cia involvement in drug trafficking
Citing existing federal policy on narcotics enforcement, Smith wrote: "In light of these provisions and in view of the fine cooperation the Drug Enforcement Administration has received from CIA, no formal requirement regarding the reporting of narcotics violations has been included in these procedures. 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. [59], For the related broader allegations of drug trafficking by the CIA, see, Alleged CIA support for cocaine smuggling and other related crimes, CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking, Early reports of Contra cocaine trafficking. "[10], On December 20, 1985, these and other additional charges were laid out in an Associated Press article after an extensive investigation, which included interviews with "officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Customs Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Costa Rica's Public Security Ministry, as well as rebels and Americans who work with them". House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "C.I.A. Webb was following the trial of a Contra leader named Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes who testified as to the C.I.As involvement in cocaine trafficking into Inner city Los Angeles in the 1980s. Calling the Post's overall focus "misplaced", Overholser expressed regret that the paper had not taken the opportunity to re-examine whether the CIA had overlooked Contra involvement in drug smuggling, "a subject The Post and the public had given short shrift. [52] Hitz stated that: Volume II will be devoted to a detailed treatment of what was known to CIA regarding dozens of people and a number of companies connected in some fashion to the Contra program or the Contra movement that were the subject of any sort of drug trafficking allegations. Six weeks after the declassified and heavily censored first volume of the CIA report was made public, Inspector General Frederick Hitz testified before a House congressional committee. [34], Ceppos' column drew editorial responses from both The New York Times and The Washington Post. The article also discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series. 3) The series oversimplified how the crack epidemic grew. The late Chalmers Johnson said its existence "shorten (s) the life of the American republic." The death rate could go much higher considering the increasing level of poverty in the U.S. especially in the inner cities where the highest unemployment rates is among the 18-34 year olds. New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003. In 1984, U.S. officials began receiving reports of Contra cocaine trafficking. And the CIA and government officials were closing their eyes, fighting a war that was technically illegal.. [34] Writers such as Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall have suggested that the U.S. government's desire to conceal or protect these clandestine shipments led it to close the DEA office in Honduras when an investigation began into SETCO, allowing Matta-Ballesteros to continue and expand his trafficking. He concluded: "How did these shortcomings occur? Read more Print length 734 pages Language English Publisher Lawrence Hill Books Publication date May 1, 2003 The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of involvement in drug trafficking. It is portrayed in the movie Air America. In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had intormation regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter. [19][15] 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. The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. U.S. cities such as Los Angeles, Miami and New York City experienced a rise in crime and disease. The agency has been linked to illicit Nazi gold to fund its early operations. investigators." [2][3][4] The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post launched their own investigations and rejected Webb's allegations. Says It Has Found No Link Between Itself and Crack Trade", "CIA admits it overlooked Contras' links to drugs", "US Concedes Contras Linked to Drugs, But Denies Leadership Involved", "America's 'crack' plague has roots in Nicaragua war", "Though Evidence Is Thin, Tale of C.I.A. Some sources say that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been involved in several drug trafficking operations. 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. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. The Plain of Jars had been captured by Pathet Lao fighters in 1964, which resulted in the Royal Lao Air Force being unable to land its C-47 transport aircraft on the Plain of Jars for opium transport. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. Theonline news sourceThe Huffington Postpublished an article titledRon Paul Had Accurate Conspiracy Theory: CIA Was Tied To Drug Traffickershighlights what the former Libertarian Presidential nominee Dr. Ron Paul said on the involvement of the CIA in the drug trade which was not aConspiracy Theorybut a fact when taking into consideration the Iran-Contra Scandal: Drug trafficking is a gold mine for people who want to raise money in the underground government in order to finance projects that they cant get legitimately. We have referenced this case and the secret CIA group The Finders in the past here at Health Impact News, as former FBI Chief Ted Gunderson was actively . " (G)overnments themselves, and the links they develop with major traffickers, are the key both to the drug-trafficking problem and to its solution." The CIA is a sinister, secretive, unaccountable agency, operating extrajudicially. "[1], The charges of CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking were revived in 1996, when a newspaper series by reporter Gary Webb in the San Jose Mercury News claimed that the trafficking had played an important role in the creation of the crack cocaine drug problem in the United States. (See Christopher Robbins, Air America, Avon Books, 1985, chapter 9). Hallucinogens include LSD (acid, microdot), mescaline and peyote (mexc, buttons, cactus . Despite the numerous, documented and fully admitted examples of CIA involvement in drug dealing in the past, the idea that the agency is still tied in with . The involvement of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in cocaine trafficking in Central America during the Reagan Administration as part of the Contra war in Nicaragua has been the subject of several official and journalistic investigations since the mid-1980s. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. The drug in the shipments was provided by the Venezuelan anti-drug unit which was working with the CIA, using cocaine seized in Venezuela. Several also said they supplied information about the smuggling to U.S. 7.6 Rate this 82 Metascore An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico. 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. So How Did It Become the Cloak-and-Dagger Capital of America? CIA and Drug Trafficking Drug Trafficking in Recent Years Drug trafficking in the United States dates back to the 19th century. ", "Drugs, Corruption, and Justice in Vietnam and Afghanistan: A Cautionary Tale", "11, "Opium, the China Lobby, and the CIA", Dark Alliance: CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, Overview of CIA/IG Investigation (January 29, 1998), Report of InvestigationVolume I: The California Story (January 29, 1998), Report of Investigation Volume II: The Contra Story (October 8, 1998), Congressional Testimony of Peter Kornbluh, Involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking, Official reports by the U.S. Government on the CIA, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking&oldid=1133990201, Central Intelligence Agency controversies, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Articles to be expanded from February 2010, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 16 January 2023, at 13:23. The charges linked the Contra trafficking to Sebastin Gonzlez Mendiola, who was charged with cocaine trafficking on November 26, 1984, in Costa Rica. In August 1996, Gary Webb's three-part series of articles titled Dark Alliance was published by the San Jose Mercury News. 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. [25], The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, developing its own three-part series called The Cocaine Trail. The CIA was very much involved in the Iran-Contra scandals. Let me be frank about what we are finding. [41], Alfred McCoy has argued that the CIA had fostered heroin production in Afghanistan for decades to finance operations aimed at containing the spread of communism, and later to finance operations aimed at containing the spread of the Islamic state. Alfred McCoy writes, "According to several unproven sources, Air America began flying opium from mountain villages north and east of the Plain of Jars to CIA asset Hmong General Vang Pao's headquarters at Long Tieng."[14]. CIA Drug Trafficking - Independent News Articles ~ A Drug Kingpin, the CIA, and Prisoners- Freeway Rick Ross and America's Mass Incarceration Problem - Daily Beast . [31], When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. "[2] Subsequent investigations by the Inspector General of the CIA,[4] United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs,[5] and United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (i.e. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths, the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt. Air America, the CIAs principal airline proprietary, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia. The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. SIN was purportedly created to fight . It also suggested that the Contras may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). [8] The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the ruling, and the Supreme Court of the United States let the judgment stand by refusing to hear an additional appeal.[10][11]. Clinton brought in C.I.A front companies by awarding them state-backed low interest loans to relocate to Arkansas. (See Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA, W.W. Norton & Co., 1 987. Many GIs in Vietnam became addicts. Describes CIA involvement in drug trafficking Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2011-02-08 21:59:25 Bookplateleaf 0010 Boxid IA138122 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City London [u.a.] CIA and Contra cocaine trafficking Senator John Kerry's 1988 U.S. Senate Committee on . McCoy has also written that during the 1980s "to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the CIA, working through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, backed Afghan warlords who used the Agency's arms, logistics, and protection to become major drug lords. EARLY COMPLICITY IN DRUG TRAFFICKING THE OSS: FORERUNNER TO THE CIA. "[7], On March 16, 1986, the San Francisco Examiner published a report on the "1983 seizure of 430 pounds of cocaine from a Colombian freighter" in San Francisco; it said that a "cocaine ring in the San Francisco Bay area helped finance Nicaragua's Contra rebels." [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. 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." A Russian man accused of trying to smuggle about 900 pounds of cocaine from Argentina to Russia said the CIA was behind the massive drug-trafficking operation and that he has been set up. The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post launched their own investigations and rejected Webb's allegations. The. Gene "Chip" Tatum, former CIA operative and pilot, was a firsthand witness to drug and weapons trafficking in the early 1980's by Bill Clinton, George H.W. Now the question is why heroin use has dramatically increased since 2002? CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking Central Intelligence Agency A number of writers have alleged that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in the Nicaraguan Contras ' cocaine trafficking operations during the 1980s Nicaraguan civil war. [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. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. "[44], Ceppos noted that Webb did not agree with these conclusions. [36], In 1990, a failed CIA anti-drug operation in Venezuela resulted in at least a ton of cocaine being smuggled into the United States and sold on the streets. Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles. General Manuel Noriega, head of Panama's government, 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 activitieswhich they had known about since the 1960s. Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Americans whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. 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