Ron Lister person
also: Ron, Donald Lister, Lister, Ron Lister, Ronnie, Ronald J. Lister, Ronald Lister, Ronnie Lister
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
CIAintelligence service · 43Daniel Blantonperson · 30El Salvadorcountry · 18Contrasorganization · 16FBIintelligence service · 16Scott Weakleyperson · 14Pyramid Internationalorganization · 13Norwin Menendezperson · 11Christopher Mooreperson · 11Los Angelesplace · 10San Diegocountry · 9Nicaraguacountry · 8Tom Gordonperson · 7Timothy LaFranceperson · 7Luna Beachplace · 7H. Smith Richardson Sr.person · 6Neil Purcellperson · 6Colombiacountry · 5Riverside County Sheriff's Departmentorganization · 5Richard Wilkerperson · 5Bobby Juarezperson · 5Colombian drug dealersorganization · 5United Statescountry · 4United States Attorney's Officeorganization · 4
Claims (44)
FBI spied_on
Ron Lister documented
“a fully automatic machine gun complete with silencer, and state-of-the-art handguns, rifles, and shotguns. Eventually, Ronald Lister's skills in procuring such high-tech munitions brought him to the attention of the FBI. On April 3, 1985, t…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 11 @ 12:52
Ron Lister member_of
Mundy Security Group Incorporated documented
“The quote-unquote security business that provided Blanton the weapons was Monday M-U-N-D-Y Security Group Incorporated, which Lister incorporated in Laguna Beach in 1983. Lister and an attorney named Maurice Green, as well as another attorn…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 11 @ 6:29
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
William Black documented
“Blanton explained, came from Ron Lister and his associate William Lee Downing through their security business in their high-class Laguna Beach location. Lister admitted to the CIA that he began acquiring weapons for Blanton between 1982 and…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 11 @ 3:06
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
Contras book_quoted
“business dealings in Central America, especially in El Salvador. Lister explained his travels there to Moore as involving gun running and helping the Contras supposedly on behalf of the U.S. government, you know, like the CIA. I remember th…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 32:23
Ron Lister member_of
U.S. Army book_quoted
“of one sort or another for nearly 15 years. Listen to this. This is just mind-boggling. He started out as a military police officer in the U.S. Army, and then on active duty, and then he transfers to the Reserve. While he's in the Army Rese…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 22:47
Ron Lister member_of
Laguna Beach Police Department book_quoted
“which for some reason always seems to be the case with base housing, but whatever. It was awful. Now, the base was not there. The base was like probably a 45-minute drive away from there. It was up by LAX. This story is just too crazy. In l…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 26:04
Ron Lister founded
Consultants International book_quoted
“It was getting pretty elaborate. And that's when he left the police department. I know there was a lot of involvement and a lot of travel while he was here. A few weeks before he resigned, corporate records show, Lister Incorporated, a comp…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 29:32
Ron Lister member_of
Maywood Police Department book_quoted
“fitness reports. Lister was hired as an officer in a local LA police department called Maywood. And it was a very, very small police department, but it got him a gun and it got him a badge. He was also a reserve deputy in the sheriff's depa…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 23:53
Ron Lister member_of
San Bernardino Sheriff's Department book_quoted
“fitness reports. Lister was hired as an officer in a local LA police department called Maywood. And it was a very, very small police department, but it got him a gun and it got him a badge. He was also a reserve deputy in the sheriff's depa…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 23:53
Ron Lister member_of
Army Reserve book_quoted
“of one sort or another for nearly 15 years. Listen to this. This is just mind-boggling. He started out as a military police officer in the U.S. Army, and then on active duty, and then he transfers to the Reserve. While he's in the Army Rese…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 22:47
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
El Salvador book_quoted
“Soon after Lister paired up with Blanton and Menendez, his security company began doing business overseas. Blanton told the Justice Department interviewers that he and Menendez entered into an informal partnership with Lister for the purpos…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 30:28
Ron Lister member_of
Consultants International book_quoted
“It was getting pretty elaborate. And that's when he left the police department. I know there was a lot of involvement and a lot of travel while he was here. A few weeks before he resigned, corporate records show, Lister Incorporated, a comp…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 29:32
Ron Lister laundered_money_for
Contras book_quoted
“Soon after Lister paired up with Blanton and Menendez, his security company began doing business overseas. Blanton told the Justice Department interviewers that he and Menendez entered into an informal partnership with Lister for the purpos…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 30:28
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
Contras host_asserted
“guns in Southern California. When Blanton told him, he was, Blanton told Lister that he was sending them to the Contras. Anything I gave him, I was told was for the purpose of the Contras, Lister said. An FBI informant told the Justice Depa…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 44:36
Ray Blanton recruited
Ron Lister book_quoted
“Ricky Ross confirmed that Blanton had an uncanny ability to accurately predict upcoming police raids, but said he was never able to explain his clairvoyance. The Torres brother told Gazzetta that Blanton was working with the Laguna Beach po…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 35:21
Ron Lister trafficked
Ray Blanton book_quoted
“Ronnie transports 100 kilos of cocaine to the black market and has transported millions of dollars to Miami for Blanton. Once Blanton's cash arrived in Florida, the brothers reported a relative of Blanton, Orlando Morello, would launder it …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 35:50
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
Contras host_asserted
“who claims to have worked for the CIA for many years and has insisted in supplying small arms and helicopters to CIA contacts in Latin and Central America. The CIA also named Daniel O'Blanton, identified as an accomplice of Lister's. Curiou…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 49:07
Riverside County Sheriff's Department covered_up
Ron Lister documented
“If the sheriff's office files are accurate, nearly all of the seized evidence was given back to Blanton and Lister within days of the raid, and apparently no copies were retained by the department, even for intelligence purposes. The sherif…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 52:35
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
Contras documented
“and locations were cleaned out. Documents recovered indicate that suspect Lister is involved in buying and selling police and government radio equipment and heavy-duty weapons. Suspect possibly FBI informant and private detective, unquote. …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 44:36
Ron Lister member_of
Pyramid International documented
“responsible for collecting military-related foreign intelligence. It was heavily involved in the Contra War and in the Civil War in El Salvador. The detectives were confused. DIA? Had Lister said Weakley was with the CIA? What the hell was …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 40:48
Ron Lister member_of
United States Coast Guard book_quoted
“Guess what he joins? He joins the Coast Guard. You know, the guys charged with interdicting drugs. Yeah, that's where he goes. He's a reserve port security officer at San Pedro, California. And for those of you who don't know, I was station…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 25:06
Enrique Miranda Jamie member_of
Ron Lister guest_asserted
“A week later, George called with more good news. Enrique Miranda, the former Menendez aide who had escaped a year earlier, had been found in Miami and tossed on a plane to Nicaragua. George had visited him in prison. Miranda started talking…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 24 @ 1:04:52
Daniel Blanton recruited
Ron Lister book_quoted
“What Pyramid was doing between 1980 and 81 is not known. But Mr. Lister stated that it was around this time that he first met Blanton through a Beverly Hills business connection. Blanton introduced him to Menendez and that he provided physi…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 29:57
Colombian drug dealers attempted_assassination_of
Ron Lister host_asserted
“One of the undercover agents was being contacted by the Colombians and said, quote, by the way, we want to kill this guy Lister. And if we can't kill him, we're going to kidnap his mother and put her on the phone and torture her. So he pays…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 21 @ 1:08:04
Ron Lister laundered_money_for
Colombian drug dealers host_asserted
“immigration checkpoint with a picture of Lister and a map to his mother's house. They were in the country illegally. Embarrassed by the fact that another DEA team had discovered their prize informant was money laundering for Colombian drug …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 21 @ 1:09:53
Marcon Corporation front_for
Ron Lister host_asserted
“through Weekly's company, Marcon Corporation, which they said was set up to launder money for narcotics and weapons. Defendant intended to sell weapons as well. Weekly insisted Marcon was a legitimate trading company. In any event, no charg…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 21 @ 1:10:24
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross documented
“Ron Lister procured that equipment for Ricky. Blanton said Ross used to live in an apartment beside the freeway in San Pedro. It was an apartment by Florence, if I remember it correctly. So I get him a scanner, telephone security. When you …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 11 @ 10:23
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
Contras documented
“At the same time that he was reportedly meeting with Nelson, Lister was also advising Contra on security matters and selling them arms. The other documents seized from Lister in 1986 raid lend support. According to the Justice Department, L…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 11 @ 29:11
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
El Salvador documented
“Lister, quote, led a sales team on a futile mission to Civil War-wracked El Salvador in the summer of 1982 to market surplus American arms, military equipment, and use school buses to the Salvadoran military. The trip was financed, the asso…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 24:32
Norwin Menendez financed_via
Ron Lister documented
“Lister, quote, led a sales team on a futile mission to Civil War-wracked El Salvador in the summer of 1982 to market surplus American arms, military equipment, and use school buses to the Salvadoran military. The trip was financed, the asso…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 24:32
Ron Lister trafficked
Daniel Blanton documented
“could have gained this information from the CIA or through his work with them. He knew some pretty damn good details and professed to being through that area. Now, I have traveled extensively through Central America, and the only thing I ca…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 29:53
Ron Lister spied_on
CIA guest_asserted
“We had DEA records saying Blanton had sent the money to the Contras far longer than we had previously reported. We had a top CIA official admitting that the agency had reports of drug trafficking at Ilopango. We had evidence of Ronald Liste…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 24 @ 1:06:42
FBI covered_up
Ron Lister documented
“When they called the FBI to ask for a copy of their old files on the Lister investigation, Special Agent Tim Bezek stated that the FBI reports and the transcripts of Lister's grand jury were protected by national security. See how that work…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 11 @ 16:40
Ron Lister member_of
Blanton family book_quoted
“of El Salvador, Colombia, Italy, and Iran. He knew intelligence operatives, weapon smugglers, the whole thing. He knew Norwin Menendez. He knew Daniel O'Blanton, everybody. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mesa, in a 1997 interview with the CIA insp…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 21 @ 1:01:32
Ron Lister trafficked
Cali Cartel book_quoted
“Lister went on to say that he could not wire transfer the money from the account again since it was originally laundered with the assistance of the CIA. At this point, Lister explained how he and the CIA used to transport multiple hundreds …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 21 @ 1:06:39
Ron Lister exposed
Daniel Blanton guest_asserted
“The Torres brothers would claim that the investigation was uncovered by Lister, who spotted police surveillance teams outside of Blanton's car lot and near his old home in Mission Viejo. Lister told the police that the CIA was involved and …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 33:20
CIA covered_up
Ron Lister host_asserted
“all of the records seized in the raid. Gordon didn't believe it and went to the evidence room to check it. Everything was gone. According to Garner, Gordon walked back into the squad room and announced the evidence is gone. Juarez said he r…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 50:38
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
FDN guest_asserted
“They showed us a demonstration of the weapons. They showed us machine guns and other weapons. They have the license to sell them. Lister never sold guns directly to the Contras, Blanton said, but not entirely accurate. Norwin Menendez said …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 21:31
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross host_asserted
“He has developed a large organization which handles weapon sales, cocaine shipments, and business enterprises, and as a result, has used the cash to buy real estate, commercial, and residential. Now, again, Ricky Ross was not supplying the …”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 36:07
Neil Purcell exposed
Ron Lister documented
“Purcell said that the FBI discovered that Lister was bullshitting, charging them four or five times what he paid for. The kind of thing that really is laughable about the entire thing. Former agent Smith claimed that Lister was never prosec…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 11 @ 15:16
Ron Lister supplied_arms_to
William Earl Nelson documented
“He wanted to have the names in writing before he went to the grand jury. Lister said the people listed were only business people. The last two names on the list was Roberto de Abusan, which is the El Salvador guy in charge, and a guy that t…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 11 @ 19:09
Ron Lister member_of
CIA guest_asserted
“an international construction company based in Orange County, because I had to call Ron out there a couple of times. In an interview with the Justice Department, Blanton recalled hearing Lister say that he was involved with the CIA and that…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 27:27
Ron Lister spied_on
Scott Weakley speculative
“Incorporated, which happens to be an international barter brokerage company owned by none other than Scott Weekly, Mr. Death. Whether the DEA was using Weekly's company as a cover or if Lister was also spying on Weekly is not clear. Whateve…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 21 @ 1:05:13
Ron Lister attempted_assassination_of
FBI host_asserted
“They had a grand jury subpoena to deliver and a statement to make. They hammered on who I might know in East Bloc countries. He confirmed to police in 1996 that he had been the subject of a grand jury investigation on his relationship with …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 11 @ 13:20
Mentions (120)
▶ 39:04
Sabario was also acquainted with Blanton's spooky associate, Ronald Lister. Lister told the CIA that he had traveled to Hialeah, Florida sometime in 82 or 83 and met with the Contra members named Dr. Sabario in an effort to sell military su…
▶ 49:49
Their hesitancy was based on going deep inside of Nicaragua. They would not have Costa Rica to be able to run back to. Blanton's drug-dealing friends, the Torres brothers, told L.A. County Sheriff's investigators that during the height of t…
▶ 36:07
He has developed a large organization which handles weapon sales, cocaine shipments, and business enterprises, and as a result, has used the cash to buy real estate, commercial, and residential. Now, again, Ricky Ross was not supplying the …
▶ 1:08:59
was, I'm not sure it's a direct Phoenix connection, but he certainly was part of the intelligence apparatus in Vietnam in the early 70s. Isn't that interesting? And that dovetails right in with Gary Webb's book in all of the drug activity, …
▶ 57:37
Blanton began selling high-powered weapons to Ross and his friends in 1984. That's crazy. Courtesy of Ronald Lister, the ex-cop that we talked about a couple of shows ago. We started handling more and more money and then guns. Daniello gave…
▶ 1:01:34
They're psychotic, I'm telling you. Totally psychotic. Go ahead, Ron. Okay, just a little clarification. Rialto has never been upscale. It is the freaking hood. Now, upper Rialto is a little bit nicer, but even back in the 80s, it really wa…
▶ 2:36
And the star of this part of it is the guy by the name of Ronald Lister that had all of the hallmarks of being a CIA agent before at his introduction in the book. So we're in the middle of him selling to the same people that are basically r…
▶ 3:06
Blanton explained, came from Ron Lister and his associate William Lee Downing through their security business in their high-class Laguna Beach location. Lister admitted to the CIA that he began acquiring weapons for Blanton between 1982 and…
▶ 3:35
one or two guns a week, assorted handgun, semi-automatic Uzi machine pistols, a KG-99 T9 machine pistol, and semi-automatic AK-47s. He also admitted purchasing a small number of commercially available off-the-shelf night vision goggles for …
▶ 5:06
Blanton said that the attendees showed no interest in Lister's offer and Blanton received the impression that the military arms the Contras was getting from the CIA direct was more than enough at the time. In a 1996 court case, Blanton was …
▶ 6:29
The quote-unquote security business that provided Blanton the weapons was Monday M-U-N-D-Y Security Group Incorporated, which Lister incorporated in Laguna Beach in 1983. Lister and an attorney named Maurice Green, as well as another attorn…
▶ 7:56
I went into Ron's office and said, hey, Ron, you know, Maurice is sitting at his desk playing with a gun. And Ron just laughed. He said, once director Gary Shapiro said the office was besieged by a mob of angry doctors who were screaming an…
▶ 8:22
Green was prosecuted and disbarred in 1987 for forging prescriptions to obtain narcotics. In 1992, he was sentenced to two years in prison for grand theft and practicing law without a license. Great guys. Aside from a few burglar alarm inst…
▶ 12:52
a fully automatic machine gun complete with silencer, and state-of-the-art handguns, rifles, and shotguns. Eventually, Ronald Lister's skills in procuring such high-tech munitions brought him to the attention of the FBI. On April 3, 1985, t…
▶ 13:20
They had a grand jury subpoena to deliver and a statement to make. They hammered on who I might know in East Bloc countries. He confirmed to police in 1996 that he had been the subject of a grand jury investigation on his relationship with …
▶ 13:47
Lister went on to say that he had sold an FBI scrambler system to somebody overseas and the FBI had investigated only to find out that the equipment was declassified and available on the open market. You can see that they're trying to tie t…
▶ 14:16
remembered things a little differently. He told the police that he had received information that Lister was attempting to sell classified information to the Soviets. They had conducted an investigation and sting operation. He said Lister wa…
▶ 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…
▶ 15:16
Purcell said that the FBI discovered that Lister was bullshitting, charging them four or five times what he paid for. The kind of thing that really is laughable about the entire thing. Former agent Smith claimed that Lister was never prosec…
▶ 15:45
Lister's lack of present capability to commit the crime made prosecution impractical. But Smith acknowledged that the assistant attorney general who handled the case, however, that his activities were serious enough for a grand jury. And so…
▶ 16:14
had got him close to these alleged Russians to take pictures. So if someone noticed Lister, that they could say, oh, look, he's tied to the Russians as opposed to what he's actually doing for the CIA. If the L.A. detectives were skeptical o…
▶ 16:40
When they called the FBI to ask for a copy of their old files on the Lister investigation, Special Agent Tim Bezek stated that the FBI reports and the transcripts of Lister's grand jury were protected by national security. See how that work…
▶ 17:12
and the Laguna Police Department, his two old employers. The personnel jacket for Ron Lister had been sealed, they reported. In Laguna Beach, they learned that the actual personnel file related to Ronald Lister didn't exist. All the informa…
▶ 17:43
The FBI never turned over the documents and the L.A. detectives were unable to determine why the files, decades old investigations in dope dealing army merchant was overnight now a national security issue. A clue can be found in some docume…
▶ 18:07
One of the many curious items the police carried away that day was a 10-page handwritten document that detailed weapons and equipment deals by Lister. Lister admitted to the police that he had written the document in preparation for his gra…
▶ 18:38
But he did have night vision equipment to offer. After jotting down a description of the April 1985 visit from CIA agents Smith and Cook, Lister wrote down a list of seven names. Lister said that he gave the above names to the FBI agents. T…
▶ 19:09
He wanted to have the names in writing before he went to the grand jury. Lister said the people listed were only business people. The last two names on the list was Roberto de Abusan, which is the El Salvador guy in charge, and a guy that t…
▶ 19:40
the former head of the Salvadoran Christian Democrat Party, which received significant CIA financial support. The detective didn't ask Lister, didn't ask why Lister would be doing business with CIA linked Salvadoran politicians. But in the …
▶ 20:08
Lister said that Bill Nelson was an ASIS member, which he said stood for American Society of International Security. Lister said that Nelson was the security director for Fleur Corporation. It's F-L-E-U-R. William Earl Nelson was far more t…
▶ 21:34
A former CIA officer, John Vanderwerker, confirmed to the reporter that Nelson and Lister knew each other. Well, apparently when Lister was running the floor's headquarters in 1982 to 83, it was Bill Nelson with whom he was meeting. That wa…
▶ 23:57
Nelson's operation feature bore many similarities to the Contra project, particularly in terms of the CIA's proxy army receiving weapons. That could explain why Lister, who had admitted dealing with arms in Latin America, was meeting with N…
▶ 35:21
Ricky Ross confirmed that Blanton had an uncanny ability to accurately predict upcoming police raids, but said he was never able to explain his clairvoyance. The Torres brother told Gazzetta that Blanton was working with the Laguna Beach po…
▶ 35:50
Ronnie transports 100 kilos of cocaine to the black market and has transported millions of dollars to Miami for Blanton. Once Blanton's cash arrived in Florida, the brothers reported a relative of Blanton, Orlando Morello, would launder it …
▶ 54:51
When they went to the house, he started working his way down a list of other men that Torres brothers had provided him. It was not promising, but it was full of Colombians. The information was much harder on one particular guy, Daniello Bla…
▶ 55:24
These were the guys who, according to Grisetta, the Torres brothers were really afraid of. If they were able to frighten a pair of heavily armed, very large Nicaraguans, they must be something. On the afternoon of September 17th, 1986, Gord…
▶ 1:00:25
cry. Gordon called up Ronald Lister's file next. It was short and sweet. He was an ex-policeman who was under an active DEA investigation. The case was so active, he noticed, that Lister's file was less than a month old. But all of the deta…
▶ 1:00:58
DEA agent Sandalio Sandy Gonzalez, U.S. Embassy, Costa Rica. The name of the agent who owned Blanton. Something didn't add up. Lister lived in Orange County. Blanton lived in San Bernardino County. Why would a Costa Rican DEA agent have the…
▶ 1:03:32
that his investigation had been exposed and that bad guys knew he was investigating them. Gonzalez was telling Gordon not to put any details of his investigation into a sworn statement he had to file with his application for a search warran…
▶ 1:04:02
have been burned. It hadn't even started. The case was still sitting on the top of his desk. Nobody had done anything except run a couple of computer checks and no one besides Gary Gussetta and now the DEA even knew about the majors working…
▶ 1:04:33
of the L.A. County Sheriff's Office. And how could they burn it? When Gordon called the DEA office in L.A., as Gonzalez suggested, his uneasiness grew. No, he was told, the Costa Rican DEA office was not investigating Lister and Blanton, bu…
▶ 13:49
is believed to be moving hundreds of kilos of cocaine a month in the Southern California area and money laundering through various business fronts, then sending the money to Florida, where it goes to purchase weapons to aid the Contras. Gor…
▶ 14:16
He was considered to be extremely dangerous. Several of the officers distinctly recall being warned that the federal government was unhappy that the Majors was going ahead with the raids. Deputy Wolfbrand said Gordon reported that he had be…
▶ 21:42
and his team were banging on Ron Lister's door in Mission Viejo. Receiving no reply, they kicked the door open. The house was empty, as far as occupants go. The detectives came out carrying bags of records, card files, video monitors, and p…
▶ 23:45
Ron Lister would tell police in 1996 that Marino was affiliated with the FDN as well, which is the Contras. And Blanton said the same thing during his interviews with the CIA IG. Blanton claimed that Marino arranged at least one, one ton de…
▶ 26:49
Juarez and his crew went to Lister's new house and performed a soft knock. Since they didn't have a warrant for that particular address, they needed Lister's permission to search it. Lister answers the door. He was told, if you don't give m…
▶ 27:19
Lister said he was living in a nice neighborhood and didn't want anyone to know about it, so he let them in. According to Juarez, he told Lister they were executing a search warrant for drugs and asked him to sign a consent form. Lister's r…
▶ 27:50
Unquote. Lister went on to say he told me that he was dealing. This is what Lister said, told me that he was dealing with South America and worked for the CIA and added that his friends in Washington weren't going to like what was going on.…
▶ 28:21
Mr. Lister replied that he would call Mr. Weekly of the CIA and report me, unquote. Juarez decided to call Lister's bluff. I don't know who Mr. Weekly is, the detective said. Let me talk to him. If I find out I'm not supposed to be here, I'…
▶ 28:51
Lister walked over to the phone and started to dial a number. He looked at me and smiled and then put it back down. He figured out what I was up to. Never mind, Lister told him. I'll talk to him later. Lister claimed later he was planning t…
▶ 29:20
But of course, there's multiple cop witnesses listening to him say this. Sergeant Art Franson said Lister erupted into a tirade and began shouting. You guys don't know what you're doing. Oh, you don't know what you're dealing with. I deal w…
▶ 29:50
I know the director of the CIA in Los Angeles. The government is allowing drug sales to go on in the United States, unquote. Now, again, this is three different cops' story, all of these in sworn statements. Love said Lister also seemed to …
▶ 30:20
He had been on one of those planes before and had actually been down there on a gun run. Sergeant Franson, an ex-marine, poked around in a file cabinet in Lister's garage and said he found, quote, stuff that a civilian shouldn't have privy …
▶ 30:49
He was involved in legal arms sales. The deputy saw various weapons, scopes, pictures, literature, and paperwork on arms and items tagged not for sale in the U.S. In Lister's account, members of the raid team, quote, became fascinated with …
▶ 33:20
The Torres brothers would claim that the investigation was uncovered by Lister, who spotted police surveillance teams outside of Blanton's car lot and near his old home in Mission Viejo. Lister told the police that the CIA was involved and …
▶ 33:53
I.J. O'Neill, who investigated Lister and Blanton for several years, said the sheriff's probe was compromised by an FBI agent who did a clumsy investigation and contacted someone who knew Blanton, and they told Blanton about it. In an inter…
▶ 34:23
The deputies' suspicions of federal interference grew even stronger once they began examining the paperwork that they had captured in the houses. These people weren't just dope dealers. They were dope dealers that were dealing with the Cont…
▶ 38:44
they documented how the Contra officials were stealing money and perhaps laundering it through the Cayman Islands. She had sent, the sister had sent Daniello copies because she thought it would amuse him at the level of corruption of the Co…
▶ 39:14
Weekly's name was found on a sheet of handwritten paper dealing with weapons and equipment sales. The documents involved a list of armaments, anti-aircraft weapons, firebombs, a thousand AR-15s, air-to-sea torpedoes, and napalm bombs. The n…
▶ 40:48
responsible for collecting military-related foreign intelligence. It was heavily involved in the Contra War and in the Civil War in El Salvador. The detectives were confused. DIA? Had Lister said Weakley was with the CIA? What the hell was …
▶ 44:07
Picking up rumors that Gomez was dealing in drugs in South Central, they wrote the death off to a drug-related incident, and no killer was ever found. Juarez sat down at a computer terminal and entered Ron Lister's name in the Narcotics Inf…
▶ 48:38
entitled, Three Persons Claiming CIA Affiliation. Quote, Three individuals claiming CIA affiliation has been arrested in LA County Sheriff's Department on narcotics-related charges. Details received via FBI are sketchy. However, request pre…
▶ 49:37
CIA was asking about Menendez in connection with the Blanton raid was unclear since he was never arrested nor named in the search warrants. Please respond. This is the cable went on. Please respond immediately indicating what portions of re…
▶ 52:35
If the sheriff's office files are accurate, nearly all of the seized evidence was given back to Blanton and Lister within days of the raid, and apparently no copies were retained by the department, even for intelligence purposes. The sherif…
▶ 1:02:30
Information provided to FBI Los Angeles indicates the subject, Ronald J. Lister, had made statements concerning his CIA contact, identified Mr. Lister also was Mr. Weekly. Investigations has also identified documents indicating that Lister …
▶ 0:49
Scott Weakley in Chapter 18. Scott Weakley was an arms dealer in San Diego. He worked and was exposed by Ron Lister, who also was an arms dealer. Ron Lister kept saying when he was questioned by the local police that he was working for the …
▶ 1:50
Kind of a tough little guy, said Ron Lister's longtime attorney, Lynn Ball. Quote, he got busted out of the Naval Academy and entered the service as an enlisted man, which basically means he got. So when you go to the Academy, you have to s…
▶ 14:22
He quickly informed me that due to provisions of the Privacy Act, only the fact that he was a veteran could be confirmed. No information about the length of service, branch, or MOS, which is what his job would have been, could be released w…
▶ 14:48
to the L.A. Major's drug investigation that, quote, Mr. Weekly knows what I'm doing, unquote. It is difficult to say with certainty if Weekly knew of Lister's cocaine dealings with Danielle O'Blanton. Weekly denies it. But there is no doubt…
▶ 16:49
Lister confirmed that he, quote, often met with Scott Weekly because Weekly was very knowledgeable in the area of commercially available military-related systems, unquote. He said Weekly was a dependable source of information as to which sy…
▶ 43:28
And he gave me these papers he said he had seized in a drug raid several years earlier. They were documents the majors had taken from Ron Lister's house, which Garner had secreted away as insurance. Though Braun privately doubted the record…
▶ 46:52
Braun responded in an inflammatory motion opposing the gag order in which he exposed a long hidden detail of the Major's 1986 raid on Ron Lister's house. Lister, who wasn't identified by name, was referred to as a money launderer who the Ma…
▶ 47:19
Braun told of Lister's claim of CIA connections and the strange items the deputies had found in his house. Films of military operations in Central America, technical manuals, information about military hardware, communications and documents…
▶ 48:17
into the United States. Braun's motion linked the Blanton family to the crash that Hassan Foss C-123 drug plane in Nicaragua in October 86. In other words, he's going for broke here. The same crash Scott Weakley claimed on tape that he'd be…
▶ 48:47
all of the recovered property. Mysteriously, all records of the search, seizure, and property had disappeared from the sheriff's department. Garner, Braun wrote, had secretly made copies of 10 pages of the documents seized from the CIA oper…
▶ 58:39
No way of knowing it, of course, but his efforts to drag Ron Lister into the Big Spender case came perilously close to exposing the Contra drug connection, which may explain the Justice Department's efforts to gag Braun and keep a lid on th…
▶ 59:08
and the CIA during the 1980s. The DEA considered him to be so valuable that it interceded with local police to keep him out of prison. Lister's transformation from drug trafficker and weapons trafficker to a drug warrior began in August 198…
▶ 59:37
happened to be a police informant, ran to tell the cops in Costa Mesa Police Department. They sent out an undercover agent who ended up buying two kilos of cocaine from Lister. But after just two days in jail, Lister was released on his own…
▶ 1:00:07
To the chagrin of Costa Mesa's authorities, Lister was arrested by a DEA agent in San Diego and charged with conspiracy to distribute 13 kilos of cocaine. But the same thing happened again. Instead of being taken off the streets, Lister was…
▶ 1:00:36
Why were these police agencies so eager to drop slam dunk drug cases against Ronald Lister and make him an informant? Easy. He was their ticket to the big time. He was going to lead them to the crime of the century. Today, the cops and lawy…
▶ 1:01:02
That wasn't what they thought when they signed him up as informant. During the negotiations for Mr. Lister's service, his attorney, Lynn Ball, sent the San Diego DEA and U.S. Attorney's Office a resume of his work history, touting him as ha…
▶ 1:01:32
of El Salvador, Colombia, Italy, and Iran. He knew intelligence operatives, weapon smugglers, the whole thing. He knew Norwin Menendez. He knew Daniel O'Blanton, everybody. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mesa, in a 1997 interview with the CIA insp…
▶ 1:02:00
conducted against Daniela Blanton. So she asked Lister's attorney, Lynn Ball, if Lister would be interested. The reaction from Lister's lawyer was memorable. Ball indicated that Lister was going to have to check with the agency first to see…
▶ 1:02:31
Lister then began a series of debriefings and grand jury appearances. Lister alluded to the CIA during debriefings, but no one from the investigative team pursued the subject. The focus of the U.S. attorney's investigation was on cocaine sm…
▶ 1:02:56
nor allowed him to discuss any information of the CIA's involvement or that of any other government entity. But Lister said there was another motive behind the prosecutor's lack of curiosity about that topic. In a letter to his CIA contact,…
▶ 1:03:47
would not go after anyone associated. Where the personal gain is clear and no contra activity appears, they proceed. They say they don't even want to know about the contra organization or anything related. Lister appeared before a federal g…
▶ 1:04:17
naming roughly 80 people who worked with the Blanton drug ring. He also provided information to San Francisco FBI Don Hale about Norwin Menendez. Lister said that Hale was convinced that Lister and the Nicaraguans were connected with the CI…
▶ 1:04:44
The 20th, 10 days after the verdicts in the first big spender case, that's all of the L.A. sheriffs and deputies were handed down. Ron Lister was released from federal custody and sent out into the world as an undercover DEA informant to in…
▶ 1:05:13
Incorporated, which happens to be an international barter brokerage company owned by none other than Scott Weekly, Mr. Death. Whether the DEA was using Weekly's company as a cover or if Lister was also spying on Weekly is not clear. Whateve…
▶ 1:05:42
unorthodox activities for a federal informant, moving mountains of cash for drug traffickers, just as he had done while he was working for Blanton. Barely six months after he began working for the DEA, Lister strolled into Anthony's Fish Gr…
▶ 1:06:09
Two of the men at the table were undercover DEA agents posing as money launderers. According to their report, one of the Colombians demanded to know what Lister had done for some half a million dollars he'd been given to launder. At this ti…
▶ 1:06:39
Lister went on to say that he could not wire transfer the money from the account again since it was originally laundered with the assistance of the CIA. At this point, Lister explained how he and the CIA used to transport multiple hundreds …
▶ 1:07:08
appeared to be a copy of an outgoing wire transfer on it, the agent noticed the following, Swiss Bank of New York, World Trade Center. The rest of the numbers was not obtained. Lister was asked by one of the undercover agents if he knew wha…
▶ 1:08:04
One of the undercover agents was being contacted by the Colombians and said, quote, by the way, we want to kill this guy Lister. And if we can't kill him, we're going to kidnap his mother and put her on the phone and torture her. So he pays…
▶ 1:08:31
Hey, we have reason to believe there's a threat against your life, a serious threat. We're taking it serious. We're offering to protect you. Lister said he laughed it off, saying that he wasn't afraid of any effing Colombians. The prosecuto…
▶ 1:08:57
He was also unconcerned, he said, that he had declined federal protection because he was not afraid because, again, he works for the CIA. He told the Columbians that he did not need any protection since he and his associate, Scott Weakley, …
▶ 1:09:24
To show the Columbians he was serious, Lister also pulled out some surveillance photos of the undercover DEA agents who had been at the lunch. The photographs appeared to have been taken from the top floor. Lister claimed that the photograp…
▶ 1:09:53
immigration checkpoint with a picture of Lister and a map to his mother's house. They were in the country illegally. Embarrassed by the fact that another DEA team had discovered their prize informant was money laundering for Colombian drug …
▶ 1:10:24
through Weekly's company, Marcon Corporation, which they said was set up to launder money for narcotics and weapons. Defendant intended to sell weapons as well. Weekly insisted Marcon was a legitimate trading company. In any event, no charg…
▶ 10:19
And of course, at the heart of both of them is Ron Lister, the guy who keeps claiming that he works for the CIA. Lister and his attorney protested the DEA's attempt to toss the ex-cop back in prison and argued that Lister, meaning Lister, h…
▶ 10:47
on the investigation of Blanton and Menendez, which, of course, there's been no investigation of Blanton and Menendez because they're off limits. If the feds couldn't bust the Nicaraguans, Lister's attorney said, that wasn't because of Ron …
▶ 11:37
In a letter to the federal judge, Rudy Brewster, who was handling the case, Lister warned him that the federal government had been playing games with the Blanton case for a long time. Quote, in 1986, the main players and myself came very cl…
▶ 12:06
First granting Lister's motion for a hearing, Judge Brewster quietly changed his mind and ordered Lister to serve eight years in prison for drug trafficking. The Blanton investigation was taken away from Lister's handler, Emil Meza, and giv…
▶ 13:00
Shortly after Grits and Scott Weakley returned from Burma singing songs of CIA involvement in heroin trafficking. So we're going to give him the same case. O'Neill would eventually become Blanton's biggest booster within the Justice Departm…
▶ 33:24
I told them the only way that we were going to get me out of your office was to give me the file or arrest me, she said. She got the file. And in it, the police reports about the search of Ronald Lister's house, his claims of CIA involvemen…
▶ 1:02:01
Let's run a story about Walter Pincus' CIA connections. Let's write about how the LA Times has been booting this story since 1987. I told them my discovery that the LA Times Washington Bureau had been sent a copy of notes found in Ron Liste…
▶ 1:06:42
We had DEA records saying Blanton had sent the money to the Contras far longer than we had previously reported. We had a top CIA official admitting that the agency had reports of drug trafficking at Ilopango. We had evidence of Ronald Liste…
▶ 21:44
at least affiliated with them. Brunin went on, I really didn't have much communication with the guy because he scared me. His name was Ronald J. Lister, L-I-S-T-E-R. He was a Californian who began working as a cocaine dealer and money laund…
▶ 22:16
just as the CIA was taking over all the funding for the FDN. The CIA had publicly denied any relationship to the man. This guy is Blanton's handler, just to put it bluntly. Before launching his life in crime, Daniello Blanton's faithful sid…
▶ 22:47
of one sort or another for nearly 15 years. Listen to this. This is just mind-boggling. He started out as a military police officer in the U.S. Army, and then on active duty, and then he transfers to the Reserve. While he's in the Army Rese…
▶ 23:19
So supposedly, even before he joined the army and enlisted, he had a degree in political science and was trained in processing prisoners. So he's in the army. He's a cop. Then he's in the army reserve as a cop assigned to a local reserve un…
▶ 23:53
fitness reports. Lister was hired as an officer in a local LA police department called Maywood. And it was a very, very small police department, but it got him a gun and it got him a badge. He was also a reserve deputy in the sheriff's depa…
▶ 24:29
who's also a police officer, who's also a deputy sheriff. So now, and he's also a CIA officer. So he covers all of the coordination stepping stones to control everything. He's got an N everywhere. Multiple badges, we'll just put it that way…
▶ 25:06
Guess what he joins? He joins the Coast Guard. You know, the guys charged with interdicting drugs. Yeah, that's where he goes. He's a reserve port security officer at San Pedro, California. And for those of you who don't know, I was station…
▶ 26:34
which is a very rich area of Los Angeles. So guess what his job is? He's going to be a detective in the burglary area. You know, the one that if you had like drugs and stuff like that, or you had a drug dealer that broke in to steal somebod…
▶ 27:03
said Lister was a veteran by the time she arrived in burglary. Her recollection of him was that he was always very successful, tenacious. His former chief, Neil Purcell, who was on the hiring board that gave Lister the job, remembers him ve…
▶ 27:33
who likes to play with people's mind. Sounds just like the typical CIA officer. He's very evasive and loves living on the edge. He's the biggest bullshitter that has ever been placed on earth. Unquote. Towards the end of Lister's 12-year st…
▶ 28:01
That silly son of a gun was in with, what do you call themselves, the royal highnesses from Iran, meaning the Shah. Quote, sporting Rolex watches for himself and his wife, getting wined and dined by these people until finally they, the Iran…
▶ 28:30
names and organizations. He was very bright. As far as intelligence, very smart. It was the one point on which Adams and Purcell agreed. Adams would go on to say, don't ever underestimate him. He's very, very bright. Both Adams and Purcell …
▶ 29:01
He would quit the Laguna Police Department in 1980 to pursue that vocation full time. He was in the alarm business. You just got to be kidding me here. And what he he started off in the alarm business. And he had some muckety mucks from Ara…
▶ 29:32
It was getting pretty elaborate. And that's when he left the police department. I know there was a lot of involvement and a lot of travel while he was here. A few weeks before he resigned, corporate records show, Lister Incorporated, a comp…