The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 10

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Transcript

0:00 We're going to go ahead and get started. I don't see Bridget here yet, but I will keep my eye out for her. It's hunting season, so she's in and out. So I want to start off today by asking everybody here, and I will say it again when we conclude, to please keep Dwayne Cates in your prayers. He's having a couple of health issues right now.

0:34 I would really appreciate that. And we're going to go ahead and get started where we left off on Friday. So we were talking about Dennis Ainsworth, who was a contact in San Francisco. And the organization that we talked about on Friday out in San Francisco that was made up of all of the.

1:05 Contra supporters, goes by the initials USACA, had a president that we talked about named Don Sineco. And he said that he had never expected Menendez was involved in any criminal activities. But he did confirm that Dennis Ainsworth had began muttering about it. A quote.

1:35 What always bothered me about Dennis is that towards the end, I don't know what, he seemed to get disillusioned or disgusted with Calero. Dennis got disillusioned about something Sonequa was heard saying. So, of course, we covered that on Friday. He began to realize that he was involved in the...

2:00 the organization supporting all of the Nicaraguans were involved in drug trafficking. There she is. Bring her up here. All right. So Ainsworth disillusionment caused him to quit working with the Contras and seek out the FBI. In early 1987, records show during his first meeting with FBI agents,

2:33 Ainsworth warned them that the FDN, quote, has become more involved in selling arms and cocaine for personal gain than in a military effort to overthrow the current Nicaraguan Sandinista government, unquote. He told the agents about Menendez and Renato Pina. He also told them about Tom Dowling, D-O-W-L-I-N-G, in Oliver North.

3:05 and about North's illegal Contra support network in the U.S. and Central America. Much of the information that Ainsworth gave the FBI and later Lawrence Walsh, who, for those of you who don't know, was the quote-unquote special prosecutor, didn't do a whole lot, but Ainsworth told him.

3:32 about the inner workings of the FDN and the relationships between Contra leaders and the U.S. government officials and that they were cooperating during congressional Iran-Contra investigations. In other words, tampering with witnesses. Ainsworth was also getting death threats. He told the FBI, but the FBI basically shrugged it off. Quote,

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 the ground watching the drug trafficking and weapons trafficking. Nothing was done. Ainsworth goes to the FBI and it goes into a dead file.

4:39 This is a quote. I mean, here I am a citizen. I complained to the FBI and they tell me they have no interest in the case. Then I call Walsh's people and they sent a couple of FBI guys out to talk to me and they had no interest in it. I couldn't find anyone who was interested in this. And I made a legitimate effort. And people were like, Dan, leave it alone. Just leave it alone, he remembered.

5:08 I thought I was part of the establishment, and all of a sudden, I was a leper. Ainsworth fled California to the East Coast, where he went into hiding. Meanwhile, the narcotics investigation had begun with the arrest of Renaldo Pena and Herrera Menendez, the nephew. It seemed to fall into a black hole as well.

5:38 The case federal prosecutors had assembled against the drug kingpin's nephew was a slam dunk. They'd found cocaine in his apartment. His co-defendant had cut a deal and prepared to testify for the government. If convicted of the charges against him, one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and six counts of possession with intent to distribute, Herrera Menendez would spend the next 15 years in federal penitentiary.

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 dealings with both Blanton and the FDN commander Enrique Bermudez. But his admission...

6:37 in court was limited to bookkeeping work he had done for Norwin in San Francisco. He never breathed a word in public about the Contras. Were these men telling the truth? If one looks at the outcome of their criminal cases, the inescapable conclusion is that they were. Inventing stories about Contra drug trafficking was not usual way of admitting.

7:07 dope dealers to ingratiate themselves with Ed Meese and his hypersensitive Justice Department. But despite being caught red-handed with pounds of cocaine, they were neither sent to jail nor deported. They got probation and a work furlough job and kept their mouths shut, which suggests the Justice Department found them entirely too believable.

7:36 In an interview with a Costa Rican paper in 1986, Menendez scoffed at his nephew's testimony. He said that his nephew had made it up. Norwin declared, because he refused to bail the boy out after he had gotten arrested, and this is a quote, if Herrero supposedly was my accountant, like he says,

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, her boyfriend. He didn't bother to mention that in the interview, though. Besides, Norwin answered, I remained in San Francisco. I never.

8:34 hid anywhere. There's never been a warrant out for my arrest. I have not changed passports. That I directed a drug trafficking organization is totally false, unquote. But of course he did, and he didn't have to worry about getting arrested, and he could hide in plain sight because he was protected. It would have been a relatively easy matter to have convicted the drug lord on any number of trafficking and conspiracy charges.

9:07 Many dopers have gone to jail on much less evidence. At a minimum, the government could have deported him as an undesirable alien and banned him from ever coming back in the United States. He was, after all, living in the United States as a guest of the government. But that didn't happen either. Nothing happened, nor when Menendez continued living as a free man, crisscrossing the U.S. border with impunity.

9:33 Dealing cocaine, sending supplies to Contras, and his relationship with the U.S. government had never been closer. The potential exposure of Norwin Menendez couldn't have come at a more inopportune time for the Contras and the CIA. During the winter of 1984 to 85, the Contra forces were at their lowest point, both on the battlefield and in the battle for U.S. public opinion.

10:03 For 12 months, the Contras had staggered from one public relations disaster to another. There had been a major uproar in Congress in the spring of 84 when it was revealed that the CIA was running the Contra project and had seeded Nicaraguan's harbor with hundreds of small mines, which proceeded to blow up merchant ships from all over the world, including those.

10:34 from friendly nations. Shortly after that, a bomb went off at an ARDE commander's jungle headquarters, Eden Pastora. During a press conference, wounding Pastora, killing and injuring a number of his ARDE militants and journalists. This threw the Contra armies into turmoil. Later in the year,

11:07 In the midst of Reagan's reelection campaign, an illustrated terrorism manual the CIA printed up for the boys in the field ended up in the newspaper, creating yet another public outcry and more congressional thumping. The hardest blow came in October of 1984 with the administration off balance and desperately hoping to avoid.

11:38 any CIA contra controversies before the election. The Democrat-controlled Congress succeeded in passing yet another Boland Amendment. Unlike the earlier one, though, this one had teeth. It prohibited the CIA, the Department of Defense, and every other agency in the U.S. government from giving any money or aid to anyone in support of the Contras. The money spigot had officially been turned off.

12:08 The CIA and Defense Department began withdrawing their trainers, advisors, administrators, technicians, logisticians from Central America. And by the end of the year, the Contras were alone and desperate. Thousands of rebel fighters began retreating from Nicaragua for the safety of Honduras. Money became scarce. Weapons and ammo was even in shorter supply. By early 1985,

12:39 As the Contras spent their last batch of CIA money, allegations of Contra battlefield atrocities began to surface, spotlighting murders, tortures, assassinations, and the deliberate use of terror by some of the Contra commanders, putting the lie to Reagan's characterization of them as freedom fighters to the test.

13:07 Even the FDN's normally optimistic handlers in Washington began to despair. Reagan's National Security Advisor, Robert McFarlane, told the FDN leader, Aldolfo Calero, in January 1985, that maybe it was time to start thinking about cutting both our losses and theirs. The administration's prestige was riding on the Contras.

13:36 Reagan had gone so far during a speech as to compare them to the founding fathers of the American Revolution. They're terrorists. The FDN's only ray of hope was to withdraw from battle and lay low until spring, when Congress agreed to let the administration come back and justify some more money. Had Norwin Menendez hopped up then with a federal cocaine indictment around his neck?

14:07 After all the meetings that he had been in with FDN Director Adolfo Calero, Enrique Bermudez, Edgar Chamorro, and Frank Arena, the resultant scandal would likely have wiped out what little Contra support was left in Washington. It would have also implicated the CIA, which was reeling from the exposure over the harbor mining.

14:38 and the assassination manual. Even if nothing could have been proven conclusively about the CIA's involvement in a drug ring and weapons trafficking, the agency was supposed to be the nation's premier intelligence gathering apparatus, and its responsibilities specifically included monitoring the narcotic drug trade. A plea of ignorance about dope dealing by its own paramilitary forces

15:08 would have looked as proof of complicity. And that was assuming Menendez kept his mouth shut. If he stated names, dates, places, the scandal could have spread to the CIA itself, as it would 11 years later. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Edric Swanson

15:34 who was familiar with the investigation into Menendez and the drug lord's activities with the Contras, said that they were very well known inside the Justice Department because he had personally reported on it. And justice wasn't the only agency that knew about it. The CIA knows about this guy, Swenson would say in an interview. I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do.

16:02 The CIA knows a lot of these crooks. I mean, the CIA knows. As it turned out, Swenson was right. A 1998 CIA inspector general report confirmed that as early as 1984, the agency had information tying Menendez to a drug and arms network in Costa Rica in partnership with all of the people that they had been funding.

16:29 specifically a guy by the name of Sebastian Gonzalez. Against that backdrop, and given the cozy relationship that existed between the CIA and San Francisco's U.S. attorney, Joseph Rosonello, it is hardly surprising that Norwin Menendez was not charged with drug trafficking in the spring of 1985.

16:55 even though one of his top lieutenants had pleaded guilty to cocaine charges and publicly implicated him as a major trafficker. Allowing Menendez to take the witness stand was out of the question. The drug lord knew simply too much. The FDN's long involvement with drug purchasing and Menendez

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 providing South Central's crack dealers with assault rifles, submachine guns, and sophisticated

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 of the U.S. government. The State Department, after two earlier rejections, had suddenly changed their mind.

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 cocaine into Los Angeles. And he had applied two times before that and been turned down.

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 State Department policy to check with DEA before approving an application for political asylum. Records show that the drug agency had opened

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 Blanton's dope dealing stretched back even further. Quote,

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 an informant that Blanton was the head of his own cocaine distribution organization in Los Angeles.

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. Then the State Department gave her political asylum.

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 that it's a pattern or anything. In early 1985, she was reported to the DEA as a member of a cocaine distribution organization. And on 1985, the agency dutifully opened a file on her.

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, this is a quote, I've had clients deported because anonymous sources, people who were never even identified, allegedly told the DEA that they were involved in drugs.

21:58 That came from an immigration lawyer. One of my clients, he said, was a college professor from Thailand. He was denied entry because he had been arrested smoking marijuana when he was a teenager. When it comes to drugs, it's almost an automatic no, unless you're a dealer for the CIA. Why those same standards didn't apply to Blanton and his wife, Gary Webb says he didn't know.

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 fast, he didn't have time to turn it into crack anymore. He would just take Blanton's kilos, put a hit on them, and pass them along.

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 having to make deliveries.

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 money down and they would be paid later. I spoke with the Colombians and I told them, hey, let's go and give some credit to this guy because he pays.

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 had moved from Northridge to a ritzy suburb in San Bernardino, California.

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, who basically bought the house in his name so that no one could trace it to Blanton.

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 to a multi-million dollar a week operation, employing hundreds of people. They were all in drugs, but whatever.

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 anymore. So Blanton had practiced his drug trafficking very well.

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 Guadalajara is a drug trafficking port.

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 lifestyle. The used car lot, a favorite ploy among Nicaraguan traffickers, was especially handy.

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 discovered. Whoa, my gosh, we didn't check the trunk. That must have belonged to the last guy. Cars that sold for $2,000 were declared as being sold for $4,000.

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 run, Ricky Ross certainly couldn't expect him to hop in his Mercedes and go to South Central. Ross didn't mind his trips to Rialto, but...

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 relaxed. He didn't want to leave the house. Blanton was getting drunk frequently and using cocaine now.

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, that disparaging nickname turned up in an alias in Blanton's DEA file. It all made...

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 distribution system with a constant supply was running smoothly. He'd never had any troubles with the cops.

29:39 Nearly every big crack dealer in town was getting cocaine from him. There was no limit to the average cocaine dealer's greed. You could buy your way into anything or even out of it if you had a disagreement with another guy. Money talked. Ross was gnawed by a fear that his cocaine empire would vanish if something happened.

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 disappeared, his business would disappear. Even if you had the money, you couldn't get to it. Ross had no shortage of offers.

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 no costly or security risks to the men who were handling it or to have it in a warehouse to parcel it out. They would take as much as you could bring in in a day.

31:11 Ross had other players who came around, usually offering him deals, but no one could meet Blanton's prices. A new supplier could turn out to be a fly-by-night or a snitch. Daniello, on the other hand, was his friend, his protector. Ricky Ross trusted him. Daniello had guided him, advised him, and kept him out of trouble.

31:45 was like back in LA. This is Ross talking. He would always tell me when they were going to raid my houses. The police always thought I had somebody working for the police. And he was always giving me tips like, man, don't go back over to that house no more. Don't go to this house over here. The cops inevitably would raid it. In other words, Daniello had people on the inside. Ross realizing

32:15 that he owed much of his success to Danilo, felt almost superstitious about tampering with a winning formula. I can't say I never would have found out about it, but before I met him, the chances of me being a big dope dealer were slim to none. One of the offers Ricky had gotten came from the Torres brothers, the big twins.

32:49 He'd met them through Blanton. Blanton's assistants eventually had, they had like a party and they had met and they had slipped Ross the phone number of the Torres brothers in case he needed anything. On one particularly busy day, he had called the brothers and said he was willing to talk some business.

33:22 and discuss prices. Once the Torres brothers started selling to him, Ross used them to whipshaw Blanton on his prices, pointing out that his other supplier was offering him a much better price. Blanton acknowledged that Ross began getting cocaine from other suppliers. I think Blanton knew who they were as well. He got the coke from me and then he was getting

33:53 Coke from the Torres's. I got a piece of the apple. He confirmed that Ross started driving his kilo prices down even further. But the new relationship had a bit of a rocky start. Jacinto Torres quickly got into trouble with the police. He and his wife, Margarita, had a fight. He moved out, renting a room from his friend.

34:25 in a four-bedroom house in Burbank. On April 6, 1984, shortly before 9 p.m., a team of Burbank narcotic cops showed up on an anonymous tip and came crashing in through the kitchen door. They found a number of Nicaraguan women sitting around the kitchen table. In his dresser, the police found half an ounce of cocaine,

34:57 a .38 caliber pistol, and $3,700 in cash. He and Andreas were thrown into the back of a patrol car and taken to jail. In Spanish, Adrian cursed their predicament, unaware that everything that they were saying was being taped in the police car. Torres was heard saying, stupid.

35:29 My money, my ledger, my clients, all the names. They're going to find a house. I have got rented. And when they get there, they'll find the whores. I don't think, I don't want to think about it. He turned to Andreas and said, Rick is the one who fingered us. Meaning Ricky Ross. No, I've known him for a long time. Torres said they came looking for him. Don't say nothing.

36:00 Andrea said, it's nothing. It's just a half an ounce, almost nothing. They can't do nothing. I don't know if they found the house. I don't believe they did. Court records show that police later searched a house in Northridge they thought belonged to Torres, an address that shows up in Blanton's DEA file as being one of his residents, but no drugs were found.

36:26 During the preliminary hearing, one of the arresting officers was asked about the search he conducted at Torres' house and his Mercedes Benz. Did you find any contraband in the Mercedes, Torres' attorney asked. No contraband. Just some property of the United States Customs. No contraband. The judge said, wait a minute. And immediately.

36:56 The other attorney says, I move to strike that answer. The judge says, just a minute. What is it now that you want to strike? I ask him, did he find any contraband? The answer was no. Then he went on to say something about United States customs. And the judge says, property belonging to U.S. customs? It is not contraband. No, no. It will go out, the judge decided. What U.S. property?

37:28 Did the police find in Torres' car? No one knows because the police destroyed everything that they got from the car. The charges against Torres was quickly disposed of. Four months later, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of cocaine possession. He was fined $500 and no jail time. That outcome didn't please Torres' probation officer.

38:02 who referred to him as the big guy who always comes in here in short pants, said Torres's attorney. You know your client's guilty. All we want is for him to serve time. This guy is a troublemaker as far back as 1970. But even though Torres would violate his parole several times, no action was ever taken against him. He went right back.

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 Ross's business. Ross said he realized just how heated the rivalry had become. While Ross was

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 said he had a plan. Dinello wanted to kill him, Ricky Ross said.

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 laughed at the idea, figuring it was just the liquor talking. But the Torres brothers confirmed the story and took it one step further.

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 brother says Blanton apparently realized his wife had lied about the entire thing and called off the hit. Blanton said he never knew.

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 Torres brothers admitted to the police that they were selling large amounts of cocaine to Ross.

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 days. It also means that Blanton and the Torres brothers were sometimes sharing

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 where the money from the drug sales was brought and sorted and wrapped.

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, man, my fingers hurt. We got to a point where they had to have a counting machine. That's going to come back to haunt them later.

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 houses, apartment buildings, auto parts stores, and a hotel near Harbor Freeway called Freeway Motor Inn, which is where he got his nickname. Freeway. Freeway.

42:58 There was so much cash and so much crack flying around South Central that even the mainstream media had started to notice. On November 25, 1984, one day before the DEA arrested Herrero Menendez and Rialto Pena in San Francisco, the first story about crack was going to appear in the LA Times. When he talked to some of the officers at the South Central,

43:30 stations, the reporter said several of them mentioned this flood of cocaine that they were seeing in the ghetto areas. He hit the streets, knocked on some doors, and confirmed what the officers told me, and then some. There was, he discovered, a gigantic, wide-open cocaine market flourishing in the poorest sections of Los Angeles.

43:56 And no one except the neighborhood newspapers had written a single word about it. A headline, South Central Cocaine Cells Explode into $25 Rocks, was his title of his article. Police say hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young men, most of them gang members, are getting rich off of cocaine trafficking that has swept through L.A.'s black community in the past 18 months.

44:24 The reporter described the rock house phenomenon and the multitude of street corner deals. He quoted police as saying that they were several hundred rock houses in South Central Los Angeles at the time. His story accurately predicted that the crack was a threat that could destroy South Central for years to come. Naturally, the Times buried the story inside the paper.

44:51 but it was enough to prompt an embarrassed LAPD to launch raids on several dozen rock houses shortly afterwards, with tragic results. On December 13th, a diversionary explosion, the cops set off during a raid on West 60th Street. Rock house killed a woman who happened to be walking at the wrong time.

45:18 The crack phenomenon, the reporter said, fascinated him. He pressed to do more stories, but his editors at the Times were not interested, because the LA Times is in bed with the CIA, too. Farella, eventually, that's the reporter, quit the paper with disgust and returned to his former paper, The Herald Examiner, where he continued to produce groundbreaking stories on the crack epidemic.

45:47 His piece in the Times also caught the eye of the Washington Post L.A. bureau chief, Jay Matthews. He did a follow up in December of 1984. The story described rock cocaine as a marketing breakthrough that flourished this metal class drug into the city's poorest neighborhoods. He described the rock houses as steel door dispensaries.

46:14 and growing like a new fast food chain on every corner. But as rapidly as the drug was spreading, the Post reported it was still only a L.A. fad, and the story used unnamed narcotic experts as saying the hard little pellets of cocaine powder selling for $25 have not been found in any place outside of L.A. Bobby Shepard

46:44 an intelligence unit supervisor for the USDA in Los Angeles, told the newspaper that he saw no signs of rock cocaine spreading to the rest of the country. But I've got to believe that if it isn't there yet, it probably will be in the future. So he said both things. The story ended somewhat strangely by comparing the crack to the clove cigarette bad in the middle class white neighborhoods.

47:14 which is totally bizarre. It would be another year before the East Coast papers would begin reporting on crack. This timing coincided with the drug's belated arrival in New York City. Crack first came to the attention in the New York field office, DEA, in the fall of 1985. The New York Drug Force and Task Force made the first significant seizure of crack in October 1985.

47:43 The head of the New York office, DEA, in 1986 congressional testimony said this. A form of cocaine similar to crack, but known as rock, has been available in Los Angeles for the past five years. According, let's see, in January of 1985, of all cocaine arrests made by the narcotics division, there were fewer than 15 arrests for crack.

48:14 The original reporter, Ferrello's story, also prompted the first scientific look at the early L.A. crack market. It was done by USC sociologist Markham Klein and Cheryl Maxson in early 85. Their preliminary findings, published in a small research journal, noted that throughout the black residential area of L.A. County, there had been a recent dramatic increase in cocaine dealing.

48:43 in large part because of the proliferation of cocaine rocks and rock houses, with certain refinements constitutes a new technology and organization for cocaine distribution. The study said that estimates on the number of rock houses in South Los Angeles, a black neighborhood where the phenomenon is concentrated, range from 1 to 200.

49:13 but could be as many as a thousand. Some rock houses were even being franchised, they found. Gang involvement is connected to every part of the distribution network. One thing they were unable to explain was why crack was found only in LA black neighborhoods. The drug, they wrote, at least currently seems to be ethnically specific.

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 until we created it, Ross said. We started in our neighborhood and we stayed in our neighborhood. We almost never sold it outside of our neighborhood.

50:08 The sociologist said the distribution system seemed custom made for black gang centers like Philadelphia, New York, Washington, Chicago. They also said there is absolutely nothing inherent in this distribution technology, nor in the Los Angeles urban area. Indeed, it can be exported anywhere.

50:33 All this makes for an intelligent, well-organized system that is maximally effective. In short, it works efficiently and is very impressive and could easily explode across the country, which of course it did. While the Washington Post story made no mention of the L.A. street gangs, the original journalists tagged them as the prime.

51:02 beneficiaries of the new crack trade. He specifically predicted that crack would dramatically spread along with gang activity by providing the gangs with the one thing they had previously lacked, and that's money. A field officer in the community youth gang services project

51:28 basically said that the gang structure by drug dealers represents a whole new challenge for us. They've always had the members and the firepower, and now they have the money. The gangs were an even bigger force behind the spread in LA than anyone had thought. We think that law enforcement's perception of gang enforcement in the drug trade are sharper

51:58 Then the sociologist said the U.S. General Accounting Office in a 1989 report echoed the conclusion, quote, in the early 1980s, the gangs began selling crack cocaine without within a matter of years. The lucrative crack market changed black gangs from traditional neighborhood street gangs to extremely violent criminal groups operating from coast to coast.

52:29 The higher profits, coupled with the increased pressure from local police, have prompted the Los Angeles gangs to extend their territory far beyond the neighborhood. Within the past three to four years, members of the Crips and Bloods have identified selling and distribution networks in Washington, Chicago, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Missouri, and North Carolina.

52:58 Arizona, Virginia, and Maryland. The GAO report noted that Washington, D.C. crack ring in 1989 was distributing 440 pounds of cocaine every week, which illustrates the nationwide impact of the Los Angeles crack explosion. Much of the cocaine distributed by the gangs was allegedly purchased

53:28 from Los Angeles. The report included a map of the United States showing ominous black errors emanating from LA and stretching as far east as New York City. All of the cities where crack had been found, Miami for some reason, wasn't among the list. Although in 1985, the Jamaican posse from Liberty City had

53:59 reportedly started there, they also began bringing crack to some of the African-American neighborhoods, but their primary market was still Caribbean immigrants. One drug researcher from the National Institute of Drug Abuse went to Miami specifically looking for crack after reading the article, and according to one account, said he found zero.

54:32 Well, Ross said that while he did not sell exclusively to Crip's gang members, they initially formed a large part of his customer base simply because he and Ollie had lived in a Crip neighborhood growing up. But that only mattered at the beginning. In 1984 and 85, there were so many people dealing in drugs he sold to anybody.

55:01 Freeway Rick was a dealer's dealer. By the time the market exploded in 1984, Ross already was dealing directly with the Colombian cartels who supplied him from 50 to 100 kilos a day. Los Angeles Times stated in 1994, with that, Ross was able to operate dozens of rock houses catering to thousands of addicts across Los Angeles.

55:30 He had another three ounce houses servicing 100 to 200 mid-level dealers. Finally, he had his own private list of VIP customers, maybe 10 or 50 of the biggest dealers, who dropped tens of thousands of dollars at a time. Ross's gang customers started traveling to other cities in California to increase their territory.

55:58 setting up new crack houses, setting up connections. It was the start of an unprecedented crisscross migration of the gangs and the drugs. And it was the start of Rasta's expansion from a large regional drug trafficker to a national conglomerate. There was a flood of automatic weapons that went along with it.

56:28 If you've got a drug house, you have to be able to protect it from everybody. A commission, let's see, estimating the causes of the 1992 riots in South Central said crack was one of the contributing factors. The drug was becoming...

57:08 controversial and people were struggling over territory. They changed from places where generations had raised their families in relatively safety to where children can't even go outside. Sometimes the neighborhood looked like they belonged in Beirut, Lebanon. Literally, they destroyed South Central LA.

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 Ross a gun.

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 to every imaginable firearm, Ross said. I mean, he sold.

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 pistols, brand new, 38, 357, any kind of pistol that you wanted, he could get.

59:21 Ross had bought a silver plated Uzi submachine gun and Ollie, his partner in all of this, his old neighborhood friend that lived next door. He became a gun fanatic like he couldn't buy enough guns and he had everything to include a 50 caliber machine gun. He wanted it all. He literally became obsessed with guns.

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 among Ross's enterprises.

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 he had access to the guns because he had been involved with Contras. You know, like, that's okay.

1:00:57 So, we're going to stop right there. The story just gets... I told you they're moving them in the cars. I told you. You did indeed. And yes, they are. Crazy. Oh, it gets crazier. Right? Yeah. We're about halfway through the book. But it does get crazier. Of course.

1:01:34 They're psychotic, I'm telling you. Totally psychotic. Go ahead, Ron. Okay, just a little clarification. Rialto has never been upscale. It is the freaking hood. Now, upper Rialto is a little bit nicer, but even back in the 80s, it really wasn't all that. But I found the place.

1:02:06 I was just looking on the map and looking through the book while you were talking. And the club that he was in was a public club, which makes no sense to me if he was trying to get into something upscale. It may have not been a public club. And let me just tell you, I was there. I got there in 87. Where were you? At Norton? I was at Los Angeles Air Force Base.

1:02:32 Okay, okay, that's right. I remember that. But I had friends that was at Norton, and we went driving through Rialto. And I will tell you, and again, I'm not the expert. I grew up in a trailer on a dirt road. They have humongous hacienda houses up there. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're 100% right. Way up in the north. And that's kind of where I found the golf course. Yeah, and that's where he lived.

1:03:01 Right. Yeah. He lived in a very nice house when he moved up there. Well, and I just wanted to touch on this because this is all this is all early 80s or late 80s, early to early to mid 90s. All I mean, I look at this period in about a kind of a an eight to 10 year period. It's have you ever seen the it's it's it's an anonymous.

1:03:29 post out there that talks about the secret relationship between private prisons and the rap industry? I don't know what post you're talking about, so I can't. Okay, so there's a gentleman who posted something out there back in the early 2000s that he had participated in a meeting on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and it was very hush-hush.

1:03:59 And it was all about these private – there was a group of investors who were investing in a change of direction to the rap music industry. And basically what they were doing is these guys were investing in private prisons. And so what they wanted to do is they wanted to change the way rap music was used because –

1:04:21 Back in the late 80s, early 90s, it wasn't the gangster stuff that we hear today. No, not at all. But what they did was by pushing that rap music, the gangster, the hard gangster rap, they celebrated and pushed the lifestyle of the gangster lifestyle, selling drugs, shooting up people, basically thug lifestyle. They celebrated it. And for the purpose of...

1:04:50 You know, targeting the black community, supplying people for their prison system. Absolutely. It's I mean, you know, and I'll say this, you know, I have a very difficult time listening to, you know, what was me? I'm black and I've been you know, they've shit on me all my life. I don't really.

1:05:11 I'm not down with the whole victimhood mentality, but I will tell you that there is a lot of validity to the black community being fucked over six waves from Sunday by elements of the government. And I'll just leave it at that. One hundred percent. Back in the 40s, they targeted Harlem. They targeted the inner cities with cocaine. And this is being done not specifically by the government.

1:05:39 It was being done specifically by the CIA, which I argue has never worked for our government. Now, is the government complicit in the people that they have in the DEA and FBI? Yes. But I would also argue those have all been infiltrated as well. Well, and you remember I did that.

1:05:59 I did that article on KKK essentially as a proto-Gladio operation beforehand. And when you look at how so many of the stories from yesteryear in the late 1800s, early 1900s, anything that involves KKK, it's basically the elites using their elite power that would have ultimately fallen on people like the CIA to do what they could to keep it.

1:06:29 keep people separated yes yes that's their that obviously is their agenda um and the to your point there is a reason why they do what they do because they knew inherently that they could destroy in the 50s and 60s the highest percentage of intact families and attendance at church

1:06:59 was concentrated in the Black community. Absolutely. So the welfare system, the crack cocaine, every bit of it was targeted to destroy that, to destroy their nuclear family, to destroy their culture, because they were a threat to this oligarchy that wants control.

1:07:27 And if they can break those people in an experiment, the next focus became middle class. After they had broke the nuclear Christian black family, the white middle class was targeted. So they don't stop there. They start there. No, you're...

1:07:53 You're, you're right. And, um, if, if I don't want to, I don't want to dominate this, but I mean, this is, this is like my wheelhouse here. And a friend of mine is, she's got TDS, she's black and she's, you know, victimhood and all this shit. And it's, it's, so it's a struggle. So I need a bit, I need, I need deep and, and debunking a lot of this stuff. And she's all about reparations. And, and I told her.

1:08:17 I said, she's like, oh, reparations should happen. I was like, well, forgive me if I'm hesitant about.

1:08:23 The reparations push because the people who are pushing the reparations are the same people who push the 13th Amendment. It's the same people who push the all of the the media apparatus that that targeted the black communities like Greenwood in Tulsa and all these other things. So it's like and the thing is, is that they don't they they're so consumed with the victimhood mentality that they can't see the forest for the trees. And it's a struggle for me. But at the same time, I understand where she's coming from.

1:08:53 So anyway, I'm going to get off my high horse here and I'll let somebody else talk. So the important thing to me about that entire conversation is they stop there. They're frozen in time and don't realize that both the targeting of the black families and the call for reparations leaves you stuck in.

1:09:22 where you're at, as opposed to looking across the board. Well, if they targeted me, who else did they target? Well, they targeted literally everybody not in their club. And so if you're going to demand reparations for the targeting of Black families, then you have to look for reparations for the targeting of the middle class and the exporting of all of our jobs. So

1:09:49 The reason why the oligarchs keeps that at the forefront is because it keeps people frozen in their little bubble. Because as soon as you drop that and you look across the board of everybody that has been victimized by this, we all join hands against them. And that's what they fear the most.

1:10:14 A thousand percent. I could not have said it any better. And I'll end with this. And it's a brilliant move by their part because what they've done is they have successfully made the white people and the black people argue with each other while the black people and the white people are in the same fucking boat. I always say to her, I say, we're in the same life raft.

1:10:37 We just got off the Titanic, and we're in the same life raft. And the life raft has a hole in it, and you want to argue about who's got control of it. Ron, I have a potential strategy for you. You may not necessarily agree with it, but there's a response. Hold on, hold on. Can we go by hands, please? Because I only have a few minutes, and I have something to add, too. So can they finish? If it's on this episode, sure. Thank you. Go ahead, Stellar.

1:11:04 Sorry, just waiting patiently and I have to be at some place. So I don't know if you guys are familiar with the punk movement. And punks was started in, I guess it was back in UK. Okay. My brother was a big time punker. It was big. Like you had the Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedys and all this other stuff. It was a bunch of animals. That one was here in the US. Sex Pistols was in Europe.

1:11:28 Well, anyway, so it was a movement that was started, I think, in the late 70s. And it was probably since we know that all this stuff is like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the punk movement ended up coming over to the U.S. And early rap was in the punk movement. So you had the white people and you had the rappers early, early on, like Run DMC was classified as a punk rocker. That was back in the...

1:11:55 you know, early 80s, I guess, is when his group came out and stuff like that. And they used to open up with a bunch of the punk bands and stuff like that from the early 80s and late 70s.

1:12:05 A whole bunch of stuff. They were the anarchists that were against. So there was a big invasion of the Pakistanis, like letting immigrants from different colonies that the British were in. They started bringing them into the UK. Well, a lot of the youth couldn't find jobs. You know, it was pretty much the same thing has been going on all this time. You know, so I just look at this like this music influence stuff or whatever.

1:12:30 was just trying to, well, like the early punk ones, because they, I mean, if you listen to the lyrics, not so much the music, because it'll drive you guys crazy, but if you listen to the words and stuff like that, it's about how the government is under control, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They were telling us way back then. So I seem to think that it was probably, you know, like the Charles Manson, you guys talked about that here in the US with the CIA, you know, how they also infiltrated within, like you guys were talking about the rap scene.

1:12:58 You know, and it was the gangsters, you know, like you guys are talking about the drugs that were going into, you know, L.A. Well, that stuff poured over here into Las Vegas because Las Vegas is classified as a suburb of L.A. You know, and you had all those different things that were going on, the Bloods and the Crips and stuff like that. And you had Hells Angels and all that other stuff. And those are all just different gangs. It's just incredible. Sorry. That's OK. No, that's that's a great point, because we know that basically music.

1:13:26 And the specific genres that they create is just, number one, it's another division tactic. And number two, it's a psyops on society overall. So, no, excellent point. Go ahead, Illini, with what you're going to say to Ron. Ron, you know, one response here is to say, look, you know, conservatives, you know, on the one hand, we don't believe in theft, but we do believe in the rule of law. And we've had this statute on the books since 1970.

1:13:56 called, you know, RICO, you know, for racketeering enterprises. And what we don't want to have is if, you know, if certain, you know, groups are out there making billions of dollars from breaking the law on a routine basis, you know, they basically, you know, unjustly enrich themselves. And it's not really their money.

1:14:24 This is money that would go back to the government anyways. But why don't we work together?

1:14:31 You know, on some of the systematic oppression that people, you know, are experiencing, it's not being done by, you know, middle class whites and people with small businesses, but it is being done by this criminal syndicate. Why don't we work together and make sure that that money isn't in the, and those resources aren't in the hands of the criminal syndicate, which they're using to cause all kinds of problems for society. Why don't we use some of that money?

1:14:58 to basically, you know, help people who've been victimized by the system. That could be a potential response there. I don't necessarily want to get into, you know, whether people are victims or not, and whether we should, we probably should be using different language than that. But I listen, I appreciate that. I've known this, I've known this girl for 30 years. So it's, I mean, I trust me, I know how to deal with her. But I mean, you got to realize that she was raised

1:15:28 I mean, she's actually fairly conservative. She just can't stand Trump. And a lot of her bent is woke. And it all comes from the fact that she went to the UC system or the Cal State University system. And then she worked for the state of California. So, I mean, she's inundated with woke.

1:15:46 propaganda constantly. So, you know, I mean, it's a battle that I fight. And the funny thing is, is that when she went to college and I did some other things, and I mean, it was like, we kind of had, we've diverged, but we're still close. I mean, we're still very close, but it's just, you know, we don't battle politically, you know, with animosity, but, you know, trying to reach her is like trying to, it's like trying to shoot an elephant with a freaking BB gun.

1:16:16 Go ahead. Hi, Colonel. I just want to pick up, given that we're kind of dealing with the Los Angeles Police Department as it relates to Ricky Ross. What department? LAPD. As it relates to Ricky Ross. Well, I think it's kind of important to look at the longer term.

1:16:46 you know, relationship between CIA and LAPD, you know, because especially in this new book, which I really, really, really strongly urge everybody read, it's called Martyrs to the Unspeakable, the Assassinations of JFK, Malcolm Martin and RFK by James W. Douglas. So he's the guy that wrote JFK and the Unspeakable. And anyway, he goes into kind of the, in two police departments,

1:17:16 namely NYPD and LAPD, he goes into the longer relationships with CIA and those departments, right? And in terms of how they affected, you know, because we know that CIA basically ran the special unit senator created by LAPD police chief Tom Redden, you know.

1:17:44 eight months before Redden became news anchor KTLA. That's all CIA interconnectedness between media, police department and CIA and the CIA assassination of RFK itself. And he elucidates how, you know, the CIA had this longer term relationship going on that, you know, and it does relate to some of the things that you've discussed on here, like the Office of Public Safety, right?

1:18:14 You know, that was in South America. But it was not simply Manny Pena and Hank Hernandez, you know, who were literally using CIA interrogation techniques on the key witnesses in the RFK assassination. But they had a lot of other people in LAPD, a lot of other CIA people. And ditto for the Malcolm X assassination.

1:18:44 New York, where the NYPD's Bureau of Special Investigations or what they call the BOSI unit, which probably they've changed the names. But, you know, the point is that there are these long term intelligence connections to these police departments. So it's really important to understand those long term relationships and see how, you know, this Ricky Ross thing is really an extension of this ongoing relationship between CIA.

1:19:14 in these departments. 100%. Because there's no way that he did what he did under an actual radar. If I remember correctly, it was Ted Gunnarsson, essentially. I think he said that Daryl Gates, who was the LAPD chief up until 92, in the late 80s and up until 92, he was allegedly CIA. I wouldn't be at all surprised. Yeah.

1:19:47 Nor would I. Yeah. I mean, I wonder how much, you know, Michael Rupert, I think who was also LAPD narcotics and later got involved with September 11th. I just remember he was really pissed off about all the corruption about like how, you know, people would inevitably have intelligence links and they would get let off the hook in his narcotics cases. And I think he was LAPD.

1:20:14 He was. In fact, he was actually at the meeting that they had in L.A. as a result of the Gary Webb article. The CIA actually had to send a guy out to L.A. and basically throw him. He had to send there. And Maxine Waters was there. She was a brand new. She was relatively young.

1:20:33 congressional woman, and that was her district. And, I mean, they excoriated. I can't remember the guy's name. I think he was the head of the CIA. It wasn't like the tenant, but it was the guy before him, I think. Yeah. It was. Was it Colby? Maybe it was. Let me look here. I think it was 1996. But to your point, Doug, it was, no, it was John Deutsch. That's right, John Deutsch.

1:21:08 In 1996. And at that meeting, the guy you talked about, the LAPD, Rupert. Rupert was there and he was very, very visible. He was very vocal against the CIA at that meeting. Yeah. Yeah, I've watched the tape of that meeting. Yeah. All right. Anybody else got anything? I want to say, you know, this.

1:21:40 This is the passion of mine because you're talking about basically L.A. and this is home for me. So this whole thing really, really resonates with me, this whole topic of the Gary Webb thing. And they're right. South Central Los Angeles was like the—

1:21:58 And when L.A. was really growing at first, back in the 30s, South Central was the premier place. That was it. Everybody wanted to be there. And when World War II started, we had the great migration of a lot of the black people from the south that came out here to build ships for the Navy. And then they stayed on, and then they basically took over the southern portion of South Central.

1:22:23 They were, just to your point, they lived great lives. They were great neighbors. They were stellar. And then the drugs started coming in. And so anyway, it's just, this is. Just so that you guys know, I moved to Los Angeles in 1987. I was there until 1990. So the part that we're about to get to.

1:22:50 is when I was there this is just immediately before I got there it's in the 84 85 86 time frame everything that we've covered so far and I want to tell you just in that small amount of time from the 19 early 1980s until I got there in 87 one of the very first things that happened to me

1:23:15 I lived, like I said, I was stationed at Los Angeles Air Force Base. And for those of you who don't know, it is just south of LAX, like literally on the seventh floor of our headquarters building. You can look out and see LAX. Our base housing, as I mentioned before, was down in San Pedro at the harbor. I originally, for the first year, lived in Manhattan Beach, which was just south of the base.

1:23:46 Los Angeles Air Force Base. It is about two miles inland to a street called Hawthorne Boulevard. And when we had our security briefing, it was the longest security briefing I had ever sat through. I had been through four of them. So there's a week of in-processing, one of which is a security briefing from the base cops.

1:24:15 Los Angeles had several go no go places. So the no go places you as an active duty member because of the threat was not allowed to go. It is both establishments like businesses and areas. You are not allowed to go in those areas because your life is exponentially at higher risk. So they showed us a map.

1:24:43 And I saw Hawthorne Boulevard, but again, I'm brand new. I don't even know anything about it. So back in the day, in the 80s, it was not unusual for people to order stuff through JCPenney's catalog, which I was a big fan of. So I wanted some new curtains for the house that I was renting. And the nearest JCPenney's was on Hawthorne Boulevard, which was the border of...

1:25:12 the area where you were allowed and where you weren't allowed. So I ordered my drapes. It was a mall. And I pull into the parking garage. It's like a five-story parking garage. My daughter and I, who was about six years old at the time, got out of our van. And within five seconds, there's this huge black security guy who walks up to me and tells me to get back in my van.

1:25:43 And I'm looking at him going, what are you talking about? I got to pick something up at JCPenney's. And he said, I need you to leave. And he said, you will never make it out of the mall. And it literally scared the shit out of me. So that was my that happened within the first month that I was at Los Angeles Air Force Base. About a year later, I had bought a house down in Long Beach and I was coming.

1:26:15 And again, I had ordered something from a mall, JCPenney's. I never even looked. It's the nearest one to my house in Long Beach. So didn't pay any attention, ordered it, went into the mall. JCPenney's was the anchor store on one end. It was a huge mall. And we walked up to the catalog thing, picked up our package, got back in our vehicle and went home.

1:26:45 I got home, I'm fixing dinner and I turn on the news and there was a mass shooting at the other end of that mall. I found out that that was the Compton Mall. And for anybody that knows anything about Los Angeles, you never, ever, ever go to Compton. And that was one of the no-go zones. But it's literally right by Long Beach. And again, never dawned on me.

1:27:13 Fast forward a couple of months later, I had a meeting at Norton Air Force Base. I'm coming back. We don't have GPS. I'm using a paper map. And there's one road that if you get off of the 110, takes you right over to the base. I never even, so you guys have heard of the Watts Riots. When I was growing up, I had actually heard of the Watts Riots. But for some reason, when people say Watts,

1:27:44 The only thing in my brain is W-H-A-T. Like what? What riot? I never looked at the spelling. I don't know anything about it. I just heard people talk about it. I never read anything about it. So I get off on this boulevard from the 110 to head over to the base. And there was something on the exit ramp that was like, you know how you have something that...

1:28:13 is in your brain and it doesn't make any sense. And you're like, that's supposed to mean something, but I can't figure out what it means. And as soon as I got down to the end of the entrance, the exit ramp, and I turned onto the boulevard, I'm looking at an environment that literally looks like it's from Beirut. There was not a single business open. Every business had bars on the windows.

1:28:42 And there's these streetwalkers in boots up to their butt and barely any clothes. And all at once flashed into my brain is W.A.T.T.S. And I'm like, son of a bitch, son of a bitch. I got off on the wrong exit. So Watts is actually W.A.T.T.S. It's not W.A.T.T.

1:29:08 I'm laughing. I'm laughing, Colonel, because I know you probably got off at Imperial Highway and made a wrong turn. So I immediately flashback to my security briefing, which is why we have them. Don't stop. Don't stop. Roll through the intersection. Do not stop. If anybody approaches your vehicle, speed away. The best thing that can happen to you is, and this is what the safety guy said.

1:29:35 The best thing that could happen to you is a policeman stop you and escort you out of the area. And so I did exactly what I was told. I made it obviously made it out safely. But those are the and so I have seen firsthand what everything that we're talking about in this book did to Los Angeles. It is unbelievable that.

1:30:04 Our government allowed this to happen, not just allowed it to happen, caused it to happen. They knowingly destroyed an entire area and culture for drug trafficking and the destruction of American people. So just want to put that out there.

1:30:28 And I echo that sentiment, Colonel, and you just encapsulated my primary frustration. I mean, and destroying the city of Los Angeles to boot. Yeah. Colonel, I think you managed to trace some of this back to the opium wars, at least with the Delano family, you know, when you were talking with Warhamster Brady recently. Yeah. And, you know, this has been done before.

1:31:03 Almost 180 years ago to China, the British East India Company did this to the Chinese.

1:31:15 And the Delano family was involved in some of that. And I wonder if there's any other links out there. I would be fascinated to find out who the Cabot Lodge family's grandparents were if they were invested in the British East India Company. Almost all of the old money was. In one way or the other. Like we've had the CV Star who opened up what eventually became AIG.

1:31:44 He was the insurance magnate over there that insured all of the ships. Just about all of the old money has opium. And I mean, we traced George Bush's dad back to being an actual ship captain out of the UK that was mutinied on the Walker side. So again, almost every single one of these people have been linked to the drug trade.

1:32:14 Throughout its history, which is why it makes perfect sense that the international syndicate who runs the CIA would use drugs as a way to make money because they've always used drugs as a way to make money. It's impossible for anybody to have the capacity to run every single one of these deep political events or Gladio events.

1:32:42 All the way to the ground. But, you know, Jacob Chansley put out this dossier lately with a whole bunch of different stuff in it. But one of the things that he put out that seemed to be relatively, it seemed to be very cogent, was, you know, all the different links out there besides just the Franklin case.

1:33:11 to people in power. And he mentioned Roland Bernard, the Dutch banker, I think, who came out in 2017 about, you know, exposing how broken the system is and all the money laundering that he was doing for, you know, these families. And, you know, the problem that, you know, that some people practice Catholicism, some people practice

1:33:40 Protestantism and some people, you know, at the very, very top seem to worship in the wrong direction. And it seems to sort of be additional corroborating factors on top of like the Franklin case. I studied that one because you have it basically set up, you know, with Gary Caridori going in and trying to generate litigation quality evidence.

1:34:08 And interviewing these kids and basically corroborating the fact that they were traveling alone on these planes, you know, across the country based off the, you know, passenger manifests and the business records on these private jets. But then you've also got Roland Bernard.

1:34:30 And you've got the finders cases, which apparently it does seem like there's something other people have run this to ground better than I have. But it seems like there's more to it than that, than the newspapers dismissing it at the end of the day. It seems like there is this relatively small club of people who are causing all these kinds of problems for us. And there's one level further up.

1:34:58 Above the intelligence agencies and maybe even above, you know, the Pritzkers and the Soroses and the Rockefellers and those families. Yep. And it would just be fascinating if everybody did the work to finally expose this thing. That would just be fascinating. I agree. I'm doing my part. You certainly are. I've only got the capacity to kind of.

1:35:28 sink 10 or 15 different core samples through everything, run everything to the ground, and be able to, if somebody winds up suing me for defamation, at least try to come up with a case saying, hey, we were kind of responsible here on at least some of these claims. And I think Gary Webb is a good example of a journalist who really ran everything all the way to the ground and came up with the argument.

1:35:57 And and the case for saying, you know, the CIA was involved with all this. They were responsible for this. They knew what was going on and this benefited that they derived the benefit from it. And yeah, OK, you know, we never really know how you want to characterize things. But but, you know, they were responsible for this. Yeah, I agree. All right. So let me give you guys a couple of announcements.

1:36:26 I was contacted over the weekend by a reporter that works for Covert magazine. And for those of you guys who know, that's the magazine that Philip McGee, the whistleblower from the CIA, who they ran out of the country and stripped him of his citizenship and then ran him out of every European country that he tried to resettle in. And he ended up.

1:36:55 The only country that he felt safe from the CIA was Cuba, which is where he ended up going. And that's where he died. His son now runs Covert Magazine. And for those of you who know, I have referenced, especially early on when I was digging into the CIA, a lot of Covert Magazine material. I mean, a lot. I've used it a lot.

1:37:22 And it's one of my go-to sources. So one of their reporters, who I just reposted her video, is working on the biological weapons part of the CIA. And she reached out to me over the weekend and asked me if I had any material that I had dug up. So I gave her several references that Bridget and Cousinet and I had discovered early on.

1:37:50 And if you guys recall, when we did the Asia part, we talked not really in depth, but we did cover it. The biological lab that was set up by the Japanese in Manchuria and Unit 731 and basically how they did a lot of the same experiments that was done in Nazi Germany.

1:38:19 And so I was able to help her out. And it was funny because after she looked through some of the references, she goes, okay, I've got to rewrite show number three. So anyway, hopefully, and she suggested that she's going to recommend to Philip Agee's son, who now runs Covert Magazine, that he reach out and we do a Zoom call together. So I think that would be.

1:38:46 Totally awesome. So I wanted to bring you that news. And I'll let you know if that ever happens. Next, I was just contacted by a podcaster that, and I don't know his name off the top of my head, that I was able to vet. And he actually does his podcast from the UAE.

1:39:10 And we're going to try to work out a time when I can come on his podcast. He has a fairly big audience. It's an international audience and he's had some fairly well-known people on his podcast. So that would be very interesting too. He's a very good interviewer. And if we're able to work something out, I will keep you updated on that. Because as I told you guys,

1:39:40 I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all of you. I'd say half of my information from people in our audience with you guys sending me DMs and stuff like that, especially early on, because I didn't know anything about any of this. And I relied heavily on you guys and all of your own reading and your own knowledge.

1:40:10 I will be always keeping you guys up to date on any of these types of validation of our work, which is exactly the way I view it. Because in this industry, people do not reach out to you without reviewing your work. And it's the same thing on our end. I don't agree to go on people's shows that I can't.

1:40:38 Number one, who they are. And number two, look at their body of work to know that our information fits with them, because I don't want to risk the chance of someone trying to destroy all of the work that we've done. So I will definitely keep you guys updated on how that works out. So I do want to thank you, Bridget.

1:41:09 And Bridget's been here through all of it. I did want to update you guys for an update that I made at the beginning of the show because many of you were not there. Please, please, please keep Dwayne Cates in your prayers. He is having a medical issue right now. And if you guys can add him to your prayer list, I'd really, really appreciate it. He's fine, but he is dealing with some things right now and could definitely use your prayers.

1:41:40 So anyway, that's it for today. Thank you for being here. I'll say that for SR 71. And I will see you tomorrow. Take care.

Entities here

Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross40 Daniel Blanton40 Los Angeles27 Los Angeles Police Department21 Norwin Menendez20 FDN14 CIA13 Andreas Torres11 United States11 DEA10 Dennis Ainsworth10 Rialto6 Jacinto Torres5 Los Angeles Air Force Base5 Nicaragua5 San Francisco5 FBI5 U.S. State Department5 Renato Pena4 U.S. Congress4 Oliver North4 Crack Epidemic4 Los Angeles Times4 Ronald Reagan3 Adolfo Calero3 U.S. Department of Justice3 Gary Webb3 Edric Swanson3 Covert Action Information Bulletin3 Costa Rica3 Washington, D.C.3 East India Company2 Miami2 Enrique Bermudez2 Lawrence Walsh2 U.S. Customs Service2 Ron Lister2 Crips2 The Mafia, CIA and George Bush2 Colombia2

Claims made here

Dennis Ainsworth member_of USACA host_asserted ▶ 0:34

“I would really appreciate that. And we're going to go ahead and get started where we left off on Friday. So we were talking about Dennis Ainsworth, who was a contact in San Francisco. And the organiza…”

Don Sineco headed USACA host_asserted ▶ 1:05

“Contra supporters, goes by the initials USACA, had a president that we talked about named Don Sineco. And he said that he had never expected Menendez was involved in any criminal activities. But he di…”

Dennis Ainsworth spied_on FDN documented ▶ 2:33

“Ainsworth warned them that the FDN, quote, has become more involved in selling arms and cocaine for personal gain than in a military effort to overthrow the current Nicaraguan Sandinista government, u…”

Dennis Ainsworth exposed Oliver North documented ▶ 2:33

Dennis Ainsworth exposed Tom Dowling documented ▶ 2:33

Dennis Ainsworth exposed Norwin Menendez documented ▶ 2:33

Dennis Ainsworth exposed Renato Pena documented ▶ 2:33

Dennis Ainsworth exposed Oliver North documented ▶ 3:05

“and about North's illegal Contra support network in the U.S. and Central America. Much of the information that Ainsworth gave the FBI and later Lawrence Walsh, who, for those of you who don't know, wa…”

FBI covered_up Dennis Ainsworth host_asserted ▶ 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 brus…”

Norwin Menendez trafficked FDN documented ▶ 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 sale…”

Norwin Menendez trafficked Daniel Blanton documented ▶ 6:07

Norwin Menendez trafficked Enrique Bermudez documented ▶ 6:07

Laisla Balderas paid Renato Pena host_asserted ▶ 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, Lais…”

CIA carried_out_attack Nicaragua documented ▶ 10:03

“For 12 months, the Contras had staggered from one public relations disaster to another. There had been a major uproar in Congress in the spring of 84 when it was revealed that the CIA was running the …”

CIA funded FDN documented ▶ 10:03

U.S. Congress funded FDN documented ▶ 11:38

“any CIA contra controversies before the election. The Democrat-controlled Congress succeeded in passing yet another Boland Amendment. Unlike the earlier one, though, this one had teeth. It prohibited …”

Adolfo Calero headed FDN documented ▶ 13:07

“Even the FDN's normally optimistic handlers in Washington began to despair. Reagan's National Security Advisor, Robert McFarlane, told the FDN leader, Aldolfo Calero, in January 1985, that maybe it wa…”

Robert McFarlane member_of United States documented ▶ 13:07

Norwin Menendez trafficked Sebastian Gonzalez documented ▶ 16:02

“The CIA knows a lot of these crooks. I mean, the CIA knows. As it turned out, Swenson was right. A 1998 CIA inspector general report confirmed that as early as 1984, the agency had information tying M…”

CIA spied_on Norwin Menendez documented ▶ 16:02

U.S. State Department pardoned Daniel Blanton documented ▶ 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 bet…”

DEA spied_on Daniel Blanton documented ▶ 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 …”

U.S. State Department pardoned Blanton's wife Chapita documented ▶ 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…”

Daniel Blanton trafficked Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross documented ▶ 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…”

Daniel Blanton paid Orlando Morello host_asserted ▶ 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 Orlan…”

Jacinto Torres trafficked Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross host_asserted ▶ 33:22

“and discuss prices. Once the Torres brothers started selling to him, Ross used them to whipshaw Blanton on his prices, pointing out that his other supplier was offering him a much better price. Blanto…”

Daniel Blanton ordered_assassination_of Andreas Torres host_asserted ▶ 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 i…”

Andreas Torres trafficked Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross host_asserted ▶ 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 wa…”

Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross financed_via Los Angeles host_asserted ▶ 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 starte…”

Los Angeles Police Department carried_out_attack Los Angeles host_asserted ▶ 44:51

“but it was enough to prompt an embarrassed LAPD to launch raids on several dozen rock houses shortly afterwards, with tragic results. On December 13th, a diversionary explosion, the cops set off durin…”

Jay Matthews exposed Crack Epidemic host_asserted ▶ 45:47

“His piece in the Times also caught the eye of the Washington Post L.A. bureau chief, Jay Matthews. He did a follow up in December of 1984. The story described rock cocaine as a marketing breakthrough …”

Cheryl Maxson exposed Crack Epidemic host_asserted ▶ 48:14

“The original reporter, Ferrello's story, also prompted the first scientific look at the early L.A. crack market. It was done by USC sociologist Markham Klein and Cheryl Maxson in early 85. Their preli…”

Markham Klein exposed Crack Epidemic host_asserted ▶ 48:14

U.S. General Accounting Office exposed Crack Epidemic documented ▶ 51:58

“Then the sociologist said the U.S. General Accounting Office in a 1989 report echoed the conclusion, quote, in the early 1980s, the gangs began selling crack cocaine without within a matter of years. …”

Bloods member_of Los Angeles documented ▶ 52:29

“The higher profits, coupled with the increased pressure from local police, have prompted the Los Angeles gangs to extend their territory far beyond the neighborhood. Within the past three to four year…”

Crips member_of Los Angeles documented ▶ 52:29

Crips member_of Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross host_asserted ▶ 54:32

“Well, Ross said that while he did not sell exclusively to Crip's gang members, they initially formed a large part of his customer base simply because he and Ollie had lived in a Crip neighborhood grow…”

Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross financed_via Medellin Cartel host_asserted ▶ 55:01

“Freeway Rick was a dealer's dealer. By the time the market exploded in 1984, Ross already was dealing directly with the Colombian cartels who supplied him from 50 to 100 kilos a day. Los Angeles Times…”

Daniel Blanton supplied_arms_to Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross host_asserted ▶ 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…”

Daniel Blanton member_of Contras host_asserted ▶ 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 wa…”

Michael Rupert member_of Los Angeles Police Department host_asserted ▶ 1:19:47

“Nor would I. Yeah. I mean, I wonder how much, you know, Michael Rupert, I think who was also LAPD narcotics and later got involved with September 11th. I just remember he was really pissed off about a…”

Delano-Roosevelt family member_of East India Company host_asserted ▶ 1:31:15

“And the Delano family was involved in some of that. And I wonder if there's any other links out there. I would be fascinated to find out who the Cabot Lodge family's grandparents were if they were inv…”

Japan funded Unit 731 documented ▶ 1:37:50

“And if you guys recall, when we did the Asia part, we talked not really in depth, but we did cover it. The biological lab that was set up by the Japanese in Manchuria and Unit 731 and basically how th…”