San Francisco place
also: San Francisco, San Francisco area
Explore in graph → Export claims (CSV) ↓
Related entities (most co-mentioned)
Norwin Menendezperson · 42Los Angelesplace · 27United Statescountry · 25Daniel Blantonperson · 19CIAintelligence service · 18Nicaraguacountry · 14Contrasorganization · 14Costa Ricacountry · 12Julio Zavalaperson · 11Dennis Ainsworthperson · 10Jamie Menendezperson · 10Miamiplace · 10Colombiacountry · 8Enrique Bermudezperson · 8FDNorganization · 8Sandinistasorganization · 7Jim Jonesperson · 6Carlos Cabezasperson · 6Chinacountry · 5U.S. Department of Justiceorganization · 5MKUltraoperation · 5Leo Ryanperson · 5Hip Sing Tongorganization · 5Julio Bermudezperson · 5
Claims (4)
Norwin Menendez indicted_by
San Francisco documented
“had been sworn in as president, the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco brought a secret indictment against Menendez, finally charging him with a few of the crimes he had committed back in the 80s. The two-count indictment accused him o…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 25:47
Operation Midnight Climax located_in
San Francisco book_quoted
“in an operation called Midnight Climax, gave LSD to civilians. And according to a book called Acid Dreams, this CIA LSD in the 60s rebellion, CIA then set up whorehouses in safe houses in San Francisco, spiked customers' drinks, and then fi…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Medusa File by Craig Roberts Part 4 @ 36:00
CIA funded
San Francisco host_asserted
“officially ended in 1963. And as Travis said yesterday, they're still doing it. They are still experimenting on civilians and military people. That's exactly what COVID was. Okay. According to a former CIA contract employee, the CIA set up …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Medusa File by Craig Roberts Part 4 @ 40:09
United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases exposed
San Francisco host_asserted
“into the atmosphere. And then it morphed into releasing biological weapons, which happened in San Francisco and the Lyme's disease. And a lot of that came out, the biological part of it came out through Fort Detrick. So, you know, it's not …”
▶ Operation Gladio - Guatemala 1953-1954&1962-1980’s @ 2:24:06
Mentions (120)
▶ 1:57:43
of which once the heat got turned up in San Francisco, he moved his operation that was basically an MKUltra experiment down to Guyana to that same location. And that same congressman that was on to him out in San Francisco goes down there a…
▶ 52:23
Jonestown terrorist training camp to continue training terrorists there. And then subsequently in 78, they bring their MK Ultra experiment that's going on in San Francisco, as Kuznets says, once it was revealed and Congressman Leo Ryan begi…
▶ 2:24:06
into the atmosphere. And then it morphed into releasing biological weapons, which happened in San Francisco and the Lyme's disease. And a lot of that came out, the biological part of it came out through Fort Detrick. So, you know, it's not …
▶ 1:32:46
Into Harlem. Right. And it was done to destroy the wealthy, well-developed middle class that was black in New York City. Thank you. And they did the exact same thing coming up through Mexico to L.A. Thank you. And to San Francisco.…
▶ 2:54:40
Jim Jones brought his congregation from San Francisco down to continue the MKUltra experiment that he was already conducting in San Francisco, which was kind of the hub of the MKUltra experiment. Definitely illustrated that there's overlap …
▶ 1:25:33
If you're going to end up in a body bag, Congressman Leo Ryan discovered what was going on with Jonestown and in San Francisco with the MK Ultra experiment, probably found out that Jim Jones was part of Operation Gladio. He was in Brazil du…
▶ 1:39:19
So January 6th was one of those orchestrated attacks. It was basically a Reichstead event. 100%. So we tracked one of the guys that was actually trained in Ukraine. He was flown into the United States and flown back out of the San Francisco…
▶ 12:04
on that aspect of it. But again, since we're going to go through this in a style in which I normally use, I want to take this opportunity just to do a real quick check on Alfred Kohlberg and let's see what we come up with. Alfred Kohlberg, …
▶ 1:00:39
Before he got into the OSS, he was, and you guys, if you follow me, you know I'm always making fun of the PR, the media being the PR arm of the CIA and how all PR organizations work for the CIA. Well, guess what Lansdell did? He worked in S…
▶ 1:22:22
In the movie Forrest Gump, the Medal of Honor ceremony that Tom Hanks was dubbed into with Sam Davis, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. Who did I get that harmonica from, Doug? Sam Davis. But anyway, so what's really wild is Sam Davis…
▶ 1:31:17
out to San Francisco at the height of the CIA MKUltra experiments. And he is designated by the state of California as a foster home. And so he has all of these children that is exposed to all of these different psychological operations. Whe…
▶ 1:31:46
Two billion dollars worth of assets in this church because he is blackmailing all of the politicians in California for God knows what. And he's vote running both in Southern California and L.A. and in San Francisco for all of the Democrat f…
▶ 52:05
So Lansdell is the one who coined the term Viet Cong as opposed to Viet Minh. So he did not. And it's all about labeling. OK, keep in mind, Lansdell is a PR guy from San Francisco. That's what he did before he went in the OSS. He is the qui…
▶ 24:05
that everybody understands the connection of where we started with this. And that is with this Roger Leppin, or however you say his last name. Not only did he own a shipping company, but he also was the mayor of San Francisco. And of course…
▶ 24:35
Yeah, we're going to get back to San Francisco here in a second. So do you mind holding that thought? Well, I just was saying that because I want to go to talk just a second about the actual steamship company that he owned and why that's so…
▶ 25:56
There you go. It showed it was gone out of mine. So anyway, I just wanted to go back and reiterate how important sugar is to this whole thing. And these steamships, because whether it's opium in Southeast Asia or sugar out of Hawaii, these …
▶ 27:30
Lewis Henry Lapham, his connection with Texaco, which of course he owns shares with the whole family. That's part of the family fortune. His son is interesting. His son was a guy named Roger Dearborn Lapham, who lived from 1883 to 1966. He'…
▶ 28:03
That's their secret society or private club in San Francisco on Knob Hill. There was the Pacific Club and Union Club, and they merged together. They're still a club to this day. It's a men-only secret society. Isn't that that big mansion? Y…
▶ 29:02
Funny story about his son and Bobby Jones playing golf together, but we're not doing sports commentary. So in 1936, there's this thing going on in San Francisco called the Waterfront Strike. And he champions the employer side, not the strik…
▶ 30:01
He said he was only going to run for mayor one time, and he actually stuck to his word. He was the mayor of San Francisco 1944 to 1948. He was trying to scrap the cable car system. Wait a minute. In that 1944, that would be right as the war…
▶ 31:04
And expected. And expected. And if you know how San Francisco is just like, what do you call it, the New York of the East Coast or the Boston of the East Coast? Yeah, I think it's the New York of the West Coast. Yeah, well, what's interesti…
▶ 32:04
Now let's do the bonesman himself. And he's not all that excited. He's more exciting for his relatives, but as you might guess, yeah, as you might guess, he went to a private high school called a Hotchkiss school in Connecticut, gets out of…
▶ 32:35
Worked six years as a journalist and editor. And World War II comes around, he becomes a civilian executive assistant to the general in command of the San Francisco Port of Embarkation. So that's the CIA. Yes. But what qualifications does t…
▶ 49:19
auric junior auric is o-r-r-i-c-k he's a bonesman in 1937 and he's got a brother named andrew downey auric who was a bonesman in 1940. uh andrew downey's easy uh he's best known he would become the san francisco administrator for the sec fr…
▶ 50:24
So this whole story, everything's been eastern seaboard. Today's group are the first times we see the shift to the West Coast, which I think is important. William Orr Jr. would join the Army in 1942. And guess what? You're not going to beli…
▶ 51:00
Okay. Nothing too much to talk about, but it's time in the Army. Post-war, he goes back to private practice in San Francisco and gets named a United States Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division of the DOJ in 1961 and 2. And then …
▶ 7:15
Karina Lanunez. He was referred to as La Barra, the Menendez lieutenant who had been supplying cocaine to Caprese and Zavala in San Francisco and funneling the profits to the Contra Army under the command of Chavarro. In August or September…
▶ 21:38
that he was particularly angry that he didn't get a chance to debrief Menendez and had only last-minute notice that he could speak to the CIA agent, Roberto. The Justice Department IG reported this. Supposedly outraged, Auckland shot a cabl…
▶ 22:06
In San Francisco, FBI agent Gordon Gibler read the cable and was surprised that the DEA had not shared that information with the FBI. A few days later, the San Francisco FBI issued arrest warrants for Roberto and Menendez, you know, now tha…
▶ 22:38
that that was all after they knew they were gone. Other DEA offices also began wondering what the hell their Costa Rica comrades were up to. The San Francisco office cabled Costa Rica complaining that it had no idea who was being targeted b…
▶ 23:06
was sent to DEA headquarters in Washington, inquiring, quote, whether an indictment of Menendez by the San Francisco FBI will result in a national security problem with other agencies, unquote. In other words, mother may I. It must have cau…
▶ 24:03
had put together enough evidence to indict Menendez for running a continuing criminal enterprise, a racketeering offense that carries possible life term. That would fix both his ass and the DEA's for good. Norwin's informant days would be o…
▶ 24:31
The same guy, Joe Rosanello, that did absolutely nothing with the Frogman case that we talked about a while back, and presented him with a list of reasons why Menendez needed to be indicted. Their prosecution memo detailed a long history of…
▶ 27:55
that an official inquiry on the topic and how much of, if anything, American officials knew about it at the time would create such an uproar that it could derail the main thrust of the Senate inquiry to sort out the Reagan administration's …
▶ 18:28
To create that fear. Yeah, it's the Hegelian manufactured crisis. It's exactly what it is. I mean, we can see it so clearly now in retrospect. I've got to mention that that group has Kellyanne Conway ties. Of course. So Evan Galbraith, what…
▶ 12:05
We became acquainted with hunger and the lightheadedness that accompanies it. We had no idea how long the confrontation would last, but we were prepared to stay in the compound. The EPC participant and licensed medical practitioner, Margare…
▶ 31:38
The newspaper stories made him sound like Al Capone, and he wants to sit down and have a chat. That'll be the day. When I pushed open the doors to the courtroom in San Francisco a few weeks later, I found a scene like Miami Vice. To my left…
▶ 34:28
And Cornejo's prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Hall, was referred to the Justice Department for investigation for the charges. Imagine my surprise. In the San Francisco Daily Recorder story about the misconduct charge, it was noted…
▶ 43:02
He's a pretty significant witness in your case here. He didn't just disappear, did he? He's going to testify, isn't he? We're not at all certain about that, was the response. When I got back to Sacramento, I called my editor at the main off…
▶ 37:24
but cocaine powder was made to be able to snort. It was extremely difficult to smoke because of the high boiling point. So what was it that Siegel's patients were using? This cocaine they called Freebase. Siegel learned that it was cocaine …
▶ 42:33
But there was still time to prevent a catastrophe, Beck told the committee. We do not have to have an epidemic of freebase or cocoa paste smoking in the United States. The possibility is strong that this might occur. I have reports from Cal…
▶ 0:34
I would really appreciate that. And we're going to go ahead and get started where we left off on Friday. So we were talking about Dennis Ainsworth, who was a contact in San Francisco. And the organization that we talked about on Friday out …
▶ 6:07
His decision to plead guilty and rat out Uncle Norwin could hardly be considered a surprise. Like Pena, Herrera-Menezes was debriefed by the DEA and he too implicated the Contras in Norwin's drug sales, confirming that his uncle had direct …
▶ 8:02
I would have been interested in taking him out of jail because he would have had me by the tail, Menendez said. Isn't that logical? That Herrero's bail had been paid by Danielle Blanton's sister, Laisla Balderas, who had bailed out Pena, he…
▶ 16:29
specifically a guy by the name of Sebastian Gonzalez. Against that backdrop, and given the cozy relationship that existed between the CIA and San Francisco's U.S. attorney, Joseph Rosonello, it is hardly surprising that Norwin Menendez was …
▶ 42:58
There was so much cash and so much crack flying around South Central that even the mainstream media had started to notice. On November 25, 1984, one day before the DEA arrested Herrero Menendez and Rialto Pena in San Francisco, the first st…
▶ 14:44
that the FBI had Lister under investigation, but recalled the gear involved high-tech camera equipment. They came down to see me. They were absolutely convinced that he was selling things to the Russians and tried to get a background. After…
▶ 36:32
That have also surfaced regarding the drug smuggling operations involving sprint boats operating out of Texas, Louisiana and Florida. The Foreign Relations Committee voted to approve Kerry's request for a behind the scenes investigation, bu…
▶ 37:35
They won't do it. They didn't want to respond. They didn't want to provide any information. But some information trickled out anyway, and it got awfully close to exposing the Norwin Menendez-Daniello Blanton drug operation. In the spring of…
▶ 43:45
had another major front page story in the Examiner, exposing Norwin Menendez's cocaine trafficking network and his involvement with the Contras in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Rosenfeld reported on Menendez's meeting with CIA agents Enriq…
▶ 59:23
He had 12 aliases. He had houses all over the San Francisco Bay Area. He had a mansion in Managua. Mentioned in 32 DEA investigations, some as far back as 1974. A couple of classified files from 1976. Bringing cocaine in from Colombia, Cost…
▶ 3:32
to the Blanton organization, and then from Blanton to Menendez in San Francisco. This is according to the informant. For Gordon, that information, Gordon is the major's guy that's the police that's investigating the drug ring in Los Angeles…
▶ 6:28
The other group is ran by Menendez and located principally in San Francisco. The informants filled seven pages with names, dates, cash delivery, stash houses, drug storehouses, and business fronts. History has proven that nearly every piece…
▶ 13:28
He knew a major crime when he saw one. His informant was believable. He had a lot of details, lots of valuable information, things that could only have come from inside the operation. Auckland checked on Menendez with his counterparts in Sa…
▶ 37:44
later revealed this. Other deposits were marked Cayman Islands and totaled almost a million dollars. Stuck amongst the bank records was a note in Spanish from Blanton's sister, an FDN member, who did Contra fundraising in San Francisco. It …
▶ 6:12
He wants to get away from Los Angeles. He wants to get away from all of the craziness that he himself created in conjunction with the Nicaraguan mafia that the CIA had moved in there to flood the zone with cocaine, both in Los Angeles and S…
▶ 24:17
started doing business with Jose Gonzalez in San Francisco, which was Menendez's contact there. He also said that, let's see, this is a quote, but I never, at that time, I never come to deal with them because Norwin didn't let me keep in to…
▶ 24:53
Menendez and his uncle Menendez, they introduced me to Guillermo by phone for the first time. And all of the people, meaning Roger Menendez, Omar and Herrera Menendez, those two nephew guys that we talked about earlier on. So Norwin is, I m…
▶ 25:47
had been sworn in as president, the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco brought a secret indictment against Menendez, finally charging him with a few of the crimes he had committed back in the 80s. The two-count indictment accused him o…
▶ 26:44
Federal magistrates signed an arrest warrant. Then, curiously, both the warrant and the indictment were sealed, literally locked away in vaults in a San Francisco federal courthouse, where they would remain sealed from public view for the n…
▶ 29:07
on classified missions to San Francisco, Miami, L.A., Panama, and Colombia. You know, the entire drugs network. Yeah, he was running the entire network and supposedly no one knew. And they were paying him thousands of our dollars. The Costa…
▶ 29:39
In 1990, in response to an FBI request for help, the DEA Costa Rican attache, Ron Lard, described Menendez as a very valuable and currently active DEA source in Costa Rica. The San Francisco FBI reacted surprised. In February 1990, it deman…
▶ 30:09
amazing worth was what it actually was. Before and after the FBI had indicted him, the San Francisco FBI would not have pursued an indictment of Menendez if they'd been aware of Menendez's cooperation with a law enforcement agency. But agai…
▶ 37:49
arranged for the cocaine transportation from Nicaragua to the United States. Most of the cocaine they were shipping, Miranda said, was being sold in Los Angeles through Menendez's brother, Luis Enrique, who was later convicted in Nicaragua …
▶ 40:34
San Francisco. He collected cocaine from hotel rooms all over the Bay Area and sold them to customers in Alabama, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Jose, and San Francisco. At least two of Blanton's biggest customers, Mike Smith in LA and Reggi…
▶ 41:02
Herrera was arrested and sent to jail. Jose Gonzalez moved back to Nicaragua, and the only experienced distributor left was Daniel Blanton. He took the job of doling out the cocaine to the other members of the Menendez's ring throughout the…
▶ 41:25
Between 90 and 91, Blanton estimated he provided somewhere between 425 kilos of cocaine to Menendez's family in San Francisco, which amounted to about $8 million at wholesale prices. Blanton also began putting his L.A. connections back toge…
▶ 51:26
For the next two years, the San Diego DEA would keep close eye on Blanton, recording his phone calls, tracking his movements, videotaping his meetings with informants, and negotiations to buy cocaine. They would hear him confess to many cri…
▶ 17:59
I'm the chief police and my brother's going to run all the vice. That's sweet. Norwin ran all of the rackets for the National Guard. And remember, his brother's the chief of police. San Francisco cocaine trafficker Rafael Cornejo, who had w…
▶ 23:16
Protect me, Reyes cried. This is Norwin. Norwin Menendez sent away to kill me. Reyes died a short time later. Norwin was arrested and jailed on suspicion of murder. But after a quote-unquote rigorous and exhaustive investigation ordered by …
▶ 24:17
just as the dying inspector had claimed. In 1986, federal prosecutors in San Francisco debriefed Edmundo Menendez's son, Herrero, who informed them that during the Somoza regime, Norwin Menendez smuggled weapons, silencers, and video equipm…
▶ 25:12
In 1979, the FBI office in Mexico City asked that Menendez be included in the Bureau's Top Thief program and requested an arrest warrant, if for no other reason than to preclude him from coming to the U.S. The FBI also asked for a hold on h…
▶ 29:32
Menendez had homes in Florida and Alabama. He said, but he spent most of his time in neither of those homes, but in San Francisco, where all the cocaine was being distributed. He started buying up property there in 1978. After the Sandinist…
▶ 30:04
supported Somoza and in fact had been trained by the CIA at the School of Americas and basically were the underlings or terrorists that had been trained to keep the Sandinistas in check. Just like that same pattern that we see repeated afte…
▶ 30:37
quickly popped up in all of those same cities. The Menendez played a key role in getting the San Francisco organization going. Even before the term Contra was being used, there were meetings of anti-Sandinistas at Menendez's house, which we…
▶ 31:35
He zipped around town in a Jaguar. His nephews bought bars and nightclubs. Norwin purchased two houses in Pacifica, a small town just down the coast from San Francisco, one for himself and one for his brother, Ernesto. He spent much of his …
▶ 32:05
by his nephew, Jamie Menendez. The mission is heavily Hispanic, with a history of hospitality to Central American revolutionaries. According to Roberto Vargas, a San Franciscan who had later became the Sandinistas' ambassador to China, the …
▶ 34:48
He'd been turning up in law enforcement files with some regularity for over 20 years. In 1968, he was suspected of murdering a money launderer in Managua and Nicaraguan authorities asked the CIA and FBI to search for him in San Francisco, w…
▶ 35:45
A FBI became aware in April of 1978 that Norwin and his brother Ernesto were smuggling 20 kilos of cocaine at a time into the United States and identified his nephew, now travel agency owner, Jamie Menendez, as their San Francisco distribut…
▶ 37:40
The DEA had developed information over the past several years that the Menendez family had been involved in smuggling and distribution of cocaine in San Francisco. Stated an affidavit signed by a DEA agent, Sandra Smith. Smith, who was one …
▶ 38:32
the string on the Menez family, putting together the comings and goings. She said Menez was living in a gorgeous house in Burlingham, a ritzy suburb of San Francisco. Periodically, she and a customs agent would stake the house out, sitting …
▶ 39:01
That was part of the problem. The local San Francisco police was also running across various Menendez's, often in the company of large quantities of cocaine. Omar Menendez, another nephew, was arrested for cocaine sales at a bar in Mission,…
▶ 39:56
The Nicaraguan, it appeared, had cocaine coming in from everywhere. Menendez had an endless supply of cocaine, from what I could see, Sandra said. In June of 81, Smith got a break in her case. Detective Joseph Lee of Baldwin Park Police in …
▶ 40:26
the guy we were talking about last time, well, it says here he just has the same last name as Enrique, which is the guy we were talking about, sorry, was making two trips a month to San Francisco where he had contacts with large cocaine smu…
▶ 40:53
was bringing down between 14 and 20 pounds of cocaine on each trip. Another informant reported that Bermudez called San Francisco and places his order by telephone before each trip. The police subpoenaed his phone records for the previous t…
▶ 41:21
and a number belonging to Norwin's nephew, Herrero Menendez. It was enough for the Baldwin cops, along with the members of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and the U.S. Customs Service, to put a tail on Bermudez and stake out his house.…
▶ 41:49
The cops followed, observing him stop to pick up another man, Jose Herrera, before heading to L.A.'s airport. The duo bought two one-way tickets to San Francisco and got there at 3.40 when DEA agent Smith picked up their surveillance. Smith…
▶ 44:35
Once again, the San Francisco U.S. Attorney's Office declined to pursue the case against Norwin or his nephew, and the file was closed. Smith said she never worked the Menendez family again. They had me assigned to do other things, like Hel…
▶ 54:04
So he returned to California with Menendez to begin their cocaine business. Menendez simply hand him the dope. He brought Blanton to San Francisco for a two-day seminar on drug dealing. So it's a class now. Mr. Menendez explained to me how,…
▶ 56:27
Guy needs to get his story straight. He also says that he was introduced to Menendez right around that same time. In approximately 1980, Danielle Blanton, Frank Vigel, and Douglas Diaz traveled to San Francisco area where they obtained two …
▶ 59:22
Former Sandinista leader Moise Hansen, who is related to Blanton's mother-in-law, said Blanton was involved in drugs and contraband prior to the Sandinista takeover. Hassan had known Blanton since college, where Blanton was a student activi…
▶ 15:00
which helped the CIA covertly funnel supplies to the Contras. Once again, Norwin Menendez, and that's the guy that keeps coming up in all of these stories, can be found lurking in the background. He's the guy in San Francisco. His nephew, t…
▶ 37:39
Danielle Blanton's first illegal contra-fundraising efforts were not all that successful, which is, of course, why he got into cocaine. He had trouble in the first of that, too, because he was in L.A., and the real cocaine market had alread…
▶ 38:05
But that network in San Francisco was much more well developed because Menendez personally oversaw that one. He just had Blanton doing it in Los Angeles. So that's where you remember the Torres brothers, the big tree trunk, one of which was…
▶ 43:59
He went to San Francisco where his wife and three daughters, his mother, his brothers, and sisters were already living. With the family to support, he needed a job. So he starts working all kinds of jobs. He took a second job as a night man…
▶ 46:11
He thinks that's a swell idea. So being the cocaine dealer that Zavala was, he was a very busy guy. He wasn't nearly as successful as Menendez was, but Zavala was definitely a good mid-level cocaine trafficker in San Francisco. He sold coca…
▶ 47:45
around some of the drug dealings that Cervala had been involved in. The local DEA agents had busted several people in South San Francisco for a half a kilo of cocaine. One of the women arrested was a Contra fundraiser by the name of Doris S…
▶ 49:51
three different times in 11 days. Checking with the San Francisco Police Department, Lupin discovered that Zavala, a Nicaraguan immigrant, was no angel. Just a month before, Solomon had been arrested. Zavala and another man had been nabbed …
▶ 51:28
So, that was the way Zavala's luck had been going. He had been busted twice. His girlfriend had been busted. His friend, Roka, had been busted twice. The charges against Zavala had been dropped each time. You know, like he was being protect…
▶ 57:47
Cabeza flies down there routinely to keep Zavala apprised of the business going on in San Francisco. So Cabeza said that the cocaine he and Zavala were selling came from two separate sources. One was Alvaro Minota, a Colombian who lived in…
▶ 58:48
that they didn't like. A group that would later become known as the Cali Cartel. By the early 1990s, the Cali dealers would operate the world's biggest cocaine network, eclipsing all others. But in 1981, few in the U.S. law enforcement circ…
▶ 1:08:49
He was going by a different name, so for a little while there was some confusion. The FBI teletype shows that by November 1982, the Bureau, thanks to a wiretap and inside informants, knew exactly what was going on inside the Zavala drug rin…
▶ 11:01
The polygraph examiner apparently did not ask the CIA director about laundering cash for the Contras. Despite Gomez's admissions, the CIA inspector general dismissed Cabrese's story as an invention, suggesting that the trafficker could not …
▶ 17:25
A man who had accompanied him to Costa Rica on several cash drops tipped off the FBI that Pereira was heading south with a wad of money. The FBI records show that on December 1st, 1982, a confidential source told FBI agent David Alba that P…
▶ 17:52
and would have anywhere between $80,000 and $100,000 in cash to deliver to the Contras. Alba called U.S. Customs the next day. Pereira was arrested in Miami, boarding an Air Florida flight to Costa Rica. The agents found $70,000 cash, which…
▶ 21:00
1982, they intercepted two men coming off of a freighter in Los Angeles carrying 39 pounds of cocaine. Another Grand Columbiana ship pulled into Pier 96 in San Francisco shortly after the first of the year. The FBI set a stakeout up. It was…
▶ 22:30
They had 430 pounds of cocaine. Five other men were rounded up as accomplices, most of them Colombian who had been seen in Los Angeles and Seattle during earlier stakeouts. It was the biggest cocaine bust in the history of the West Coast. T…
▶ 23:01
This was the, quote, cocaine seized from frogmen at San Francisco Pier. The story went on, quote, a fog shrouded scene right out of a B movie, unquote. It was the first case made by President Ronald Reagan's new drug task force in San Franc…
▶ 25:31
At 7 a.m. on February 15th, federal agents and local police raided 14 locations in San Francisco, including Cabraza's house and Zavala's apartment, scooping up everyone. The haul included the Colombian supplier of Alvaro Carvajal Minota, Ca…
▶ 26:02
and some of their customers. In a bookcase in San Francisco apartment, records show police found five flyers for the Nicaraguan Contras. Once again, U.S. Attorney Rosa Nalo hosted a media event telling reporters, quote, before we got the mu…
▶ 26:53
and warn Menendez of the pending arrest. The DEA agent, who admitted knowing Menendez, disputed the allegations during a Justice Department interview. Curiously, the agent recalled having the impression that Menendez was working with the CI…
▶ 29:19
The Somoza Patriots traffic in drugs. That's how the Pro Sandinista Daily newspaper headlined the story that appeared in February 20th, 1983. Quote, narcotics police of San Francisco, California carried out a haul last Wednesday of 20 cocai…
▶ 30:16
They are contributing economically to the Contras, unquote. It would take another three years before an American journalist made the connection. Zavala complained to the court that similar stories had appeared in Spanish-language press in C…
▶ 43:48
Langley reassured the nervous Costa Rican station that there is no reason to believe that Zavala's attorneys knew that there was any association between them and the CIA. The whole thing could just blow over if their planned legal action su…
▶ 50:35
which Rosanello never released or publicly admitted. A defendant in the Frogman case had made 51 phone calls to the FDN office in San Francisco. A secret 1987 DEA report states, noting that one of the confidential informants had met with th…
▶ 56:07
that some of the cocaine money was going to the Contras. He told the jury of his meeting with Horacio Pereira and that Pereira's nervousness over the Contras' profits being misspent by hard-drinking Zavala. Pages from the ledger book in whi…
▶ 56:37
Zavala was convicted of trafficking and sentenced to prison. Caprese's testimony went unchallenged. It also went unreported, though the San Francisco news media had fairly swooned when Caprese and Zavala were arrested. Not a single reporter…
▶ 1:47
His real tie is to Menendez in San Francisco. So Menendez Drug Network in San Francisco was well established. He had already, in 1981, distributed 900 kilos, nearly a ton, of cocaine through San Francisco. His business was thriving.…
▶ 3:24
to pay the cocaine suppliers off the ships coming in from Colombia. And he had also been, let's see. So he gets interviewed. And during the interview, he says, yeah, I keep the books. So he had a different bookkeeper up in San Francisco. So…
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as you're going to find out. So Blanton's kind of disgruntled because he's giving part of the profits to the Contras and giving Menendez his piece, and he's still kind of living hand to mouth. Blanca Margarita Castano was a woman in San Fra…