DEA intelligence service
also: the agency, DEA headquarters, the DEA, DEA officials, DEA agents, Narcs, federal agents
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
CIAintelligence service · 41United Statescountry · 23Colombiacountry · 22Bogotáplace · 22Daniel Blantonperson · 17Baroque Vegaperson · 14U.S. State Departmentorganization · 14Contrasorganization · 14Richard Hornperson · 13Burmacountry · 13Rudy Castilloperson · 12Costa Ricacountry · 12Frank Virgilperson · 10Thomas Kentperson · 10Roger Mayorgaperson · 10Celerino Castillo IIIperson · 9Sandinistasorganization · 9Sandalio Sandy Gonzalezperson · 8Brian Laytonperson · 7Arthur Brownperson · 7Hugo Spadaforaperson · 7David Tensleyperson · 7Venezuelacountry · 6U.S. Department of Justiceorganization · 6
Claims (38)
David Tensley member_of
DEA documented
“quote, I'm having my agents cut him out every chance I can. I don't want him documented. I don't want him in our case file any more than we have to, unquote. Again, this is still in the court papers. The trips to Panama at issue here were c…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 32:37
DEA removed_from_power
David Tensley documented
“the investigation into the operation went nowhere. The internal investigation led to agents Tensley and Castillo being suspended and later fired by the DEA. After a very long multi-year fight, they had to reinstate them in 2004. So they wer…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 7:17
DEA removed_from_power
Lawrence Castillo documented
“the investigation into the operation went nowhere. The internal investigation led to agents Tensley and Castillo being suspended and later fired by the DEA. After a very long multi-year fight, they had to reinstate them in 2004. So they wer…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 7:17
Lawrence Castillo member_of
DEA documented
“quote, I'm having my agents cut him out every chance I can. I don't want him documented. I don't want him in our case file any more than we have to, unquote. Again, this is still in the court papers. The trips to Panama at issue here were c…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 32:37
Ernesto Perez member_of
DEA documented
“Fired off his memo about the Vega extortion scheme, Gonzalez also was made a target of the ensuing criminal investigation launched by Tensley, Castillo, and Gonzalez's immediate subordinate, Special Agent in Charge Ernesto Perez. Gonzalez w…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 3:42
Celerino Castillo III member_of
DEA documented
“There was a DEA agent. His name is Celerino Castillo III. He got assigned to the Costa Rica area. And we talked a little bit about him already. And he starts snooping around. And it didn't take him, you know, more than a few months down the…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 14 @ 3:02
Sandalio Sandy Gonzalez member_of
DEA documented
“Fired off his memo about the Vega extortion scheme, Gonzalez also was made a target of the ensuing criminal investigation launched by Tensley, Castillo, and Gonzalez's immediate subordinate, Special Agent in Charge Ernesto Perez. Gonzalez w…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 3:42
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 covered_up
BCCI host_asserted
“And it was covered up by the DEA. It was covered up by the CIA. It was covered up by the FBI.…”
▶ Bank of Credit and Commerce Finale with War Hamster @ 6:04
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
CIA spied_on
DEA host_asserted
“Horn's attorney in his letter to Senator Shelby contends the CIA's net is much bigger than Burma and that they regularly spy on DEA agents everywhere. And we know that to be true because we've read it before. Quote, my client has learned th…”
▶ he Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 4 @ 13:11
Roger Sardino removed_from_power
DEA host_asserted
“a degree of influence from the CIA. That's what Tellez said. When DEA agent Jones drove out the next morning to collect Sandino from the hotel where they had him hold up, he found an empty room, just as he had done in Virginia five years ea…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 55:09
Robert Bonner member_of
DEA book_quoted
“To their surprise, a Venezuelan undercover agent said the CIA had approved the delivery. DEA Administrator Robert Bonner ordered an investigation and discovered the CIA had, in fact, shipped a load from its warehouse in Venezuela. The quote…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 5 @ 2:32
CIA trafficked
DEA host_asserted
“agents in order to protect themselves so they could say, yeah, we notified them. We just didn't tell everybody else that they were actually our protection. Because you remember the one book that we read, they were talking about the phone ri…”
▶ The Colonels corner president, secret wars chapter 14 continued @ 49:50
DEA trafficked
Lebanon book_quoted
“What he, the friend, fixed is his bag, a tape recorder. The family may or may not have known that Khalid was also taking a suitcase filled with heroin to the U.S. through a system that they had thought was safe, but which was actually part …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Medusa Files Part 15 @ 49:16
DEA spied_on
Charles McKee book_quoted
“That was going on simultaneously with the Iran-Contra affair. According to the Maltese double-cross, the DEA was watching McKee, separately telexing McKee's final travel arrangements to CIA director in Washington, MI6 director in the UK, an…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Medusa Files Part 15 @ 55:13
DEA removed_from_power
Rudy Castillo host_asserted
“back-channel cable to the State Department requesting an internal DEA review of Castillo's allegation. The DEA, he said, informed him that a lot of Castillo's information was inaccurate. What he's seeing with his own eyes, that's inaccurate…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 10:15
DEA covered_up
Rudy Castillo host_asserted
“by the DEA. He spent the next five years fending off accusations that he had gotten too close to Central American informants and accepted improper gifts, inappropriately handled firearms, and a number of other administrative failures. Casti…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 15 @ 18:45
Stephen Murray member_of
DEA book_quoted
“Two of the DEA agents involved in the hunt for Escobar as part of search block penned a book about their experiences. It was called Manhunters, How We Took Down Pablo Escobar. It was written by Stephen Murphy and Javier Pina. Their exploits…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 5 @ 3:59
Javier Pina member_of
DEA book_quoted
“Two of the DEA agents involved in the hunt for Escobar as part of search block penned a book about their experiences. It was called Manhunters, How We Took Down Pablo Escobar. It was written by Stephen Murphy and Javier Pina. Their exploits…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 5 @ 3:59
Charles McKee exposed
DEA book_quoted
“In a hostage rescue effort, he refused to go through with it. Instead, he took his team out of Beirut to Cyprus, where he and his comm man notified Washington that he would be returning to the States with his team, complete with all travel …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Medusa Files Part 15 @ 54:46
Michael Hurley headed
DEA book_quoted
“headed by Michael Hurley, the country's attache, meaning he's CIA. My main responsibility was to gather intelligence in Lebanon relating to opium production and trafficking and that sort of thing. The operation was simple. Paid DEA informan…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Medusa Files Part 15 @ 51:01
Thomas Kent exposed
DEA book_quoted
“included former government officials, even a few insiders in the DEA. Kent's memo contains some of the most serious allegations ever raised against U.S. quote-unquote anti-narco officers, that DEA agents on the front lines of the war in Col…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 5 @ 7:26
Orlando Sanchez Cristacho member_of
DEA documented
“Additionally, the return of Mr. Orlando Sanchez Cristacho to the U.S. was an extremely high visibility operation within DEA. Witness after witness testified that Mr. Cristacho was a major Colombian drug kingpin and that his surrender to the…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 30:01
DEA laundered_money_for
AUC book_quoted
“The AUC also committed over 100 massacres in 2001, a tactic it used to displace large portions of peasant populations to grow coca, unquote. Kent also said that during the wiretap, the corrupt Bogota DEA agent discusses his involvement in l…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 5 @ 14:44
Office of Professional Responsibility covered_up
DEA book_quoted
“Kent also says that the DEA's Office of Professional Responsibility and elements of the DOJ and IG have worked to keep a lid on the corruption charges. According to Kent, these offices, which are supposed to serve as watchdog agencies, inst…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 5 @ 9:54
Jody Abergin member_of
DEA book_quoted
“He was transferred to Nashville, according to his records. The chief that he reported to, whom Kent had addressed the memo to, was Jody Abergin. Only months later became the chief of staff of then DEA administrator Karen Tandy. So she was p…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 5 @ 28:58
Karen Tandy headed
DEA book_quoted
“He was transferred to Nashville, according to his records. The chief that he reported to, whom Kent had addressed the memo to, was Jody Abergin. Only months later became the chief of staff of then DEA administrator Karen Tandy. So she was p…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 5 @ 28:58
Borgonzoli spied_on
DEA guest_asserted
“At the same time, the information provided by the Sinaloa cartel to the U.S. agencies against their rivals assured a steady flow of drug busts for headlines in U.S. media. It was Bengon Zoli who initially told Vega that his DEA handlers wer…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 23:20
DEA carried_out_attack
1984 DEA-CIA Sting host_asserted
“of all remaining Sandinista supporters. In 1991, Menendez's operation, in all likelihood, was simply another version of the 1984 DEA-CIA sting involving trafficker Barry Seale, which the Reagan administration had used to accuse the Sandinis…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 22 @ 1:22:50
DEA covered_up
Drug Trafficking Operations host_asserted
“As I have said many, many times, the satellite capability of monitoring this is there. They just have to want to use it. And then you have to get the agencies like the DEA and ATF, which we know is dirty, to actually act on the information.…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Mafia, CIA, & George Bush Part 8 @ 1:14:13
CIA infiltrated
DEA host_asserted
“allow drug investigations to go a certain extent and then they are turned off because anything further than that would jeopardize the CIA's total control over the drug network. And the only bust the DEA is allowed to make are the ones this …”
▶ Colonel’s Corner-Book Review-Prelude to Terror Chap 22 @ 1:06:14
DEA member_of
Devil's Cartel guest_asserted
“corrupt national police officer as Colonel Danielo Gonzalez. That also included alleged alliance with the paramilitary forces ran by Carlos Castano under the AUC, which was working hand in hand with the CIA. The intelligence arm of the devi…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 15:06
DEA covered_up
Bogota Connection guest_asserted
“The Kent memo makes essentially the same allegation about corruption within the ranks of the US law enforcement that Vega is bringing forward. The DEA agents, including Tensley, who sought to expose the alleged corruption, were all accused …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 26:07
Baroque Vega member_of
DEA guest_asserted
“As a result, Vega contends that he had intimate knowledge of all of the corruption that was mentioned in the Kent memo. Vega told the author that between 1997 and 2000, the FBI and DEA each employed him as an informant in separate investiga…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 11:24
Danielo Gonzalez spied_on
DEA guest_asserted
“He claims Tensley wanted evidence of the leak. So Vega says that Borgonzoli, in 1999, arranged to purchase information from the U.S. Embassy. He was supposedly getting it on behalf of that Colonel Gonzalez. He says that Gonzalez was able to…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Great Pretense Part 6 @ 23:49
DEA recruited
Barry Seal book_quoted
“murdered drug smuggler, gun runner, DEA informant, and CIA asset used by the CIA on drug stings with the Sandinistas, flew resupply missions for the Contras, caught in 1972 in a guns for drugs operation with Cuban exiles in Mexico that incl…”
▶ Colonels Corner_ Mafia, CIA & GHWB Part 1 @ 37:23
Mentions (120)
▶ 6:04
And it was covered up by the DEA. It was covered up by the CIA. It was covered up by the FBI. It was covered up by the White House during all of the administrations in the 1970s, which would include Nixon. It would include Ford. It would in…
▶ 55:18
I mean, you can just see how that, and it goes all the way through the drug enforcement agency. They were all corrupt. Yep. Yep. And he ends up taking the fall, so he must have, let's see, today, Bokhtar sits in Petersburg, Virginia, Federa…
▶ 1:03:18
Let's see who we got here. Colonel, while you're waiting for other people to put their hand up, I wanted to point out a fun little connection. Okay. So part of this had to do with the DEA. And a fun little factoid, you know, we've talked a …
▶ 1:03:52
Back to the American continent, all the CIA people were re-interviewing for their jobs, and Burkholder Smith flew down to Argentina and found himself in a, well, shall we say a Bavarian village of ex-Nazis. What's interesting, people forget…
▶ 1:04:20
I guess chief of the DEA was a guy by the name of John Bartles Jr. who had to resign in disgrace under a lot of scrutiny. You can just even go to his wiki page and you have people like Charles Rangel talking about how corrupt the DEA was an…
▶ 1:05:47
had basically the very first day behind because the entire basement was filled with weapons. And they also used one of the rooms in the basement as a torture cell as part of Operation Condor. So the DEA, as I said, and as a matter of fact, …
▶ 1:06:14
allow drug investigations to go a certain extent and then they are turned off because anything further than that would jeopardize the CIA's total control over the drug network. And the only bust the DEA is allowed to make are the ones this …
▶ 1:06:43
BNDD. What was the thing before the DEA? Customs Ambrose. Yeah. I mean, they had infiltration from the CIA way before that. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to point out the coincidence of everything was going on in 1973. You know, you've got Shac…
▶ 1:07:10
You've got Nixon contemplating everything going on with Vietnam Watergate. And we create the DEA at the exact same time. I'm sure these are all just pure coincidence. And in 72 was the mass attack on the Corsican Mafia that moved all of the…
▶ 37:23
murdered drug smuggler, gun runner, DEA informant, and CIA asset used by the CIA on drug stings with the Sandinistas, flew resupply missions for the Contras, caught in 1972 in a guns for drugs operation with Cuban exiles in Mexico that incl…
▶ 3:28
I'm really excited about it, if you can't tell. Okay, part three is called Turf War. And it starts out in August of 2009 in Washington, D.C. in a federal court where it was revealed that State Department Special Agent Paul Forster, then suf…
▶ 4:25
It basically provided an overview of what Forster would say under oath at his deposition. It hinted at additional information damaging to the government. This is a quote from the pleadings. The Horn matter was jointly investigated by Superv…
▶ 4:56
Grebsky. Throughout the investigation, Mr. Forster had numerous conversations with DEA agent Horn, who at all times had a security clearance and was employed by the DEA. In order to learn more details and specifics from Horn and to field ne…
▶ 7:04
by his attorney. Then chapter nine starts going in. That's the overview. Former DEA agent Richard Horn fought the U.S. government in court for years trying to prove the CIA illegally spied on him as part of an effort to thwart his anti-narc…
▶ 8:08
after crucial evidence in the case was suppressed on the grounds of national security. Because the entire court record has been sealed by the judge, no one would have ever known that Horn's case was torpedoed if it was not for the fact of a…
▶ 8:40
opium poppy producing countries in the world, which of course we know because we've covered all of that because that's where the OSS initially moved Chiang Kai-shek to infect Burma. As the highest ranking in-country DEA representative in Bu…
▶ 9:13
From the start, Horn ran into problems, both with the CIA and the State Department. The State Department's charge de l'affaire is Franklin Huddle Jr., and the CIA station chief in Burma at the time was Arthur Brown. Horn's attorney, Layton,…
▶ 10:10
Horn wrote to Shelby saying that he had made inroads in gaining the assistance of this horrible government in helping to eradicate the poppy. So what he's saying is the State Department and the CIA are saying how bad the Burmese government …
▶ 10:38
While it's actually working with the DEA to eradicate opium. Just to be clear. Horn's success in getting rid of the opium had set a series in motion of overt and clandestine efforts on the part of Huddle and Brown to undermine him. Gosh, th…
▶ 12:12
The eavesdropping in the end failed to produce any dirt on Horn, but it did provide a clear violation of his rights. Sources within the DEA contend Horn's claims against the CIA are on target and were not unique. Some added that the DOJ wen…
▶ 13:11
Horn's attorney in his letter to Senator Shelby contends the CIA's net is much bigger than Burma and that they regularly spy on DEA agents everywhere. And we know that to be true because we've read it before. Quote, my client has learned th…
▶ 16:44
is as it appears on the surface. An examination of Horn's specific charges against Huddle and Brown offers insight. Horn's attorney claims Huddle and Brown used the resources of the State Department and the CIA to sabotage a DEA plan to gai…
▶ 17:08
Layton also claims that Huddle undermined Horn's efforts to provide Burma's prosecutors and police with U.S. assistance to implement its drug laws. Why? Well, we know why. In contrast, Layton pointed out in his letter to Senator Shelby, Mr.…
▶ 17:40
Gosh, where have we seen that before? Like literally everywhere. Horne also said that according to the allegation outlined in Judge Lambert's ruling, the CIA station chief, Brown compromised a DEA informant. Brown turned over a copy of a DE…
▶ 18:11
burned a source. Layton, in his 1997 letter to Senator Shelby, describes this event, quote, DEA's well-placed contact from the largest opium producing area in Burma provided DEA with a proposal to withdraw from opium production. The documen…
▶ 18:39
Brown chose to deliver a signed copy of this document, which he serendipitously obtained without Horn's permission or knowledge, to a ranking figure in the central government, knowing full well it jeopardized his life. It held the overall p…
▶ 25:55
That always seems to get left out of the conversation. Former spy and FBI agent Locke Lau says that the Horn case is a perfect illustration of how there is no coordination between the intelligence community and DEA. Well, there is if you ha…
▶ 26:55
Like Horn, certain pleadings in Lau's employment discrimination case were later stricken and placed under seal. Lau went on to say that the U.S. government was really serious about, if they were really serious about eradicating the drug tra…
▶ 27:27
not to mention the funding for the CIA's covert actions. The CIA can use the proceeds of the drug trade to pay for armies around the world, which we know in fact they do. Lau also says a lot of careers in the intelligence community has been…
▶ 28:29
It doesn't take a lot to conclude that the intelligence community has a lot of motivation to keep the Horn case under wraps because the DEA agent actually wanted to do his job and take down the narco network in Burma. So he was expelled fro…
▶ 31:03
Trump card, in the Horn case, the state secret's privilege has been used to immunize people and agencies from wrongdoing, which is a far cry from what the U.S. Constitution intended. Unquote. The U.S. Constitution didn't intend for us to ha…
▶ 1:22:20
He operated with the protection of the CIA from the day the CIA was set up because he was running part of their covert drug network. And that's the reason why you're never allowed to go a certain level above in busting drug networks because…
▶ 1:28:29
I am reading a statement by the Hillsborough County Sheriff to have been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration is the honor of a lifetime. Over the past several days, as t…
▶ 4:03
He had no information to substantiate this alleged threat, they told him. Ainsworth never heard from them again. This, my friends, is what implicates all of these people. So the DEA on Friday was brushing off their own DEA agent who was on …
▶ 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 …
▶ 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…
▶ 20:55
Almost like they're doing that on purpose. You know, like we've discovered how the CIA brings all these people over here and gives them green cards after they've been their political hitmen and drug traffickers. Yeah, just like that. Not th…
▶ 21:26
later that same year, that her asylum was granted. Immigration experts agree that normally, even the slightest hint of drug involvement by an alien results not just in not getting a green card, but them being deported. I've had clients, thi…
▶ 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…
▶ 7:41
moved to Costa Rica to take up arms with Pastora once again, this time against his old Marxist comrades. The Reagan administration's Contra PR machine couldn't have dreamed up a better freedom fighter than Spadafora. The DEA called him repo…
▶ 14:19
to unmask Noriega, and he was successful in obtaining truth that would imperil Noriega. That, in large part, was due to Carlton, who had later astonished DEA officials with his photographic recall of Noriega's drug deals. Carlton eventually…
▶ 15:09
When he was finished, Carlton said, Spadafora announced, I am going to have a bomb explode in Panama. I am going to set it off with all the information that I have. Spadafora hurried back to Costa Rica and began sharing his discoveries with…
▶ 15:38
And San Jose was quickly relayed back to the CIA headquarters in Langley, which was informed that Hugo Spadafora had made quote-unquote vague allegations to DEA that Gonzalez, Manuel Noriega, and other Contra leaders were engaged in drug tr…
▶ 18:01
He strenuously denied any involvement in the death, but Spadafora's family remains convinced Gonzalez played a major role. I mean, he's on tape planning it. Though Noriega apparently felt the information Spadafora possessed was important en…
▶ 18:32
and said that he did nothing with the information the doctor risked his life to bring him. Since Noriega's drug dealing was the official reason the United States invaded Panama four years later, Neves' perverse inaction is astonishing, but …
▶ 19:02
where he tried telling them about Noriega's drug dealing in January of 1986. I did actually make contact with intelligence agencies in the United States Embassy in Panama, Carlton said. And I asked, have you heard my name? And they said, ye…
▶ 19:32
And the fact is that I believe that I can go before the American judicial system and speak about a lot of things that are happening in this country, and I can even prove them. So they ask, such as what? So I told them money laundering, drug…
▶ 19:59
did not try to contact me again. And the only thing that I asked was for protection for myself and my family. And at that time, I had no problems with the American justice system, unquote. Judging from the DEA's response to a freedom of inf…
▶ 3:02
There was a DEA agent. His name is Celerino Castillo III. He got assigned to the Costa Rica area. And we talked a little bit about him already. And he starts snooping around. And it didn't take him, you know, more than a few months down the…
▶ 4:35
So it says it didn't take him very long to discover what was going on at the airbase. Two days into his new job as the DEA's regional office in Guatemala City in October 1985, Castillo said the agent in charge, Robert Stia, took him aside a…
▶ 5:04
should be careful not to interfere with it. It struck him, a former Texas policeman, as very odd advice. Why would a DEA agent need to be warned about interfering with a legitimate government operation? Castillo was there to fight drug deal…
▶ 5:32
Whatever they were doing at the military airfield outside of San Salvador couldn't possibly concern him. At any rate, it wasn't as if he was going to be spending a lot of time in El Salvador, though he was the country's only DEA agent. Cast…
▶ 6:05
Besides, El Salvador in the late 1985s had all of the makings of a very sorry posting. The war-torn country produced no drugs, and as far as anyone knew, there was no major drug rings operating inside. It was as little concern to an America…
▶ 6:34
that they hadn't even bothered to open an office there because there supposedly was no drugs there. Flipping through the reports of his predecessors, Castillo could see that the DEA's role in the country had been very limited to just intell…
▶ 7:32
Castillo put his boss warning about Ilopango down to bureaucratic caution and went about his job, which was to train and recruit Guatemalan and Salvadorian policemen to become soldiers in America's worldwide war on drugs. Since the DEA coul…
▶ 8:03
squads that the DEA could trust enough to work with and allow them to make the arrest and also to provide them intelligence from other countries. But no matter where he went, it seemed like the air base kept getting mentioned by all of the …
▶ 9:37
The Contras were also dealing in cocaine, he told Castillo. He said they were using a small air force to do it that was based at Ilopango, and they were ferrying war materials for the cause. He justified the trafficking by blaming the U.S. …
▶ 22:57
for unreported association with gangster elements, thefts from the CIA, plus other items. Posada was sent to Venezuela and began working as an official at the Venezuelan intelligence services. He's still working for the CIA, by the way. In …
▶ 23:26
from Posada was in contact with two Cubans in Miami who were smuggling narcotics into the U.S. Luis Posada for him. According to the informant, Posada was to be the main contact to a major cocaine smuggling operation involving members of th…
▶ 23:56
Keep in mind, the guy's working for the CIA in Venezuela and implicating the Venezuela government. Not that that would ever happen. The DEA placed Posada under surveillance and he was observed by agents in Miami to meet with numerous identi…
▶ 26:33
for a Dominican military official, which the agency refused to do on grounds that it cannot permit controlled agents to become directly involved in illicit drug trafficking. In other words, you can facilitate it, you just can't be an agent …
▶ 29:07
Though allegations of contra drug trafficking was swirling around the El Salvador base, DEA agent Castillo was having difficulty getting firsthand evidence of it. For one thing, the air base was very protective. It sat high atop a plateau s…
▶ 32:29
And on other occasions, they came in on military aircraft from Panama. When Castillo typed the names of the Contra pilots Murga was giving to him into the DEA computers, nearly all of them came back as documented narcotic traffickers. Among…
▶ 35:30
When the agents announced that they were arresting the men for smuggling the cash out of the country, Garola claimed diplomatic immunity because his mother was a Costa Rican vice consul in New Mexico. In court records, federal agents charge…
▶ 1:10
Crazy, crazy. It's crazy town. OK, so we're going to pick up where we left off with four DEA officials testifying before a committee that they had felt pressure from North and the CIA to leak the news of Vaughn's involvement with drugs to t…
▶ 1:40
That's interesting. They also said North wanted to take $1.5 million in drug profits from Barry Still that he had gotten from the Medellin cartel and give it to the Contras. When the DEA refused to do that, the DEA officials, not the DEA in…
▶ 3:44
And by prematurely exposing the sting, it blew up the DEA's investigation of the Medellin cartel, which DEA agents said had been their most promising chance to break up the Colombian drug trafficking. The drug lords went free. Vaughn, their…
▶ 6:47
outside his purview. And he also stated that he knew Senator John Kerry's Senate subcommittee was investigating it. But it appears that Walsh's office never passed the Rudd memo to John Kerry. Castillo's investigation, that's the good DEA g…
▶ 10:15
back-channel cable to the State Department requesting an internal DEA review of Castillo's allegation. The DEA, he said, informed him that a lot of Castillo's information was inaccurate. What he's seeing with his own eyes, that's inaccurate…
▶ 11:14
He's saying things he's seeing with his own eyes. They're telling him he's not seeing what he's seeing with his own eyes. Just what was false about the allegation Castillo was investigating was not clear. Indeed, his information had been co…
▶ 11:46
was less a request for him to investigate it than it was a cover for the DEA office in Costa Rica in case there was ever an investigation. So they can say they said it, they just didn't want him to actually investigate it. Since Castillo ha…
▶ 12:14
BEF, the top DEA official in the country where the drug flights were originating. If, as Menendez's aide Miranda claims, the Ilopango operation was part of Menendez's drug pipeline into the United States, Castillo's probe might have raised …
▶ 16:16
was helpful and had been informant for the CIA. And soon after he put Castillo on Grasham's trail, fingering him as the head of smuggling operations, the CIA basically took over the entire thing. Castillo's boss, Robert Stia, S-T-I-A, said,…
▶ 16:48
He was asked by the CIA station chief in El Salvador to relinquish use of several different informants. The station chief had explained that the CIA had established an informant network before the new Castillo DEA had showed up and wanted t…
▶ 17:16
Though Castillo's 1986 investigation was killed, he picked up word three years later that hangar number five at Ilopango was once again being used for drug trafficking, this time by members of the Salvadoran Air Force. He opened up another …
▶ 18:14
when Castillo asked how he was supposed to investigate drug trafficking allegations if he couldn't go anywhere near it. A CIA officer told Castillo that it was not necessary because the CIA had taken over the case. The CIA station chief ass…
▶ 18:45
by the DEA. He spent the next five years fending off accusations that he had gotten too close to Central American informants and accepted improper gifts, inappropriately handled firearms, and a number of other administrative failures. Casti…
▶ 19:14
In his 1994 memoirs, he blamed the fallout because of his investigation at Ilo Pango. The DEA declined to respond to any of the accusations he made, and in its response to Afoya, it claimed it had no reports from Castillo about drug traffic…
▶ 19:44
And what was said about Castillo and the air base over the years, it was a lie. The Justice Department IG had no trouble locating the agent's reports and quoting from them liberally. The squashing of Castillo's investigation ended any offic…
▶ 23:30
said the bag was bound for Cincinnati. A call was placed to the Cincinnati DEA's office. They asked for advice. The DEA office said that they'd stake out the bus and see who shows up for the suitcase. A few days later, one of Ross's employe…
▶ 24:26
and he'd have the best lawyers. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut. The mere fact that a Crip had been caught in Cincinnati with cocaine, quote, led the FBI and DEA field office in Cincinnati to investigate allegations that the Crips …
▶ 26:53
A lot of people stopped calling after that, Ross said. As Ross had feared, Alfonso Jeffries had broken. He told the police about Ross's trip to New York City and California to pick up cocaine. They brought 20 kilos back from New York the fi…
▶ 32:15
Again, a reminder that the source of all of this is the CIA in collaboration with the FBI and DEA. But let's go after the guys selling it and we'll lock them away forever. And keep in mind, Texas is still waiting for their turn. Ross sat aw…
▶ 43:13
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, …
▶ 43:46
He was a drug dealer who had been indicted in Nebraska in the early 80s for cocaine trafficking and had fled to Mexico. The Mexicans had booted him out and turned him over to the FBI, who, between the FBI and the DEA, had turned him into an…
▶ 44:13
apparently due to a long-standing friendship with Armani's ex-wife. In March of 1990, a week after the Sandinistas were voted out of office, Arman called the San Diego DEA agent Charles Jones and told him that Blanton is preparing to move b…
▶ 45:15
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…
▶ 46:42
and then having it seized off the coast of Hawaii. Armin dropped Blanton off at the Nicaraguan Hilltop Home in San Diego. They had made plans to meet for dinner later that evening. Shortly before 7.30 p.m. on July 21, 1990, Armin arrived at…
▶ 47:11
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…
▶ 50:06
Blanton also mentioned that he was due to receive a million-dollar settlement from the U.S. government for some unspecified claim. Armand steered the conversation to Roger Sardino, the Menendez associate wanted by the DEA in conjunction wit…
▶ 51:26
For the next two years, the San Diego DEA would keep close eye on Blanton, recording his phone calls, tracking his movements, videotaping his meetings with informants, and negotiations to buy cocaine. They would hear him confess to many cri…
▶ 51:55
The DEA did nothing. Blanton stated that one of the groups that he supplied cocaine to was a black gang member in Los Angeles that didn't care about the quality of cocaine because they were going to convert it to crack anyway. That was repo…
▶ 52:23
A kilo of beautiful white flake meant nothing to these crack dealers. They don't care. The investigation of Blanton crept along at a snail's pace until July 1991, when Texas DEA agents finally nailed longtime fugitive Roger Sedino, who had …
▶ 53:49
explained the circumstances behind his recent legal troubles in Oklahoma City. Sardino hurriedly made up a story about getting busted after an auto accident of no consequence. He insisted that everything was fine and encouraged Blanton to c…
▶ 54:19
Defeat that Blanton had once again beaten the Narcs at their own game. The investigation, a DEA report stated, had been compromised. But again, they already have all the evidence they need. They're just not doing anything with it. At first,…
▶ 54:40
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. …
▶ 55:09
a degree of influence from the CIA. That's what Tellez said. When DEA agent Jones drove out the next morning to collect Sandino from the hotel where they had him hold up, he found an empty room, just as he had done in Virginia five years ea…
▶ 55:39
He had fled to Nicaragua as a result of working with the DEA. The DEA refused to explain why it left unattended a federal fugitive who had just been captured after being on the run for five years. It was later said that he had a big wedding…
▶ 59:32
who we read about at the beginning of the story. In Vega's apartment, police found $350,000 in cash, a miraculous amount for a man who claimed to be a warehouse worker. Then the LAPD got a call from the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego a…
▶ 59:59
When the trafficker appeared for his arraignment, he was released without bail and charges were subsequently dropped. Once again, he walked out from an uncertain conviction. The federal prosecutors who made the decision said he intervened t…
▶ 1:00:27
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 …
▶ 1:03:21
and the Mexican police told him about their arrest, which they said resulted from a DEA tip. Mayorga might want to look into it, they suggested, because he could have a drug ring operating in Managua. When Mayorga learned who owned the van …
▶ 1:06:44
of Norwin Menendez. The Chamorro government had recently returned it to Norwin Menendez. That's crazy. Mayorga surmised that Miranda was working for Menendez and Frank Virgil and that he suspected they were plotting to use the fishing compa…
▶ 1:07:15
One September evening, Mrs. Menendez drove to a restaurant near her house called the Lobster Inn. A few minutes later, DEA agent Federico Varela arrived. Hot on the heels was Norwin Menendez. To the shock of the Nicaraguan police, Varel was…
▶ 1:07:44
When his men excitedly returned from their stakeout with the news, Mayorga was dumbfounded. Viril was a senior agent with the USDA agent in Costa Rica. They had just met with Mayorga to discuss the idea of the DEA starting a formal cooperat…
▶ 1:08:14
The DEA agents there had been running the whole cocaine trafficking, covering it all up, putting people under, you know, cooperation informant thing so they couldn't be arrested in the U.S. They're running, on behalf of the Colombian govern…
▶ 1:09:47
and were trying to infiltrate the Nicaraguan National Police. Mayorga went to see his boss, Nicaraguan National Police Commander Rene Vivas, who shared his concerns. Checking with sources in Costa Rica, they learned that Menendez and Villar…
▶ 1:14:24
I thought he was just trying to impress me, but he insisted it was true. And I said I would find out myself. That the evening of the raids, Mayorga called the Costa Rican DEA office to inform Villarreal of the arrest. But since it was Sunda…
▶ 1:14:55
He wants more information. I asked him what his special interest was in the case. After getting some evasive answers, Mayorga said he provided Villarreal with the basic facts and waited for the American to tell him about Menendez's relation…
▶ 1:15:21
When we arrested him and inside was the phone numbers to Ronald Lard, the DEA country attache in Costa Rica. I challenged Villarreal to explain this. He couldn't. When Mayorga told the DEA agent that his men had seen him during the Menendez…
▶ 1:15:49
Managua drug traffickers who were in the process of bringing 725 kilos of cocaine into his country. And why hadn't the Nicaraguan police been informed? Villarreal simply lied, denying that he had met with the drug kingpin, even though there…
▶ 1:16:17
Villarreal had met with Menendez two or three times in Managua, not just once. Yet Villarreal claims he can't remember any of those discussions. In the end, Villarreal placated Mayorga by providing him with some intelligence reports of Mene…
▶ 1:16:47
The cocaine Hernandez was taking north was not Norwin's, he said. It was Frank Vigil's. He theorized that Menendez ratted out the shipment to calm the DEA's concern that he was dealing on the side. Villarreal made, so he set her up, in othe…
▶ 1:17:18
He made me understand that Menendez had been playing both sides, which may or may not be true, but it's crazy. So I want to make sure I didn't skip over this part too much. Menendez is telling the chief of narcotics in Nicaragua that the DE…
▶ 1:17:47
They're not in bed with the new non-Sandinista government. That the DEA was going to use Menendez to set those guys up that were from the former Sandinista regime to get them out of office. That's why Menendez was being so smug about it. He…
▶ 1:19:06
Miranda repaid it in kind. He started talking. He used Norwin's cooperation with the DEA to get Miranda to cooperate with us. Combining the information provided by Miranda, Valerio, and Menendez, the Nicaraguan police pieced together a pict…