drug importation into USA

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Rudi Dekkers	“Indications of the FBI’s “guilty knowledge” were widespread in the aftermath of the attack, including the widely-reported fact that the FBI was at Huffman Aviation with search warrants at 2.30 a.m. the night after the attack. Now we have uncovered evidence indicating that the FBI was on the scene even earlier… “How do you think the FBI got here (Huffman Aviation) so fast after the attack?” asked one Huffman Aviation insider. “They knew what was going on here. Hell, they were parked in a white van outside my house less than four hours after the buildings collapsed.” “We heard that 16 of the 19 terrorists had been on Interpol’s Most Wanted list,” this aviation executive continued. “But early on I gleaned that these guys had Government protection. They were let into this country for a specific purpose. It was a business deal.” A “Green Light” from the DEA The new information adds to long-standing suspicions of drug trafficking held by aviation observers at the Venice Airport, who more than six months ago told us the Hilliard/Dekkers operation had a ‘green light’ from the DEA at the Venice Airport. “The local Venice Police Department (which mounted round-the-clock patrols at the Airport after Sept.11) were warned to leave them alone,” said one aviation executive at the time. Further evidence of sinister currents swirling around the Venice Airport includes testimony from eyewitnesses indicating that Rudi Dekkers was in trouble with the DEA while still located at the Naples Airport in the mid-1990’s. The notion of a Federal “hands-off” policy towards the Venice operation also helps explain a suspicious circumstance which has provoked much speculation in the local aviation community… How did ‘ Magic Dutch Boy’ Rudi Dekkers, whose various businesses have all been utter and abject failures, manage to live in a $2.5 million mansion in a private gated community?”	Daniel Hopsicker Rudi Dekkers
Rudi Dekkers	“A few months ago Rudi wanted to visit, drink some beers. But he never showed up. He said over the phone 'I've never been so poor in my life'. I saw him making beautiful trips to South America and Middle America. In light of recent developments, maybe you need to place questions at that.”	Rudi Dekkers Arne Kruithof	2012
Federal Aviation Administration	“the FAA system for registering airplanes is little-changed from when it was started back in the good ol boy days of the 1930's. Each plane has a paper folder, for example, stuffed with all correspondence regarding airworthiness and ownership relating to that plane. Its an antiquated system which some feel is kept deliberately in place to encourage a certain ambiguity when a plane is interdicted. When a change of registration is mailed in, the FAA places a plane's folder in what they call "suspense". That's a tremendous inducement to anyone with a chance of having a plane nabbed to keep floating sales in progress. The CIA, for example, is very adept at keeping files on its planes "in suspense".”	Daniel Hopsicker	2009
Federal Aviation Administration	“FAA requirements in the air charter business are so minimal, one aviation executive told us, that all you need to go into business is a cell phone and a pair of sunglasses. The lack of oversight may be intentional. A surprising number of politically-powerful and well-connected Americans have been tainted through their ownership of planes caught ferrying large (in some cases multi-ton) loads of cocaine into the U. S.”		2009
Journalist	“This story of CIA drug dealing became a sensation because of the website, not because of the story, but because people could get to it. And they could never have gotten to it before because the San Jose Mercury News is a small regional newspaper in Northern California that you couldn't read if you lived in New York or you couldn't read if you lived in L.A.. But this story you could read anywhere in the world.”	Gary Webb	2003
Jesse Katz	“The crack epidemic in Los Angeles followed no blueprint or master plan. It was not orchestrated by the Contras or the CIA or any single drug ring. No one trafficker, even the kingpins who sold thousands of kilos and pocketed millions of dollars, ever came close to monopolizing the trade... How the crack epidemic reached that extreme, on some level, had nothing to do with Ross... [who was one of many] interchangeable characters... dwarfed by [other dealers].”	Jesse Katz	20 October 1996
Michael Levine	“I have put thousands of Americans away for tens of thousands of years for less evidence for conspiracy with less evidence than is available against Ollie North and CIA people... I personally was involved in a deep-cover case that went to the top of the drug world in three countries. The CIA killed it.”	Michael Levine	8 October 1996
Oliver North	“Wanted aircraft to go to Bolivia to pick up paste. Want aircraft to pick up 1,500 kilos.”	Oliver North	9 July 1984
Oliver North	“Honduran DC-6 which is being used for runs out of New Orleans is probably being used for drug runs into U.S.”	Oliver North	9 August 1984
Oliver North	“$14M [million] to finance came from drugs.”	Oliver North	12 July 1985
Mort Sahl	“Garrison was the man and he's quite correct. These people, they don't say anything, they just sit there. They don't challenge any of the reports or any of the conclusions [about the JFK assassination]. They left me out there. For me to go on the air and say that the CIA is the #1 dope dealer and adventurers within the CIA will bank the money from the [drug] imports from South East Asia and not to get a letter to challenge it or ask for documentation. Not to hear from anyone. And to know that that went out over 211 television stations to an audience of between 9 and 14 million. The silence is deafening. How can that be? How can you get no reaction? Where are we? What the hell is this, 1984?”	Mort Sahl	1970

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Affidavit of William Casey	Wikispooks Page		William Casey	An admission by William Casey, DCI, that he approved smuggling of cocaine into USA, having chosen Mena, Arkansas as a shipment point, with the support of Bill Clinton and Bill Weld. Casey names a range of names, including John Poindexter, Robert McFarlane, Oliver North and William Colby, the CIA, NSA and ASA.
Document:Holy Smoke and Mirrors	article	2000	David Guyatt	A wide ranging overview into the history of the modern supranational deep state, with an emphasis on overall connections and interactions of groups and people, rather than on particular events and dates.

Rating

30 November 2018 Robin  A solid introduction to this major activity of the US Deep state.
Not particularly well structured, but this page contains links to a lot of hard evidence that the CIA has owned the cocaine import business into the US for decades, and also profits from a lot of the rest of the world's drug illegal trading.

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