Medellin Cartel organization
also: Colombian Medellin dope cartel, Medellin, Medellin drug cartel, Medellín cartel, cartel, Medellin cartel, Madeline cartel, Colombian trafficking ring, Colombian Medellin drug cartel, Colombian cartels
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
Colombiacountry · 34Pablo Escobarperson · 28Cali Cartelorganization · 18CIAintelligence service · 11United Statescountry · 10Sandinistasorganization · 8FARCorganization · 8Alvaro Uribeperson · 6Carlos Lehderperson · 6Oliver Northperson · 6Ramon Millian Rodriguezperson · 6Medellínplace · 5Contrasorganization · 5Nicaraguacountry · 5George H.W. Bushperson · 5Shrimp Companyorganization · 4Los Angelesplace · 4Barry Sealperson · 4Manuel Noriegaperson · 4Panamacountry · 3Los Angeles Timesorganization · 3Miamiplace · 3Norwin Menendezperson · 2Felix Rodriguezperson · 2
Claims (45)
Ramon Millian Rodriguez member_of
Medellin Cartel documented
“could compromise the Nicaraguan Sandinista government for drug money laundering. In other words, they want to frame the Nicaraguan government. The client turned out to be former Medellin cartel accountant Ramon Milan Rodriguez, the man who …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 14 @ 17:26
Fabio Oca member_of
Medellin Cartel documented
“Vega claims he had extensive experience working and cooperating with the U.S. government. So, okay. Colombian Fabio Oca, one of the founders of the Medellin cartel, seems to have believed that Vega was a CIA operative. Well, he was. He was …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 27:05
Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross financed_via
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“Freeway Rick was a dealer's dealer. By the time the market exploded in 1984, Ross already was dealing directly with the Colombian cartels who supplied him from 50 to 100 kilos a day. Los Angeles Times stated in 1994, with that, Ross was abl…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 10 @ 55:01
Medellin Cartel financed_via
Shrimp Company documented
“when he and $5 million in cash were taken off a Learjet bound for Panama. The shrimp company, he testified, was one of the interlocking chain of companies he'd created to launder all of the cash that was pouring in into the cartel's coppers…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 13 @ 47:51
Medellin Cartel financed_via
Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office documented
“I, through my intermediaries, made it possible. Was any of the money that you provided the shrimp company traceable to drugs or drug-related transactions, Carey asked? No, sir. Why was that? Because we were experts at what we do. Millian, a…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 13 @ 48:50
Felix Rodriguez financed_via
Medellin Cartel documented
“over $10 million in donation from the Medellin cartel to the Contras. A donation, he said, was arranged by and paid for by a former CIA agent. And you're never going to guess who that is. Felix Rodriguez. Yes, the infamous Felix Rodriguez. …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 13 @ 49:17
Torres brothers trafficked
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“It was mind boggling. They revealed a drug ring that was dumping hundreds of kilos of cocaine every week into black neighborhoods in L.A., generating truckloads of cash. The confidential informant had admitted laundering up to a hundred mil…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 30:53
Medellin Cartel covered_up
FARC host_asserted
“busting or the Colombian government busting, and I'm going to use that in air quotes, a FARC lab was a hoax. What the DEA would do and what the Colombian government, this AUC organization, the real, the Cali cartel and the Medellin cartel, …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Cocaine Death Squad & the War on Terror Part 2 @ 1:12:46
Luther Rosbacher exposed
Medellin Cartel book_quoted
“R-U-S-B-A-C-H-E-R, another CIA operative, confirmed the CIA's role in establishing the Medellin cartel. He attended the two meetings in December 1981 and reported that there had been a preliminary meeting in the two meetings in December. He…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 3 @ 46:08
Medellin Cartel overthrew
Mafia host_asserted
“The CIA doesn't want leftist guerrillas or Pablo Escobar to have the same power as the people that they helped put in power. So there you have it. The CIA from start to finish, the U.S. government from start to finish, wants to control this…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 3 @ 49:06
Manuel Noriega member_of
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“Well, it started in Pakistan. It ends up being ran out of London. But now you see how all these connections of all these things we've been talking about all play into exactly what we're talking about right now. Yes. And George Bush in the p…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 3 @ 52:12
Medellin Cartel funded
Banco de Occidente book_quoted
“was Banco de Occidente, a major financial institution that the Madeline cartel had been using. You know, Pablo Escobar, the guy they don't like, Robin Hood. Yeah, so they pressured that bank that they had been used because they're the compe…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 9 @ 17:01
Jose Nelson Urega Cardenas laundered_money_for
Medellin Cartel documented
“and the North Valley cartels. He also was a money launderer for them and a communications expert that helped them set up communication equipment. Urega was arrested previously in Colombia in 1998 for narco-trafficking and landed in Bogota's…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 9 @ 3:25
North Valley Cartel succeeded
Medellin Cartel book_quoted
“that had taken over for Medellin and Cali. Vega claims that corrupt U.S. agents are part of the Bogota connection and seriously compromised his role as a government asset in a number of his informants within the Colombian narco network beca…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 7 @ 12:14
Joe Kelso spied_on
Medellin Cartel guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Barry Seal trafficked
Medellin Cartel documented
“at the Intermountain Regional Airport, where he was running drugs up and weapons down. In the early 1980s, Barry Sill was one of the biggest cocaine and marijuana importers in the southern part of the United States. He flew loads directly f…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 1:31
Burr Brauer laundered_money_for
Medellin Cartel documented
“Our hopes are not only to dedicate the Torah, but also to help build a synagogue that will be used for the glory of God. Before Burr Braugher dedicated himself to the synagogue, he had dedicated himself to something completely different. Th…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Mafia, CIA & George Bush Part 19 @ 35:43
Burr Brauer laundered_money_for
Medellin Cartel documented
“and the identity of one of his quiet nacelle partners, consider first the bank where Burr Brower was caught, Great American Bank in Miami. At the time, in 1980-81, Burr Brower was laundering the cartel's drug money through Great American Ba…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Mafia, CIA & George Bush Part 19 @ 38:16
Colombia covered_up
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“narco-trafficking. You have the narco elite. We talked at Nauseam about this. You have the Cali cartel, which never makes the news because it's basically state-sponsored. And to a certain extent, the Medellin cartel, now that they got rid o…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Devil’s Chessboard Part 1 @ 1:21:37
Walter Grasheim trafficked
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“Again, the death squad. He was also advising and training Salvadoran army units in long-range reconnaissance operations on behalf of the U.S. government. One of Castillo's informants, sorry about that, at Ilopengo told him Grasham was intim…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 13:44
Pablo Escobar member_of
Medellin Cartel documented
“and traffickers in the Medellin, notably Carlos Lader and Pablo Escobar. So let's break that down. The Nicaraguan Sandinistas are the good guys. They were not trafficking drugs. The narco guerrillas are the militia that I just described to …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner- Drugs,Oil, and War Part 3 @ 37:18
Pablo Escobar member_of
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“who were close relatives of the Medellin cartel boss, Pablo Escobar. In his 1996 interview, Norwin Menendez confirmed the relationship between the women and Escobar. Guzeta said Torreses were informed that no charges would be filed against …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 28:28
Norwin Menendez member_of
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“who were close relatives of the Medellin cartel boss, Pablo Escobar. In his 1996 interview, Norwin Menendez confirmed the relationship between the women and Escobar. Guzeta said Torreses were informed that no charges would be filed against …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 28:28
Torres brothers laundered_money_for
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“It was mind boggling. They revealed a drug ring that was dumping hundreds of kilos of cocaine every week into black neighborhoods in L.A., generating truckloads of cash. The confidential informant had admitted laundering up to a hundred mil…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 30:53
Rick Ross trafficked
Medellin Cartel book_quoted
“named Rick and Ollie, it appeared that the gangs had established a direct pipeline to the Colombian cartels, which meant they had access to as much cocaine as they could sell. Since the circle was small, it was little wonder that its bosses…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 42:28
Medellin Cartel headed
Pablo Escobar host_asserted
“Or a who Ella brothers in the Cali cartel played a vital role in the national coordination of Columbia's narco economy and the cartels representatives in their political system. The cartel system was not simply a group of gangsters who ran …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads & the War on Terror Part 5 @ 8:12
Medellin Cartel funded
Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala host_asserted
“liberal candidate Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala, who won the decision in 1978. Exchange houses, real estate agencies, and various financial corporations began to pop up everywhere, offering high returns and tailor-made services to the cocaine tr…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads & the War on Terror Part 5 @ 18:10
Medellin Cartel assassinated
Mafia host_asserted
“Rival Colombian traffickers and the Cuban mafia fought for control of the state's lucrative drug market. The conflicts peaked in 1981 and was not resolved until 1993 with Escobar's death. Bruce Bagley is quoted as saying, In the process, th…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads & the War on Terror Part 5 @ 22:00
Medellin Cartel assassinated
Rodrigo Lara Bonilla host_asserted
“And again, it's a pattern. The meddling cartel assassinated Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, a leading campaigner against Escobar and a vocal advocate for Escobar's extradition.…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads & the War on Terror Part 5 @ 25:17
George H.W. Bush ordered_assassination_of
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“In 1989, President George Bush authorized a covert operation to track down the Medellin cartel, just like Nixon had done with the Corsican mafia. In the same year, another important relationship in the U.S. was terminated. The U.S. invaded …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads & the War on Terror Part 5 @ 43:25
Cali Cartel succeeded
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“The Cali cartel simply took over Escobar's market share and a new era of trafficking was established and linked to the narco elite, the Colombian state, and the U.S. This became ever more apparent under President Alvaro Uribe Velez. And aga…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads & the War on Terror Part 5 @ 51:12
Pablo Escobar member_of
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“a complexity far greater than what she said, because she is writing for the CIA. As a result of the cocaine's growing importance in Colombia, Pablo Escobar Graveria, a former petty thief from the outskirts of Medellin, became the most succe…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 3 @ 39:13
CIA founded
Medellin Cartel book_quoted
“The CIA set up two preliminary meetings attended by various Colombian drug dealers for the purpose of organizing their cartel. The CIA is organizing the drug cartel. He's creating them. Now you know why I say all of this stuff that's going …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 3 @ 41:09
Medellin Cartel founded
M-19 host_asserted
“A paramilitary organization called MOSS, meaning Death to Kidnappers, was also established at this meeting. Now, keep in mind, who's the kidnappers? The FARC is. So they're creating a paramilitary force against the FARC. And we're told the …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 3 @ 42:07
CIA laundered_money_for
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“on a number of occasions that the fraudulently obtained savings and loan money could not be traced, even though there was a repeated evidence that it could be traced. Yet the success of his own department in Operation Polar Cap disproved hi…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Devil’s Chessboard Part 1 @ 6:26
Carlos Lehder laundered_money_for
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“The $40 million was reportedly the proceeds of drug trafficking by the Colombian Medellin dope cartel co-founder Carlos Leder, L-E-H-D-E-R. According to an outspoken drug enforcement agent, Leder is the private business partner of the Bush …”
▶ Operation Gladio and a look back at 9_11 @ 1:06:14
Medellin Cartel laundered_money_for
Federal Reserve host_asserted
“The Federal Reserve Bank of Miami reported a cash surplus of $5.5 billion, greater than the total surplus of all other Federal Reserve Bank branches in the United States in 1979. Remarkably, a connection between the drug cartels and this ca…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads & the War on Terror Part 5 @ 18:37
Alberto Uribe Sierra funded
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“the original Medellin cartel. When Pablo Escobar launched his version of the Medellin cartel in 1982, Uribe Sierra organized an exclusive horse race to raise funds. When he was killed in 1983, his son, Alvaro Uribe, flew to his ranch in Esc…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 4 @ 41:12
Ochoa family founded
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“uniform. Yeribi Sierra, who owned extensive cattle ranches in that area and became a real estate intermediary for the traffickers, was connected by marriage to the family called Ocas. O-C-H-O-A-S. They were an elite family that joined the n…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 4 @ 40:40
Pablo Escobar founded
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“the original Medellin cartel. When Pablo Escobar launched his version of the Medellin cartel in 1982, Uribe Sierra organized an exclusive horse race to raise funds. When he was killed in 1983, his son, Alvaro Uribe, flew to his ranch in Esc…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 4 @ 41:12
Medellin Cartel supplied_arms_to
Contras guest_asserted
“Furr probably thought it necessary to add his testament to his credibility in light of what the report was going to say next. The Medellin cartel reportedly had made a deal with Vice President George H.W. Bush to supply American weapons to …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 14 @ 55:29
Medellin Cartel targeted_for_regime_change
Manuel Noriega host_asserted
“The only reason that any cartel, like the Medellin cartel, gets busted is because they go rogue. I mean, that's what happened to Noriega, too. There you go. Yeah, they were worried that this, I mean, some of the cartel members, some of the …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads and War on Terror Part 4 @ 1:09:08
James Baker laundered_money_for
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“The $40 million was reportedly the proceeds of drug trafficking by the Colombian Medellin dope cartel co-founder Carlos Leder, L-E-H-D-E-R. According to an outspoken drug enforcement agent, Leder is the private business partner of the Bush …”
▶ Operation Gladio and a look back at 9_11 @ 1:06:14
Medellin Cartel supplied_arms_to
Contras guest_asserted
“The guns were delivered and sold to the Contras in Nicaragua and to the cartels. Escobar, Rudd said, explained that it was a swap of cocaine for drugs or for guns. Rudd has stated that while Escobar did not say the CIA was involved in the e…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 14 @ 57:28
George H.W. Bush laundered_money_for
Medellin Cartel host_asserted
“The $40 million was reportedly the proceeds of drug trafficking by the Colombian Medellin dope cartel co-founder Carlos Leder, L-E-H-D-E-R. According to an outspoken drug enforcement agent, Leder is the private business partner of the Bush …”
▶ Operation Gladio and a look back at 9_11 @ 1:06:14
Mentions (84)
▶ 16:26
At the beginning of this, in the 1970s, there was basically two quote-unquote cartels, which is a term they began using then, the Cali Cartel and the Medellin Cartel. Well, the Medellin Cartel decided that, and both was under CIA observatio…
▶ 16:54
We found out in Contra that all of those U.S. agencies was literally involved in the trafficking of cocaine into the United States to raise money for the Contras. So that's a proven fact. But what most people don't know is the Medellin cart…
▶ 1:06:14
The $40 million was reportedly the proceeds of drug trafficking by the Colombian Medellin dope cartel co-founder Carlos Leder, L-E-H-D-E-R. According to an outspoken drug enforcement agent, Leder is the private business partner of the Bush …
▶ 5:17
her manganate companies, transport companies, and private security firms. Again, that keeps coming back over and over again. In contrast to the conventional framework and organized crime model with a centralized hierarchy, what the Colombia…
▶ 5:47
modes of production and distribution and technology to increase efficiency. When the Medellin cartel was basically decapitated, it had little impact on the actual narco elite in Colombia. The decentralization and privatization would be key …
▶ 6:14
The destruction of the Medellin cartel did not affect the collaboration among the narco elite and the sectors of the ruling class, as well as the military, particularly in the regions where the FARC contested Medellin's control. The cartel …
▶ 8:48
and Spain was considered the gateway into Europe. The Medellín cartel had attempted to establish a monopoly control over the trade without negotiating market share with other enterprises, which is why it was decapitated. The Cali cartel, on…
▶ 28:23
He just resigned. According to Time, the stated purpose of the scheme was to help out the Venezuelan generals, agents, win the confidence of Colombian drug lords, specifically the Medellin cartel. But by facilitating multi-ton shipments, th…
▶ 38:44
sought to capitalize politically on the FARC's alleged links to cocaine trade in Colombia. Their arguments about the FARC as narco-terrorists were drawn from studies by Rachel Efrenfeld, who criticized the FARC links to the Medellin cartel …
▶ 41:39
All right, the first meeting occurred in early 1981 with 20 of the biggest cocaine dealers in Colombia. The second meeting was held in a hotel in Medellin in December 1981 and attended by 200 drug dealers. It established the Medellin Cartel…
▶ 46:08
R-U-S-B-A-C-H-E-R, another CIA operative, confirmed the CIA's role in establishing the Medellin cartel. He attended the two meetings in December 1981 and reported that there had been a preliminary meeting in the two meetings in December. He…
▶ 52:12
Well, it started in Pakistan. It ends up being ran out of London. But now you see how all these connections of all these things we've been talking about all play into exactly what we're talking about right now. Yes. And George Bush in the p…
▶ 52:44
He becomes the main man. No, no. He becomes a liability. And that's when we invaded Panama and took him out. And this was the Sandinistas. No, that's Nicaragua. There's just too many of them. Yeah. No, we end up going in and taking out Nori…
▶ 1:05:41
into producers, distributors, and marketing networks was vital to the trade. The traffickers acted on the U.S. government's behalf in a de facto relationship when it financially benefited them. Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel demonstrated t…
▶ 1:13:45
The Medellin cartel received $10 billion of that sum a year in sales, prompting Ford's magazine to place the Medellin cartel, Pablo Escobar, and Jorge Octa, his partner, on its list of the world's richest men in 1988. The cocaine decade saw…
▶ 28:05
The Medellin cartel focused simply on money laundering because they were reinvesting their profits into their local community. The cartel's monopoly presented opportunities for enrichment of all Colombian capital, regardless of whether ente…
▶ 28:32
This situation created competition among traffickers with connections to the ruling class. The Medellin cartel waged a desperate battle against enterprises that refused to enter into alliance with them. All manner of underhanded methods fro…
▶ 31:23
But they were states that U.S. oligarchs had investments in them. But it's the same model. As the Colombian state became embroiled in the cocaine trade, the problem for the narco elite soon became the prominence of the Medellin cartel, whic…
▶ 40:11
CIA Director William Casey contended at the time that the laboratory was guarded by the FARC and planned by the Medellin cartel. But it was later revealed that the laboratory was being ran by the Cali cartel and protected by the Colombian a…
▶ 40:40
uniform. Yeribi Sierra, who owned extensive cattle ranches in that area and became a real estate intermediary for the traffickers, was connected by marriage to the family called Ocas. O-C-H-O-A-S. They were an elite family that joined the n…
▶ 41:12
the original Medellin cartel. When Pablo Escobar launched his version of the Medellin cartel in 1982, Uribe Sierra organized an exclusive horse race to raise funds. When he was killed in 1983, his son, Alvaro Uribe, flew to his ranch in Esc…
▶ 42:39
That was available, and it began providing known traffickers such as Escobar and the Ocas and the Castanos access to the cocoa. When Alvaro Uribe's attendance at a Medellin cartel meeting at Escobar's ranch, Napoleon, another one of the dru…
▶ 1:05:49
They did take care of their people. They got medical care and did a bunch of things for them, I guess, to increase their out, to look out for them and protect them if somebody was coming through. But we saw talking to the governors and stuf…
▶ 1:09:08
The only reason that any cartel, like the Medellin cartel, gets busted is because they go rogue. I mean, that's what happened to Noriega, too. There you go. Yeah, they were worried that this, I mean, some of the cartel members, some of the …
▶ 17:01
was Banco de Occidente, a major financial institution that the Madeline cartel had been using. You know, Pablo Escobar, the guy they don't like, Robin Hood. Yeah, so they pressured that bank that they had been used because they're the compe…
▶ 5:44
had exclusive access to them through their connections with the narco state. The principal cartels based in Medellin and Cali controlled 80%, sometimes more, of the cocaine exported from Colombia. Other quasi-independent groups centered in …
▶ 7:41
like those that worked in the labs. The profits of cocaine placed an enormous concentration of economic power in the narco elite. To a certain extent, this was centralized power with leadership structure composed of the heads of the dominan…
▶ 14:42
made up 40%. And 30% of the 70 was from urban lower class. So in other words, definitely 70% of the Medellin cartel was from lower middle class and below. 55% of the people had only primary education, while 35% had secondary education. 10%…
▶ 22:00
Rival Colombian traffickers and the Cuban mafia fought for control of the state's lucrative drug market. The conflicts peaked in 1981 and was not resolved until 1993 with Escobar's death. Bruce Bagley is quoted as saying, In the process, th…
▶ 39:03
When forces allied to Escobar blew up an airliner in Colombia, his war with the Colombian narco state in Washington intensified. And that aircraft that was targeted is very suspicious. The CIA and the Bush family had their own reasons for t…
▶ 42:29
According to local police forces, Pablo Escobar and some other traffickers in the Medellin cartel were seen by the poor as generous good men, simple, and were persecuted because of their origins from a humble class of people like themselves…
▶ 43:25
In 1989, President George Bush authorized a covert operation to track down the Medellin cartel, just like Nixon had done with the Corsican mafia. In the same year, another important relationship in the U.S. was terminated. The U.S. invaded …
▶ 52:56
It was just a way of channeling more money down there for their death squads. Pablo Escobar, as a force in Colombian politics and a cartel kingpin, strained relations with the U.S. and Colombia. In a desperate battle waged by Escobar and th…
▶ 1:04:24
Not misguided evil network that has been set up that propagandize us and ends up using our own money against us because these drugs flow in here and kill our loved ones. Exactly, Colonel. And what I don't think a lot of people look at at th…
▶ 25:45
Alvaro Uribe Vales, a Colombian politician and senator dedicated to the collaboration with the Medellin cartel at high government levels. Uribe was linked to a business involved in narcotic activities in the U.S. His father was murdered in …
▶ 26:13
and is a close friend of Pablo Escobar. He has participated in Escobar's political campaign to win a position as assistant parliamentarian. Uribe has been one of the politicians from the Senate who has attacked all forms of extradition trea…
▶ 26:43
to establish the narco-terrorist state. The report lists mostly unknown members of a Colombian narco-elite linked to the Medellin cartel, as well as a number of hitmen used to assassinate anyone they didn't like, including members of the Un…
▶ 1:12:46
busting or the Colombian government busting, and I'm going to use that in air quotes, a FARC lab was a hoax. What the DEA would do and what the Colombian government, this AUC organization, the real, the Cali cartel and the Medellin cartel, …
▶ 55:01
Freeway Rick was a dealer's dealer. By the time the market exploded in 1984, Ross already was dealing directly with the Colombian cartels who supplied him from 50 to 100 kilos a day. Los Angeles Times stated in 1994, with that, Ross was abl…
▶ 49:15
by suggesting that $1.5 million in cocaine cash the DEA planned to seize from the Medellin cartel should be turned over to the Contras. The DEA says it declined North's suggestion. Subsequently, a White House leak blew the operation, and se…
▶ 47:22
In reality, however, it was a firm owned and operated by Cuban-American drug traffickers, meaning ocean hunters and the shrimp company. The conclusion was based partly on congressional testimony of former Medellin cartel accountant Ramon Mi…
▶ 47:51
when he and $5 million in cash were taken off a Learjet bound for Panama. The shrimp company, he testified, was one of the interlocking chain of companies he'd created to launder all of the cash that was pouring in into the cartel's coppers…
▶ 48:50
I, through my intermediaries, made it possible. Was any of the money that you provided the shrimp company traceable to drugs or drug-related transactions, Carey asked? No, sir. Why was that? Because we were experts at what we do. Millian, a…
▶ 49:17
over $10 million in donation from the Medellin cartel to the Contras. A donation, he said, was arranged by and paid for by a former CIA agent. And you're never going to guess who that is. Felix Rodriguez. Yes, the infamous Felix Rodriguez. …
▶ 49:50
One of the government's star witnesses, former Medellin cartel transportation boss Carlos Lader, confirmed under oath that the cartel had given the Contras $10 million, just as Millian had testified. Lader said he arranged the donation hims…
▶ 53:10
It did, the pilot said. So how could a company started by the Medellin cartel and used as a front to run drug into America ever wind up with a contract from the U.S. Department of State Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office? Yes, they c…
▶ 1:02:07
In other words, in early 1986, the DEA was being asked to provide cheap, ocean-going vessels to a company started by the Medellin cartel to run drugs and espionage missions for the CIA. The identity of Adele's high-ranking DEA contact was n…
▶ 1:44:30
the port. So he is addressing the drugs coming into America. Yeah, but I was going to say, you do know that they said record drug busts, just like you're describing under Obama, as they were working with the Sinaloa cartel, right? You're aw…
▶ 17:26
could compromise the Nicaraguan Sandinista government for drug money laundering. In other words, they want to frame the Nicaraguan government. The client turned out to be former Medellin cartel accountant Ramon Milan Rodriguez, the man who …
▶ 55:29
Furr probably thought it necessary to add his testament to his credibility in light of what the report was going to say next. The Medellin cartel reportedly had made a deal with Vice President George H.W. Bush to supply American weapons to …
▶ 56:28
began ranting about Bush and his South Florida drug task force, which was making the cartel's delivery to Miami more difficult. Escobar then stated that Bush is a traitor who used to deal with us, but now doesn't want to. Rudd told the fede…
▶ 1:02:43
Southern Air said in a statement that the planes were carrying drilling equipment, not drugs. The wrecked C-123, in which those flight logs were found, had a history of involvement in cocaine, the Medellin cartel, and the CIA. It was the sa…
▶ 1:40
That's interesting. They also said North wanted to take $1.5 million in drug profits from Barry Still that he had gotten from the Medellin cartel and give it to the Contras. When the DEA refused to do that, the DEA officials, not the DEA in…
▶ 3:44
And by prematurely exposing the sting, it blew up the DEA's investigation of the Medellin cartel, which DEA agents said had been their most promising chance to break up the Colombian drug trafficking. The drug lords went free. Vaughn, their…
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In early 1986, it wound up with none other than CIA contractor Southern Air Transport, where it was used for Contra supply runs out of the El Salvador airport until its fatal flight. Unfortunately, the informant's allegations of the guns fo…
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And he was a one man investigation stop that had impressive results. In November of 1985, he'd been the subject of a glowing piece in the L.A. Times for his work in taking down a large Colombian trafficking ring. Some of his fellow officers…
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who were close relatives of the Medellin cartel boss, Pablo Escobar. In his 1996 interview, Norwin Menendez confirmed the relationship between the women and Escobar. Guzeta said Torreses were informed that no charges would be filed against …
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I told the chief it's bigger than I can handle. These guys are talking about millions of dollars in cocaine. They're talking about a Nicaraguan leader named Calero. They're involved in this. Colombian families. They strike the fear into the…
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named Rick and Ollie, it appeared that the gangs had established a direct pipeline to the Colombian cartels, which meant they had access to as much cocaine as they could sell. Since the circle was small, it was little wonder that its bosses…
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The majors now had the names and addresses of everyone at the top of the distribution chain, from the Colombian importers to the Nicaraguan middlemen to the black wholesalers who controlled South Central Market and everything that went with…
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I mean, they were doing activities that were way beyond the scope of DEA. Those were clearly covert activities. That was her statement. One of these double-duty DEA agents was James Kibble, a Madrid-based agent who visited jailed Medellín c…
▶ 1:21:33
They had a secret network from the Colombian border, the Venezuelan southern border, up through Venezuela, putting shit on boats and ships from Venezuela. And this piggybacks off of the book that we were reading about Colombia and the Medel…
▶ 1:25:46
Yeah, I had no idea that that cartel was actually I mean, it doesn't surprise me at all because the CIA set up both the Cali and Medellin cartel and most of the cartels in Mexico. So it's not shocking at all. It's just fun when you stumble …
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Set up shop in the Bahamas, buying an island where drug planes flew in and out of Cuba and they could land and refuel and wait for the night to fly into the U.S. Lader's transportation system worked well and gave the Medellin cartel its fir…
▶ 1:11:01
or whatever. The same thing happened in Colombia. You have the, like with the Medellin cartel, where they were actually putting their trained drug runners in and taking out, brutally assassinating the Cuban exiles in Miami and New York to t…
▶ 28:56
in the papers at the time, where all of a sudden there were these stories about the Medellin cartel. And Ron just kind of said out loud, what the hell is with the news media? There are all these stories about the Medellin cartel and nothing…
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and the Alka family in Colombia. The founders, of course, and then in the DEA report, they blamed it on the Medellin cartel, when we know for a fact that they were dealing directly with the Cali cartel. The Bolivian cocaine was coming into …
▶ 6:26
on a number of occasions that the fraudulently obtained savings and loan money could not be traced, even though there was a repeated evidence that it could be traced. Yet the success of his own department in Operation Polar Cap disproved hi…
▶ 1:21:37
narco-trafficking. You have the narco elite. We talked at Nauseam about this. You have the Cali cartel, which never makes the news because it's basically state-sponsored. And to a certain extent, the Medellin cartel, now that they got rid o…
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one year after the discovery by Occidental Oil of the billion-barrel Kenyo Limon oil field in 1983. A concerted U.S. propaganda campaign was mounted in 1984 against alleged drug trafficking by conspiracy involving Nicaraguan Sandinistas, Co…
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with farms, and it was the only way they could feed their family. And the traffickers in the Medellin and with Pablo Escobar, they all worked for the CIA. This campaign distorted the truth in two respects. It falsely implicated the FARC, an…
▶ 10:24
Colombia's second largest province and one-time home to the infamous Medellin drug cartel. There, Erebi Velez promoted the creation of the Controversial Conviviers, and I'm going to spell that, C-O-N-V-I-V-I-R-S. They were quote-unquote sel…
▶ 14:56
affected U.S. drug policy overall and particularly in Colombia. A concerted U.S. propaganda campaign was mounted in 1984 against alleged drug trafficking by a conspiracy involving Nicaraguan Sandinistas, Colombian narco-guerrillas, and traf…
▶ 15:55
by the FARC and planted by the Medellin Cartel. In fact, the plant had been protected by the U.S.-trained Colombian Army and planted at a joint meeting in Cali. Drug traffickers and shipments that had once been leaked to Cali were now, like…
▶ 17:46
would bury the Contra Support drug case linked the Nicaraguan Sandinistas to drug trafficking by bringing the first of two indictments against Leder and Escobar and a Sandinistan official. For this, he relied on the testimony and controvers…
▶ 18:16
Thus, the indictments named, in addition to five traffickers in the Medellin cartel, Pablo Escobar and Carlos Leder, it also named Federico Vaughn, an alleged assistant to Thomas Borge.…
▶ 18:38
the Nicaraguan Minister of Interior. The second indictment against the Medellin cartel in the Sandinistas was released by Gagarin to the press November 18, 1986, one day before President Reagan's press conference about the Iran-Contra scand…
▶ 55:27
in a recent interview in 1972 incident gave an indication that Seale might have been involved in a government operation at the time. He was. He was working for the CIA. After the charges were dismissed, Seale, who had been fired by TWA, beg…
▶ 58:34
And there had been no evidence before or since that the Colombian cartels were transshipping narcotics through Nicaragua. But the timing of that was very important because that's when they had frozen the money in Congress and they wanted ou…
▶ 37:46
which tells you he was working for the CIA again. Prosecutors said he got off easy because of the evidence he gave him, including some that led to higher echelons in the Medellin cartel. However, there were other relationships that Burr bro…
▶ 27:05
Vega claims he had extensive experience working and cooperating with the U.S. government. So, okay. Colombian Fabio Oca, one of the founders of the Medellin cartel, seems to have believed that Vega was a CIA operative. Well, he was. He was …
▶ 11:45
against a larger context of corruption allegations that were occurring. Vega was very involved in some of the U.S. law enforcement operations mentioned in the Kent memo. Those particular operations between 1997 and 2000 and sought to snare …
▶ 2:54
which helped piece together a long-running DEA, ICE, and CIA operation that involved Panama, Colombia, and Mexico. Urega was a notorious narco-trafficker, according to the DEA's own records. He had been doing work for major Colombian drug o…
▶ 22:58
Benake said that he flew into Texas landing strip in the early 1980s with some Colombian and Panamanian associates of the Medellin drug cartel. He said they told him the landing strip was Walter Michener's. This was in 82 or 83. And that it…