Daniel Blanton person
also: Blanton, Danielle Blanton, Daniello Blanton, Dinello, Bland, Danielle O'Blanton, Chonson, Danielo Blanton, Lantin, Daniello, that lady, tipster
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
Los Angelesplace · 76Contrasorganization · 63Floyd "Freeway" Rick Rossperson · 61Norwin Menendezperson · 60CIAintelligence service · 33Ron Listerperson · 30Nicaraguacountry · 28Miamiplace · 22San Franciscocountry · 19United Statescountry · 18DEAintelligence service · 17U.S. Department of Justiceorganization · 17L.I.J. O'Neillperson · 14Tom Gordonperson · 14Costa Ricacountry · 13Enrique Bermudezperson · 13Gary Webbperson · 12John Armadiperson · 12Colombiacountry · 11Alan Finsterperson · 11Orlando Morelloperson · 11Chuck Jonesperson · 11Bradley Bruninperson · 11Ricky Ross Trialevent · 9
Claims (93)
Daniel Blanton founded
Contras documented
“named Government Securities Corporation. From this bank, the monies are filtered to the Contra Rebels to buy arms for the war in Nicaragua. Gordon's sworn statement would prove to be a remarkably accurate portrait of the drug ring. A decade…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 5:22
Tom Gordon carried_out_attack
Daniel Blanton documented
“It says that he did exactly what the Costa Rican DEA agent Sandy Gonzalez said not to do. He drove down to the L.A. County Municipal Court before a judge and applied for a warrant to search all of the Nicaraguan drug operation that was goin…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 2:29
Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross recruited
Daniel Blanton book_quoted
“with the story that led to all of this research that we've gone over over the last few weeks. And it says that Gary Webb was swept into Ross's decade-long relationship with Daniela Blanton in late September 1995, two months into his investi…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 23 @ 4:56
Daniel Blanton laundered_money_for
Forces Democráticas Nacionales book_quoted
“Some of the income had gone into numbered bank accounts in Europe and Panama. The major's raids, Torres reported proudly, had not interfered with any of their cocaine trafficking to the black neighborhoods in Los Angeles. They had merely ca…”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 18:48
Norwin Menendez trafficked
Daniel Blanton book_quoted
“penetrate Blanton's organization and gather intelligence about its activities under a code name Operation Perico. Now, Menendez set Blanton up in business. They're not investigating Blanton. That's all bullshit. They already know everything…”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 15:20
U.S. Department of Justice covered_up
Daniel Blanton documented
“But no one bothered. We found no FBI records indicating that the Miami FBI office conducted any further investigation into Blanton, the Justice Department IG said. But once the case was officially shelved, Norrin Menendez miraculously reapp…”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 32:38
Roger Sandino Martinez succeeded
Daniel Blanton documented
“And I wasn't necessarily going to leave it. In other words, despite the fact that the LAPD, L.A. Sheriff's Department, FBI, DEA, CIA, DIA, and IRS was now fully aware of Blanton's cocaine reign, the only thing that changed was the man at th…”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 46:35
José González succeeded
Daniel Blanton documented
“And I wasn't necessarily going to leave it. In other words, despite the fact that the LAPD, L.A. Sheriff's Department, FBI, DEA, CIA, DIA, and IRS was now fully aware of Blanton's cocaine reign, the only thing that changed was the man at th…”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 46:35
Roger Sandino Martinez succeeded
Daniel Blanton documented
“Months after fleeing Virginia, Sandino showed up in Los Angeles just in time to take over Danielle Blanton's business, another known government-protected drug dealer. After Blanton moved, Ross said, he would call him in Miami time to time, …”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 50:13
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Nicaragua documented
“Months after fleeing Virginia, Sandino showed up in Los Angeles just in time to take over Danielle Blanton's business, another known government-protected drug dealer. After Blanton moved, Ross said, he would call him in Miami time to time, …”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 50:13
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Norwin Menendez host_asserted
“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…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 41:02
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Mike Smith host_asserted
“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…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 40:34
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Reggie Rash host_asserted
“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…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 40:34
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Torres brothers host_asserted
“There was a fight on TV and Danielle and I went over there to watch it. I was staying at a hotel and that's when I first met the Torres brothers. And Blanton was working with them and under the belief that he was involved with narcotics wit…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 42:20
John Armadi spied_on
Daniel Blanton documented
“Whether Blanton had any connection to the World Bank is unknown because undercover DEA tapes show that he was openly boasting about having received massive loans around the time from the Canadian government. And according to a DEA summary, …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 43:13
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Cali Cartel host_asserted
“They like you, see? Shit, they... Oh, he has a whole bunch of cuss words, basically saying that he knows everybody in the new government. Blanton wasn't just bragging, though. A DEA informant who had worked for Blanton informed federal agen…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 45:15
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Sergio Herrera host_asserted
“He was accompanied by an undercover 8DEA agent, Judy Gustafson, who was posing as a money launderer interested in doing business with Blanton and his friend, Sergio Guerrera, who owned all the parking lots down there next to the border. Bla…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 47:11
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Roger Sardino host_asserted
“and shipped him to Oklahoma City and indicted him within two weeks. The San Diego DEA had him working the phones, making tape recording calls to Blanton in an effort to set him up in a reverse sting. But Blanton's intel network was so good …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 52:53
Robert Telles spied_on
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“But now I believe that Blanton had been tipped off, said a federal prosecutor who worked on the case. He declined to say whom he suspected, but one of the agents assigned to Blanton's investigation was INS agent Robert Telles, T-E-L-L-E-Z. …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 54:40
Sergio Herrera trafficked
Daniel Blanton documented
“and a second search of the trunk revealed another $2,000 in money orders. They were blank. Asked why he was driving around with a small fortune in his trunk, Guerrero babbled, quote, he does not have a safe and he uses his two Mercedes Benz…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 57:32
Daniel Blanton member_of
Forces Democráticas Nacionales book_quoted
“said that his brothers, Edgar and Pacito, were distributing up to 1,000 kilograms of cocaine on a monthly basis in Los Angeles. According to Torres, Menendez, and Blanton, Torres was the head of the West Coast branch of the FDN, meaning the…”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 17:16
Frank Virgil trafficked
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“He was very nervous and denied everything. At that point, I decided to focus our investigation on him. Miranda unwittingly led the police to Frank Virgil, the former advertising man who allegedly dealt cocaine with Blanton in Los Angeles in…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 1:04:17
Gary Webb exposed
Daniel Blanton book_quoted
“with the story that led to all of this research that we've gone over over the last few weeks. And it says that Gary Webb was swept into Ross's decade-long relationship with Daniela Blanton in late September 1995, two months into his investi…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 23 @ 4:56
Daniel Blanton recruited
Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross book_quoted
“Inside, Gary Webb was tickled because Katz wasn't going to get any of the information he already had about the CIA's involvement. The next morning, I ran down to the hotel lobby and grabbed a copy of the Times. Katz's story had ran, focusin…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 23 @ 44:10
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Contras documented
“told the judge that she was very disturbed O'Neill had hidden from the defense the fact that Blanton was a member of an organization responsible for numerous murders in Mexico. O'Neill denied it. While he admitted that Blanton had gotten in…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 23 @ 42:38
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Raul Vega host_asserted
“He would be three for three. In late December 1991, special LAPD strike force arrested him and two other men on charges of money laundering and conspiracy after they caught him with $14,000 and a small amount of cocaine in his pocket. Blant…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 59:01
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Forces Democráticas Nacionales book_quoted
“Some of the income had gone into numbered bank accounts in Europe and Panama. The major's raids, Torres reported proudly, had not interfered with any of their cocaine trafficking to the black neighborhoods in Los Angeles. They had merely ca…”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 18:48
Doug Auckland spied_on
Daniel Blanton book_quoted
“The FBI agent had been investigating and sent him back to Costa Rica, all without letting him know. Auckland was staking out Blanton's auto dealerships at the time of the meeting, and he watched for eight straight days as an unidentified ma…”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 20:38
Norwin Menendez spied_on
Daniel Blanton book_quoted
“The DEA agent, Gonzalez, told the Justice Department that, quote, planned to use Menendez only to introduce other informants into Bland's organization, unquote, reportedly because he thought Menendez would be difficult to control. But now, …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 11 @ 1:01:01
Daniel Blanton member_of
Democratic Force of Nicaragua documented
“with Blanton to deliver 100 kilos of cocaine to a major supplier of the L.A. Rock houses in exchange for almost $3 million. And these weren't your everyday run-of-the-mill drug dealers, the informant warned Auckland. They had connections. B…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 9:23
Daniel Blanton financed_via
Contras host_asserted
“Between 81 and 82, he said that he had provided several thousand dollars in drug profits to finance the FDN's wing in Los Angeles. The drug money was used to support the operating expenses, plane tickets, rent, office spaces. Menendez was d…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 5 @ 39:25
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
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Los Angeles documented
“In 1982, towards the end, Blanton's cocaine trafficking business in Los Angeles exploded almost overnight. It appears he went from receiving a little one or two kilo package that could be tucked away in a lunchbox to conducting multimillion…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 30:22
Daniel Blanton supplied_arms_to
Contras book_quoted
“Despite all of the work that he'd been doing for Menendez personally, keeping the books, helping the Contras, you know, his what was me story. Every few months, Blanton would drive all the way to Menendez's house and pick up his cocaine to …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 40:24
Daniel Blanton paid
John Menendez book_quoted
“Despite all of the work that he'd been doing for Menendez personally, keeping the books, helping the Contras, you know, his what was me story. Every few months, Blanton would drive all the way to Menendez's house and pick up his cocaine to …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 40:24
Daniel Blanton supplied_arms_to
Ivan Arguelles book_quoted
“because they shared heritage with this new profession. He sold Ivan a little cocaine every once in a while when he couldn't find it at other places. The Torres brothers, the two giant guys with the car lot, also had gotten into the cocaine …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 41:24
Daniel Blanton supplied_arms_to
Henry Corrales book_quoted
“Henry was so grateful for Blanton's help that he agreed to share his profits on the kilos that he sold 50-50. We split the commission, Blanton said, but he couldn't remember how much that was. I was selling to Henry Corrales and Henry Corra…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8 @ 44:56
Daniel Blanton member_of
FDN documented
“nephew had told him that the US was aware of these dealings and that it was highly unlikely I would even get in trouble. Both Norwin Menendez and Blanton told him that they were raising money for the Contras through drug dealing. Blanton ha…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 9 @ 1:06:46
DEA spied_on
Daniel Blanton documented
“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…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 51:26
DEA spied_on
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“LAPD Sergeant Ron Hodges heard a similar story while working his own case against Blanton in 91. Hodges, a narcotic detective who was also working with the Torres brothers, was attempting to arrange a hand-to-hand sale with Blanton when he …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 1:00:27
DEA spied_on
Daniel Blanton documented
“a file on Blanton in May of 1983 after getting a tip from a confidential informant that he was a member of a cocaine trafficking organization. His attorney, Bradley Brunin, said in court in 1992 that the DEA's voluminous knowledge of Blanto…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 10 @ 19:31
L.I.J. O'Neill covered_up
Daniel Blanton book_quoted
“told the judge that she was very disturbed O'Neill had hidden from the defense the fact that Blanton was a member of an organization responsible for numerous murders in Mexico. O'Neill denied it. While he admitted that Blanton had gotten in…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 23 @ 42:38
U.S. Department of Justice covered_up
Daniel Blanton book_quoted
“That's something I'm not even sure I can say yes or no to because that comes within the realm of, look, I have no reason to believe he had any contact with the CIA and I would defy counsel to come up with any kind of credible information th…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 23 @ 43:08
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Crips documented
“So what I'm asking, is that true? Gary Webb knew immediately he had been double-crossed. A private eye hired by Ross's lawyer had come to his house looking for information on Blanton. But I told him very little. He then pulled out a copy of…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 23 @ 35:22
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Bloods documented
“So what I'm asking, is that true? Gary Webb knew immediately he had been double-crossed. A private eye hired by Ross's lawyer had come to his house looking for information on Blanton. But I told him very little. He then pulled out a copy of…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 23 @ 35:22
Judge Hoff ordered_assassination_of
Daniel Blanton book_quoted
“and his connections to the CIA. O'Neill protested angrily, accusing Ross of dreaming up the whole CIA plot and feeding it to gullible journalists who were spreading ridiculous conspiracy theories. But Judge Hoff looked troubled and told O'N…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 24 @ 22:59
CIA covered_up
Daniel Blanton documented
“flexible when necessary. A month later, with the Washington press corps on a scavenger hunt for a dressed stain with President Clinton's semen, the classified version of the CIA report was officially released. It showed that the CIA had kno…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 25 (Final) @ 3:37
CIA recruited
Daniel Blanton documented
“The entire time this was going on, that Blanton and Menendez had began selling cocaine in L.A. for the Contras, the CIA and Justice Department had an agreement to not address it. In essence, the CIA wouldn't tell the Justice Department and …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 25 (Final) @ 6:24
Enrique Bermudez recruited
Daniel Blanton documented
“In L.A., he paid Blanton's group a visit. Bermudez came to a meeting of the group to give a pep talk and to ask the group to keep the idea of a free and democratic Nicaraguan alive. Not that they ever had one because they didn't. But, you k…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 3 by Gary Webb @ 47:05
Daniel Blanton member_of
Fuerza Democrática Nacional documented
“But we have to lie to everybody in order to take their money because they're never going to just openly fund a dictatorship again. And this was all revealed by the CIA. The colonel asked the group to adopt the colors and the flag of the FDN…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 3 by Gary Webb @ 47:34
Daniel Blanton recruited
Norwin Menendez host_asserted
“told Blanton that someone wanted to meet him, a man that would be flying into L.A. His name was Norwin Menendez. Blanton was to meet him at the airport and listen to everything that he says. He had to talk to me about something, Blanton sai…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 4 @ 2:07
Norwin Menendez trafficked
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“Menendez at the airport, Blanton said, he started telling me that we had to do some money, that we had to do some money, and to send it to Honduras. Because remember, they moved it from Guatemala to the Contra camp to Honduras. Later at a r…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 4 @ 7:57
Norwin Menendez recruited
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“into the U.S. in 1981 alone, which would have generated $54 million in sales. Blanton accepted Menendez's pitch to become a cocaine salesman for the Contras, he said, after he and the drug kingpin took a trip down to Honduras for another pe…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 4 @ 46:02
Enrique Bermudez appointed
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“was an old friend of the Menendez's family. I've known him since he was a lieutenant, Menendez said, adding that his brother, Edmundo, had been friends with Enrique Bermudez even longer. They'd known each other since childhood. Menendez, wh…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 4 @ 46:57
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Nicaragua documented
“cooperated Hassan's statement in a sealed search warrant affidavit. Filed in May of 1992, DEA agent Chuck Jones wrote, quote, Blanton fled Nicaragua after Somoza regime was deposed. Blanton had been a cocaine trafficker in Nicaragua prior t…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 4 @ 59:51
Norwin Menendez supplied_arms_to
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“And I start. Menendez gave him two kilos of cocaine worth about $60,000 at the time and the names of some of the customers in LA and told him to hit the streets. The cocaine was provided at no cost, but with the understanding that Blanton w…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 4 @ 55:30
Daniel Blanton member_of
Menendez Drug Network book_quoted
“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.…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 1:47
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
Daniel Blanton 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
Norwin Menendez recruited
Daniel Blanton book_quoted
“While Blanton struggled to create a customer base, he made himself very useful. You know, he becomes his secretary. He's now kind of his accountant in Los Angeles, keeping the books, helping the relative of Menendez run the restaurant, that…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 2:54
Daniel Blanton member_of
JDM Artwork, Inc. book_quoted
“Someone would be assigned to watch over them the entire time. Sometimes that was Daniello Blanton's job. In August of 82, Blanton and Mrs. Menendez set up a business together in Los Angeles. It was called JDM Artwork, Inc. Now see if any of…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 7 @ 9:34
Norwin Menendez trafficked
Daniel Blanton documented
“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 …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 10 @ 6:07
U.S. State Department pardoned
Daniel Blanton documented
“sophisticated telecommunication and eavesdropping gear. Blanton was having the time of his life. As far as he and Ricky Roth were concerned, 1984 had been a terrific year, and 1985 was going to be better. Blanton was now an official guest o…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 10 @ 17:57
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross documented
“When the Justice Department Inspector General looked at Blanton's immigration records, he found them in disarray. During 1984 and 85, Ross and Blanton had admitted their cocaine trafficking empire was at its zenith. Ross was selling dope so…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 10 @ 22:29
Daniel Blanton paid
Orlando Morello host_asserted
“He had bought a large Spanish-style home in Rialto, which, for those of you not familiar, is very, very wealthy. He had withdrawn $175,000 in cash from his bank account in Panama and given it to Orlando Morella, the former Samosan banker, w…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 10 @ 24:28
Daniel Blanton supplied_arms_to
Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross host_asserted
“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…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 10 @ 57:37
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Torres brothers host_asserted
“Guzetta listened with his mouth open as the brothers rattled off names, dates, delivery sites, and routes of transportation. The two black dealers in South Central, they reported, are generating a conservative figure of $10 million a month.…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 33:51
Daniel Blanton supplied_arms_to
Torres brothers host_asserted
“Guzetta listened with his mouth open as the brothers rattled off names, dates, delivery sites, and routes of transportation. The two black dealers in South Central, they reported, are generating a conservative figure of $10 million a month.…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 33:51
Rick and Ollie trafficked
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“Guzetta listened with his mouth open as the brothers rattled off names, dates, delivery sites, and routes of transportation. The two black dealers in South Central, they reported, are generating a conservative figure of $10 million a month.…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 33:51
Jerry Gazzetta exposed
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“source. Two of the Colombians they knew only by nicknames. One they knew quite well, Daniel Blanton. The informants related that Daniel Blanton is extremely dangerous because of his access to information who's at a road and further as extre…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 34:21
Daniel Blanton funded
Contras documented
“Number two, stated in your affiant that Blanton is a Contra sympathizer and founder of the FDN, an organization that assists the Contra movement with arms and money. The money and arms generated by this organization comes through the cell o…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 4:28
Daniel Blanton laundered_money_for
Contras documented
“Gordon listed more than a dozen locations across Southern California where Blanton and his cohorts were storing drugs and cash. He traced the money trail from Los Angeles across the country, writing that the, quote, monies gained from the s…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 4:55
Arpaccio Marino supplied_arms_to
Daniel Blanton documented
“Blanton would later admit that Marino had supplied him with so many thousands of kilos of cocaine in 1984 and 85 that he couldn't put an exact number on them. He said he was introduced to Marino by Norwin Menendez and worked with the Colomb…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 23:16
Daniel Blanton member_of
FDN documented
“And sneaking them into countries, because this looks exactly like that. Okay, Blanton's application for permanent residency, which disclosed his membership in an unnamed quote-unquote anti-communist organization, meaning the FDN and the Con…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 1:01:01
U.S. Department of Justice pardoned
Daniel Blanton documented
“that his investigators were unable to locate a copy of the affidavit in the department files and had to use the author's, meaning Gary Webb's copy, which had been posted by the San Jose Mercury News on its website. And again, the only reaso…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 54:56
Daniel Blanton funded
Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross book_quoted
“Blanton provided him with free rental cars and complimentary hotel rooms. Meanwhile, Ross turned Blanton's daughters on to rap music, bringing them the latest CDs and talked to them about rappers and how he was bankrolling them from his coc…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 21 @ 18:10
Daniel Blanton member_of
Mex-U.S. Import Export book_quoted
“the FDN slash Contra, both men became business partners with Daniello Blanton in a company called Mex, M-E-X dash U-S Import Export, another import export company. Other directors of that same company included Blanton's Mexican college frie…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 21 @ 13:31
Daniel Blanton founded
Alpha 2 Rent-A-Car book_quoted
“and spread to 24 other locations in South Florida. Blanton's rent-a-car business was so successful, court records show, he became an authorized outlet for Chrysler Corporation and GM vehicles. They loved those car lots. Ross said that he vi…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 21 @ 17:41
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Contras documented
“who dealt dope for many years, started out dealing with the Contras, a right-wing Nicaraguan, yeah, they're not right-wing, give me a break, Nicaraguan guerrilla group in Los Angeles. He'd used drug money to buy trucks and supplies for the …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance by Gary Webb Part 1 @ 38:15
Daniel Blanton member_of
U.S. Department of Justice documented
“cooperated with and rendered substantial assistance to the United States, unquote. At the government's request, his jail sentence had been secretly cut twice. O'Neill then persuaded the judge to let Blanton out of jail completely, telling t…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance by Gary Webb Part 1 @ 50:25
Orlando Morello laundered_money_for
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“Morella, who was allegedly laundering Blanton's money in Miami and serving as a front to buy property for Blanton. The informant told the DEA that Blanton's millions were being driven to Florida in motorhomes and taken to Fontainebleau apar…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 4:32
Daniel Blanton member_of
Somoza family book_quoted
“Setting a notepad out of his briefcase, I excused myself and went to a payphone. Miraculously, Dawn was at her desk, and I asked her if there was any problem with that. She said, no, I think that's a great idea. I wish you could do all your…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 23 @ 54:56
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
Daniel Blanton supplied_arms_to
Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross book_quoted
“He kept saying he could get me some stuff for really cheap and could make me a lot of money if I started dealing in Cincinnati. Ricky, initially, was not interested. When Blanton called him from Detroit one day in the fall of 1987 and asked…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 21 @ 18:43
Daniel Blanton trafficked
Norwin Menendez guest_asserted
“Blanton insists that he didn't actually sell his first ounce of cocaine until 1982. But others who knew him at the time said he had been dealing in drugs much, much earlier than that. The Torres brothers would later tell the FBI that Blanto…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 4 @ 55:57
Daniel Blanton 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
Rayol Vega trained
Daniel Blanton guest_asserted
“Norwin wanted that I went to Rio Vega to show me how to drive, how to do it, because he used to do it all the time. Menendez was a fount of advice on how to avoid problems. He told Blanton not to give out cocaine on credit. Don't do this. B…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 4 @ 55:01
Daniel Blanton laundered_money_for
Contras host_asserted
“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…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 18 @ 38:44
Daniel Blanton ordered_assassination_of
Andreas Torres host_asserted
“In an interview with police, they explained that Danilo Blanton's wife told him about an affair with one of the brothers in a fit of anger. Blanton became enraged and hired a former military officer in the Nicaraguan army to kill him. The b…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 10 @ 40:01
Daniel Blanton member_of
Contras host_asserted
“Blanton denies selling Ross that many guns, but he admits selling him several. Blanton described his weapon sales as nothing more than a convenience for Ross and assisted him in that he insisted he was not an arms dealer. He just said that …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 10 @ 1:00:24
Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross trafficked
Daniel Blanton documented
“for another 10 years. In 1996, when Gary Webb began looking into the 1986 raids, the Sheriff Department officials would initially deny that they had ever occurred. Because remember, they purged all the records. If the Blanton investigation …”
▶ The Colonel Corner Dark Alliance Part 20 @ 33:37
Daniel Blanton member_of
Menendez Family book_quoted
“Oh, he looked at O'Neill and O'Neill was staring at him from other people because the order prohibiting CIA testimony, Finster was unable to pursue the line of inquiry. He quizzed Blanton about his meeting in Honduras with CIA agent Enrique…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 23 @ 56:23
Enrique Bermudez ordered_assassination_of
Daniel Blanton host_asserted
“and put up the Argentinian military that was on the payroll of the CIA. They had nice cars, etc. It was against this backdrop that Menendez and Blanton had been called to Honduras to meet with Enrique Bermudez, where they were told by the n…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 5 @ 37:02
Mentions (120)
▶ 3:36
into South Central Los Angeles because involving the federal agents tipped off Daniello Blanton to the entire operation and they were able to basically dispose of, get rid of, and clean all of the intended targets because apparently one of …
▶ 5:29
anti-drug terrorist nexus that the CIA has orchestrated. So Blanton had basically lost a tiny bit of dope that they found in his personal possession at his house. None of the people were arrested. He and Chapita, his wife, were out of jail …
▶ 9:47
supposedly tyrannical government of Iran, had been illegally diverted to the Contras by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North. The Iran-Contra scandal was busting wide open. Now, the strange papers that had been found in Blanton and Lister's hous…
▶ 14:54
which is ridiculous because they already had all the information they were protecting him. On December 21st, without waiting for DEA approval, Menendez and his new partner, longtime CIA agent Roberto, left Costa Rica and flew to the U.S. Of…
▶ 15:20
penetrate Blanton's organization and gather intelligence about its activities under a code name Operation Perico. Now, Menendez set Blanton up in business. They're not investigating Blanton. That's all bullshit. They already know everything…
▶ 16:14
if they delve too deeply into Blanton's drug ring. Again, they already know they helped set it up. Soon after the new year, a series of strange meetings took place in Los Angeles between Blanton Menendez, the CIA agent Roberto, and a top FD…
▶ 17:16
said that his brothers, Edgar and Pacito, were distributing up to 1,000 kilograms of cocaine on a monthly basis in Los Angeles. According to Torres, Menendez, and Blanton, Torres was the head of the West Coast branch of the FDN, meaning the…
▶ 19:13
Quote, Blanton was keeping a low profile and may have turned over cocaine distribution to a black group in South Los Angeles to the Torres brothers. The DEA report said, describing Blanton's sales to blacks as half his trade. Blanton appare…
▶ 19:40
As for the informants who snitched them off to the DEA and FBI, Blanton and Torres knew who they were, Roberto reported. The individuals would be killed. Nine months later, one of the men Blanton suspected, Contra FDN member Carlos Roca, wa…
▶ 20:38
The FBI agent had been investigating and sent him back to Costa Rica, all without letting him know. Auckland was staking out Blanton's auto dealerships at the time of the meeting, and he watched for eight straight days as an unidentified ma…
▶ 25:02
It didn't take a week for Rosanello's office to reject the FBI agent's proposal. Menendez would not be prosecuted. The agents were told so long as Blanton's investigation is still underway in Los Angeles, that wasn't going to happen. Rosane…
▶ 30:43
he did not add a lot of information to what they already knew. He did point out that the majors had missed $850,000 in cash that Blanton had hidden in a safe at the bottom of a swimming pool. And he said that the Contra official, Ivan Torre…
▶ 32:38
But no one bothered. We found no FBI records indicating that the Miami FBI office conducted any further investigation into Blanton, the Justice Department IG said. But once the case was officially shelved, Norrin Menendez miraculously reapp…
▶ 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 …
▶ 45:05
the gist of what we're talking about. Daniel Blanton's reassurance to Ross that nothing would change, the Nicaraguan had already made up his mind to get out of Los Angeles. The raids on his home and other locations, his bonus cover, and his…
▶ 46:06
was tying up loose ends and transferring cash for him so he could buy a house. So he's fine, you know, because he's protected by the CIA and FBI and DEA. But all hell's breaking loose in Los Angeles. Blanton would testify later, I was prepa…
▶ 46:35
And I wasn't necessarily going to leave it. In other words, despite the fact that the LAPD, L.A. Sheriff's Department, FBI, DEA, CIA, DIA, and IRS was now fully aware of Blanton's cocaine reign, the only thing that changed was the man at th…
▶ 50:13
Months after fleeing Virginia, Sandino showed up in Los Angeles just in time to take over Danielle Blanton's business, another known government-protected drug dealer. After Blanton moved, Ross said, he would call him in Miami time to time, …
▶ 50:45
with the Nicaraguan operation in Los Angeles well after he moved to Miami. By then, Ross said the cocaine business was losing some of its allure. His friends and mentor, Danielle Blanton, was 3,000 miles away. He owned about $5 million wort…
▶ 37:49
Raphael's lawyer is asking for a clean copy. As you'll see, they also cut out a bunch of stuff on DEA number six. There's a hearing on his motion coming up. I skimmed the 39-page transcript. Whatever else this Blandon fellow may have been, …
▶ 41:32
It'd probably be the last thing he'd expect. I'm not really here doing a story on this case. I'm here looking into one of the witnesses, a name by the name of Blandon. As I was pronouncing, or am I pronouncing the name correctly? Hall appea…
▶ 42:32
but I never heard back from him. Not that I expected to, but that's all ancient history. You're really doing a story about that? I don't know if I'm doing it at all. At this point, I'm just trying to see if there is one. Do you know where B…
▶ 44:55
She mulled it over for a moment and said, it's not like there's a lot going on in Sacramento right now. That was true. The Sunbaked City capital during the summertime was like siesta. With any luck, I was about to join the siesta people on …
▶ 45:24
He may be living down there for all I know. Probably the quickest way to find out is to go there. She okayed the trip. A few days later, I was in San Diego looking at microfiche in the clerk's office at the U.S. District Court. I found a Bl…
▶ 46:18
in jail without bail because they posed a threat to health and the moral fiber of communities. The file contained a transcript of a detention hearing held to determine if the couple should be released on bail. Blanton's prosecutor, Assistan…
▶ 47:44
Blanton's lawyer, Brad Brunin, confirmed the couple's close ties to Somoza and produced a photo of them at a wedding with the president and his spouse. That just showed what fine families they were, he said. Yeah, the murderous dictator. Fi…
▶ 48:34
What you have are accusations from a series of informants, but the judge didn't see it that way and allowed, while allowing the wife to postpone, he ordered the husband held without bail. From the docket sheet, I could see that the case had…
▶ 49:57
Tellez, T-E-L-L-E-Z. He'd done 28 months for a 10-year cocaine trafficking conviction. The last page of the file told me why. In a motion filed by the U.S. Attorney O'Neill, asking the court to unseal Blanton's plea deal and a couple of int…
▶ 51:27
Now there were two separate sources saying in court that Blanton was involved with Contras and had been selling large amounts of cocaine in Los Angeles. And when the government finally had a chance to put him away forever, it opened up the …
▶ 55:42
Blanton's testimony about selling cocaine to the Contras in LA wasn't part of a fantasy. This could have actually happened. I called Jack Bloom, the Washington DC attorney who headed the Kerry investigation, and he confirmed that Norwin Men…
▶ 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…
▶ 17:27
meant that Menendez could have led the police and the press to Daniello Blanton's Blooming Enterprise in South Central Los Angeles. Blanton was dumping a small mountain of cocaine into L.A.'s black neighborhoods every week, as well as provi…
▶ 17:57
sophisticated telecommunication and eavesdropping gear. Blanton was having the time of his life. As far as he and Ricky Roth were concerned, 1984 had been a terrific year, and 1985 was going to be better. Blanton was now an official guest o…
▶ 18:26
in 1984 and awarded his political asylum request and gave him a green card. Now, again, everybody involved in this knows what's going on. Border, Customs, DEA, everybody. He's not blacked. Nothing. They give him a green card for piling coca…
▶ 18:57
But all of a sudden, he gets his green card. That's weird. Though the administration could have claimed ignorance, there were easily obtainable records proving that the DEA was fully aware that Blanton was a drug dealer. Further, it is Stat…
▶ 19:31
a file on Blanton in May of 1983 after getting a tip from a confidential informant that he was a member of a cocaine trafficking organization. His attorney, Bradley Brunin, said in court in 1992 that the DEA's voluminous knowledge of Blanto…
▶ 19:56
I have some 300 DEA reports regarding Mr. Blanton, and the reports relate to activities between approximately 1981 and May of 92. In early 1984, while Blanton's asylum application was under review at State Department, the DEA learned from a…
▶ 20:27
along with information that he was basically dealing it with Costa Rica, Colombia, and was involved in the Contras. The same odd sequence of events happened when Blanton's wife, Shapita, first the DEA learned that she was a drug dealer. The…
▶ 22:29
When the Justice Department Inspector General looked at Blanton's immigration records, he found them in disarray. During 1984 and 85, Ross and Blanton had admitted their cocaine trafficking empire was at its zenith. Ross was selling dope so…
▶ 22:57
to smaller crack dealers. It continued growing and growing until sometime he could buy 100 kilos in a week. Blanton and Ross was driving him nuts with constantly telephoning in orders. I was getting orders all the time, Blanton said. I was …
▶ 23:26
He was calling like every two or three hours. Sometimes he would want me to deliver them at two o'clock in the morning. Blanton finally worked out an arrangement with his Colombian supplier to give Ross large quantities of cocaine for no mo…
▶ 23:56
He's a good payer. I give 20 or 25 kilos on credit to him all the time. Don't bother me until you've got the money. That was Blanton. There was a reason Blanton wanted out, why he wanted Ross out of his hair for a while. The Blanton family …
▶ 24:28
He had bought a large Spanish-style home in Rialto, which, for those of you not familiar, is very, very wealthy. He had withdrawn $175,000 in cash from his bank account in Panama and given it to Orlando Morella, the former Samosan banker, w…
▶ 24:59
In one sense, Blanton had a right to be proud of his accomplishments. He was the epitome of a Reagan-era success, along with the finances of all of the people that were around him. In only three years, he had gone from working in a car wash…
▶ 25:31
He was the chief supplier to the largest minority owned business in the area. Again, it was drugs. So when Blanton basically didn't want to be making the trips out to South Central and he really didn't want Ricky hanging around his house an…
▶ 26:08
He hired a live-in maid and a nanny and opened a restaurant. He bought a car lot and went into business with an old college buddy and bought major automobile franchises, both here and in Guadalajara. And why is that important? Because Guada…
▶ 26:38
And now we go back to Bridget's comment about trafficking drugs in cars. Yeah, it all makes sense. Blanton's businesses were merely fronts through which to launder his drug money and provide a respectable explanation for his wealth and life…
▶ 27:09
It was a cash-heavy business, lots of different vehicles moving in and out, and their trunks were perfect places to store cocaine, both in transit and at night at the dealership. It provided plausible deniability in case it was actually dis…
▶ 27:40
The lot paid taxes on the $4,000 at a cheaper rate than what you could have paid for laundering money through a bank. And suddenly, the $2,000 in drug profits had a legitimate pedigree. Now that Danilo was a suburbanite with businesses to r…
▶ 28:10
He talks about hanging out at his house and even staying the night there. But that got a little awkward as time went on. Ross noticed a change in his mentor's demeanor after he joined the country club in Rialto. Daniela started getting rela…
▶ 28:41
would turn red and he'd keep trying to get me to use it. And Ricky said, I don't drink and I don't do drugs. I just sell them. Blanton habits would leave him soft and bloated. The Nicaraguan dealers began to call him the fat pig. Ironically…
▶ 29:12
Ricky Ross a little nervous. The way he saw it, people who got lazy got sloppy, and sloppy people made stupid mistakes. This was a business where you couldn't afford even one mistake. Ross's two years to perfect his delivery and distributio…
▶ 30:12
to Danello. When he looked closely at his operation, he saw a glaring weakness and that was his exclusive relationship with Danello Blanton. It didn't make any sense to have his entire life resting in one person's hand. If Danello disappear…
▶ 30:42
from other cocaine importers, major traffickers, who dreamed of finding a customer the size of Ricky Ross. Blanton once told an associate that the beauty of dealing with the black people was that they sold cocaine so rapidly that there were…
▶ 38:32
to cocaine trafficking. Ross eventually turned Blanton and the Torres brothers against each other, a situation that would have due consequences for Blanton in later years. The longtime friends became bitter rivals, fighting each other for R…
▶ 39:04
was working with a drunken Blanton about how low the brothers' cocaine prices had fallen. Blanton looked at him, bleary-eyed, and said, Chepita is screwing one of them. He used the F word. And said he was going to put a hit out on him. He s…
▶ 39:32
Blanton suggested that Ross set up a came by with the adulterous brother and tell the MF-er to bring it at such and such a time. And I'm going to have some guys there waiting for him. I'm going to take care of that effing guy. Ross said he …
▶ 40:01
In an interview with police, they explained that Danilo Blanton's wife told him about an affair with one of the brothers in a fit of anger. Blanton became enraged and hired a former military officer in the Nicaraguan army to kill him. The b…
▶ 40:33
just how much cocaine the Torres brothers were selling to Ross. But he estimated that their volume rose to a level comparable to his own. He saw them getting rich. If I sell to Torres, basically he was jealous of the Torres brothers. The To…
▶ 41:04
on many occasions. If Ricky Ross was going through 150 kilos of cocaine every week, and as Ross said, the figure is a reasonable average. It means he was selling enough to put a staggering 3 million doses of crack on LA streets every seven …
▶ 41:31
about $6 million a week in cash from the profits of the young dealer. Sometimes we'd spend $4 million or $5 million in a week with the guy, Blanton said. Blanton said that Ross was using an apartment in South Central as a counting house whe…
▶ 42:01
He would pick up his payments there. When Danilo came over to the counting house, he said, man, I'm going to have to get you a money machine because, you know, our problem has got to be counting that money. You know, I started telling him, …
▶ 42:28
Blanton agreed that Ross was being diluted with cash. Those times they were using two and three machines and they were counting day and night. To hide it all, Ross followed Blanton's advice and started investing in real estate, buying house…
▶ 49:40
Cocaine is found widely in the black community in Los Angeles, but it is almost totally absent from the Hispanic area. The explanation for this seemed obvious once Danilo Blanton's Rick Ross partnership is factored in. There was no market u…
▶ 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…
▶ 58:08
And said there was plenty more where that came from. He started selling guns after the business got huge. And they would be things like guns with silencers on them. And everybody then started coming to Ross wanting guns. Blanton had access …
▶ 58:47
what is called a street sweeper, the Thompsons. He sold everything. I think he sold those for like $3,000 a piece. It's a fully automatic that you see in the movies, like in the old gangster movies, Ross said. He also had Uzis. He sold pist…
▶ 59:53
So Ricky says, I started buying houses and Ollie started buying guns. He said his fellow dealers bought more than 100 guns from Blanton. He sold so many to other dealers and friends that in 1987, the L.A. police would list weapon sales as a…
▶ 1:00:24
Blanton denies selling Ross that many guns, but he admits selling him several. Blanton described his weapon sales as nothing more than a convenience for Ross and assisted him in that he insisted he was not an arms dealer. He just said that …
▶ 34:05
Like Blanton's relationship with the DEA, the reporters arranged the interview themselves. Even after they had jumped through all of the hoops, Menendez gave nothing away for free. Every suggestion of criminal conduct that was alleged, he w…
▶ 35:28
for a variety of police agencies. In May of 1992, the FBI, DEA, IRS, and the Los Angeles Police Department sat the Torreses down in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles and grilled them about Menendez and Danielle O'Blanton. Menendez w…
▶ 36:00
He would not occasionally look angry sometimes. Holding the document open to the second page, he pointed to the second paragraph where it says, Torres estimated that between 1980 and 91, Blanton moved over 5,000 kilos of cocaine. It would b…
▶ 36:30
50,000 kilos? 55 tons of cocaine? He said, easily. Menendez's figures are impossible to verify, but he was Blanton's supplier for many years. No one is in a better position to know. The DEA estimated Blanton imported between 18,000 and 27,0…
▶ 37:01
their own estimates dramatically. According to a 1996 LA Sheriff's report, the two brothers told police they heard that Blanton sold 10,000 kilos of cocaine mostly to South Central Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area during a two-yea…
▶ 37:30
Daniela Blanton was the biggest dealer in L.A. for about two years, the Torres brothers said. The U.S. officials were even more generous in their appraisal. Mr. Blanton is considered to be the largest Nicaraguan cocaine dealer in the United…
▶ 37:58
O'Neill had been monitoring the activities of Blanton and his associates since the 1980s. The other guy by the name of Jones, Charles Jones, he was a DEA case agent, said they had been watching Blanton since the 90s. Becoming the biggest de…
▶ 38:25
in the United States in less than four years is no small testament to Blanton's sales and marketing skills. Actually, it had more to do with the need and Ricky Ross than Blanton. After the arrest of his nephew, Herrero and Rinalto Pina, in …
▶ 39:26
Like Somoza, Blanton, and other wealthy Nicaraguans, Menendez had a home there since the Sandinista takeover. Menendez owned not one house, but several, and large ranches in northern Costa Rica near the war zone because the CIA was using th…
▶ 46:38
Norwin Menendez was performing for the DEA during those years in Costa Rica is hard to know because few records exist. When the Justice Department, IG, checked the files in 1997, he found vague and sometimes wildly misleading accusations Me…
▶ 1:00:31
Later events would suggest that Menendez and Roberto were investigating, in air quotes, drug trafficking, were not investigating drug trafficking at all. They were participating in it. And the best evidence is that the first drug ring Menen…
▶ 1:01:01
The DEA agent, Gonzalez, told the Justice Department that, quote, planned to use Menendez only to introduce other informants into Bland's organization, unquote, reportedly because he thought Menendez would be difficult to control. But now, …
▶ 1:24:59
like so many other things that we've found. Who told you that, by the way, going back to the beginning of this? Doomling said Oliver North. He said North instructed him not to dislodge or replace existing arrangements. They certainly were, …
▶ 26:25
They were also Daniello Blanton's associates. The Torres brothers were running all over L.A., picking up packages, dropping off packages, and making strange nighttime trips to South Central Los Angeles. Guzetta discovered one of them was on…
▶ 26:56
to get a search warrant for the addresses of the Torres brothers. On August 11, 1986, Guzeta and his federal friends raided them. They hit the jackpot. They found $400,000 in a closet of one of the houses. That was fair change. But Torreses…
▶ 33:51
Guzetta listened with his mouth open as the brothers rattled off names, dates, delivery sites, and routes of transportation. The two black dealers in South Central, they reported, are generating a conservative figure of $10 million a month.…
▶ 34:21
source. Two of the Colombians they knew only by nicknames. One they knew quite well, Daniel Blanton. The informants related that Daniel Blanton is extremely dangerous because of his access to information who's at a road and further as extre…
▶ 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…
▶ 53:27
reverting back to his exclusive relationship with Daniello Blanton. His price were so low, you just couldn't compete. Ross and Blanton had become very close friends. While the Majors crew worked Ross's organization from the bottom up, Major…
▶ 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…
▶ 56:41
just to claim ownership in case they get busted. But you can see the problem with that. If the DEA is entering the people that they want to protect in there, this is how they do it. Because anybody investigating them has to contact the DEA.…
▶ 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…
▶ 1:04:33
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…
▶ 1:05:04
Thomas Shretner was only too happy to help him. Shretner had his hands full with other investigations, he told Gordon, and his supervisors wouldn't let him spend any time on the Blanton case. All he could do for him was pass along a little …
▶ 1:18:25
And eventually, the Sandinistas were able to overthrow the Somoza government. Well, then what do you do with all of these elite corrupt people? Well, as it turns out, they just shuffled them off to Honduras or Guatemala or Costa Rica, which…
▶ 1:18:54
We went over the connections of Norwin Menendez to the Somoza family. I mean, basically, they were intermarrying. And the same thing with Danielle O'Blanton. These are the elite. And they just picked them up, thanks to the CIA, and they plo…
▶ 2:05
Shretner had debriefed a Nicaraguan informant who had known Blanton since meeting him in Miami in 1983, which, as you guys recall, is when he came over. The informant from Nicaragua. The informant admitted hauling cocaine and millions of do…
▶ 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…
▶ 4:32
Morella, who was allegedly laundering Blanton's money in Miami and serving as a front to buy property for Blanton. The informant told the DEA that Blanton's millions were being driven to Florida in motorhomes and taken to Fontainebleau apar…
▶ 5:03
Morella, now remember he was like the chief banker for Somoza, the CIA-installed and controlled dictator in Nicaragua before the Sandinistas arrived. Morella was identified as working at the government security bank in Coral Gables and acti…
▶ 5:29
those accusations, Blanton admitted under oath that Morella had hauled cash transfers to Panama for him and put his name on the deeds to the property that Blanton owned in the surrounding area. He said Morella didn't know he was handling dr…
▶ 5:58
So he did, in fact, know he was dealing in drug money. According to Shretner's informant, the Nicaraguan drug ring was made up of two separate organizations. The principal group is controlled by Blanton and is the focal point for the drug s…
▶ 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…
▶ 6:54
Among those named as members of Blanton's operation was Claudio Vallecaristio, a.k.a. Ivan Argelas, Rick Rasta's first major supplier. Another one of Blanton's employees, a cocaine distributor by the name of Ivan Torres, was listed as havin…
▶ 8:26
According to Auckland's official report of the encounter, the man said the ring was being ran by Blanton and Menendez, who imported the cocaine from Colombia through Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and was one of the largest distributors o…
▶ 8:54
who possibly lived in Tulsa area, regularly flew to South America to obtain the cocaine. Among the members of Blanton's organization were his wife, Chapita, Orlando Morella, the launderer, and Ronald Lister, the former cop turned CIA agent.…
▶ 9:23
with Blanton to deliver 100 kilos of cocaine to a major supplier of the L.A. Rock houses in exchange for almost $3 million. And these weren't your everyday run-of-the-mill drug dealers, the informant warned Auckland. They had connections. B…
▶ 9:52
A wing of the Contra movement headed by Calero and Blanton and Menendez used their drug profits to help fund the FDN, meaning the Contras. In January of 1985, Eden Pastora, another Contra leader, had met with Blanton in Miami in an effort t…
▶ 14:27
which they had no intentions of doing because that U.S. attorney is the one hiding Menendez. Convinced that his informant was reliable, Auckland went to his superiors in Riverside and to his supervisors in Los Angeles and pleaded for permis…
▶ 14:55
He couldn't work on something like this inside the FBI. He also wanted a PIN register put on Blanton's phones, and he'd need surveillance teams to set up stash locations that the informant had given him. Auckland got permission to start an …
▶ 20:01
It was a tough nut to crack, he said, but I was constantly emphasizing they had to work with the feds. Hoffman reluctantly agreed to bring the Department of Justice agents aboard, but had the L.A. officers known what was going on right then…
▶ 22:18
Quote, in order to understand why Owen and North were so concerned about Kelso, one must understand just what Kelso was doing and learning in Costa Rica, unquote. What Kelso was doing, the record showed, was investigating allegations that t…
▶ 2:55
distributing organization made up of over 100 people transporting and distributing cocaine for Daniello Blanton. And if you recall, the 100 people that were listed on here came from informants, primarily from the Torres brothers. Gordon lin…
▶ 3:25
Ivan Argelis, exposing the Contra drug pipeline into South Central. He wrote on the application, Blanton, quote, has up to 220 kilos of cocaine per week delivered through Argelis, who sells mainly to blacks living in South Central Los Angel…
▶ 3:58
which Blanton uses to distribute as much as 10 kilos of cocaine per week. And the detective didn't pull any punches when it came to the Contras. Quote, Daniela Blanton is from Nicaragua, a South, a Central American country, which has been a…
▶ 4:28
Number two, stated in your affiant that Blanton is a Contra sympathizer and founder of the FDN, an organization that assists the Contra movement with arms and money. The money and arms generated by this organization comes through the cell o…
▶ 4:55
Gordon listed more than a dozen locations across Southern California where Blanton and his cohorts were storing drugs and cash. He traced the money trail from Los Angeles across the country, writing that the, quote, monies gained from the s…
▶ 5:22
named Government Securities Corporation. From this bank, the monies are filtered to the Contra Rebels to buy arms for the war in Nicaragua. Gordon's sworn statement would prove to be a remarkably accurate portrait of the drug ring. A decade…