The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 14

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Transcript

0:00 Good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to go over here and start us live on Rumble, and then we're going to get started. I see Miss Bridget. Let me know, Bridget, if Bessar or Stellar comes in. How are you today? Good, good. Okay. Go ahead. And how are you? I'm awesome.

0:33 Just got back from having oysters on the beach in Gulfport. Looking at all of the crazy cars that are here. Literally one of the funnest weeks of the entire year. They're on track for having about 15,000 cars registered and there's probably another 10,000 cars just roaming around.

1:02 The people here are amazing. One of the coolest places to be this week is, for those of you who don't know, I'm in Biloxi, Mississippi at Cruise on the Coast, which is like the nation's largest car show. It's just an amazing place to be. You will hear we're right next to the fire station off of Veterans Avenue. So you may hear one go by.

1:31 You may hear some of the cars in the background because we're in our mobile command post. And some of the cars around here are very, very loud. But I will be taking some video later this week and uploading it just so y'all can see as more cars. The registration is today and tomorrow. So there will be even more cars by the time we get to Wednesday here. So anyway, that's what's going on.

2:01 We're going to go ahead and get started. I don't even know what to tell you guys. I reread some of the chapters over the weekend, and the more I read this book, the more mad I get. It is just, and it's emblematic of everything up until this year in illustrating to you just literally how corrupt

2:31 all of the federal agencies are. And there's not any exceptions, by the way. So anyway, we start Chapter 15 with one of the good guys. And that's not to say that everybody in every agency is bad, because we're going to talk about one of them that wasn't bad, but nothing good happens to him. But there are good ones in the inside.

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 there to have enough snitches.

3:34 to basically outline the entire operation that was being ran out of El Salvador. So he got some people that began telling him how many of the hangers at, I'm not even sure how you say the name, it's I-L-O-P-A-N-G-O, El Opango.

4:04 air base in El Salvador. That's where they're running a significant portion of the arms, the drugs, and the air operations out of. So, and it's under the control of the El Salvadorian death squad, narco-terrorists, and it's where Felix Rodriguez was hanging out for most of his time in the theater. Okay.

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 and told him that the U.S. government was running a secret operation at the airbase.

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 dealers. Surely the U.S. government wouldn't be protecting drug dealers.

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. Castillo had worked in neighboring Guatemala and had duties there also, you know, spread them thin.

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 American government and the DEA

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 intelligence gathering, a little bit of collection, and there was a few reported drug shipments.

7:03 And they took no action on it. They basically just stuck it in the file because it was so insignificant compared to the other countries around, you know, like Colombia, dealing in large amounts of drugs. We were basically playing traffic cop, he said, taking down the license numbers of people we believed to be dealing in minor drugs just so we had them in our database.

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 couldn't legally make arrests in Central America, his assignment was to put together local.

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 cops he was around. Castillo was out one day with a DEA informant in Guatemala, a Cuban.

8:31 named Socrates Sophie Perez, who proudly informed Castillo that he was a Bay of Pigs veteran and a Contra supporter. You know, the kind the CIA loves. After learning that his new control agent had been decorated for fighting in Vietnam, Sophie Perez confided that he was helping the Contras fight Marxism.

9:03 in Nicaragua and laid out a scheme that was so remarkable about the operation going on and being conducted in Costa Rica. A shrimp company was operating and it was basically a laundering front, both for drugs and money for the Contras.

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. Congress for cutting off Contra aid. Castillo wasn't sure if his informant

10:06 was trying to impress him or just pull his leg. The idea of the U.S. government sponsoring an operation dabbling in drugs struck the six-year DEA veteran as absurd. The next time he was in El Salvador, Castillo said that, let's see, he bounced around the Cuban story off a few of his informants there, one of which was Romero

10:43 Guerrera, who owned a coffee shop in San Salvador. Guerrera was working for the DEA as a result of a pending cocaine trafficking indictment in San Francisco, where he had lived for several years. While hiding out in San Salvador, Guerrera picked up pocket money by acting as an informant for the very agency

11:14 that wanted him in jail back in the United States. He had also insinuated himself into the death squads in El Salvador Arena Party and had risen to very high ranks in the party structure there. To Castillo's surprise, Guerrero told him that the informants about

11:44 that the information about the drugs was probably true. He heard the same rumors, and he confirmed that there was indeed a small Air Force base there, and that allegedly they were flying supplies to the Contra. But it really wasn't very secretive, he said. While headquartered on the restricted military side of the airport,

12:14 The Contra Air operation was being ran quite openly and that a lot of his friends knew about it throughout the local area. The woman selling tortillas at the gate of the Air Force Base could tell you what was going on there. The assistant regional security officer for the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador.

12:41 told the Iran investigators in 1991. Anyone who ever flew into that air base could see something like that was going on. When looking down at the base from the air, one could see one side of the airfield had ragtag operations and dilapidated airplanes and buildings, while the other side

13:09 looked brand new, had lift trucks, state-of-the-art aircraft, and people on the ground doing all the air ops. The modern facilities all belong to the American operation, the officer said, adding that he didn't know if it was CIA operation or what. They just all knew it was Americans.

13:34 While CIA officers denied that they were running the show, they did finally admit they were keeping a very close eye on it. Yeah, sure you were. Quote, we had a capability, indeed, a responsibility for reporting what had been happening at Ilopango. Unquote. That came from Alan Fiers, the former CIA official who was in charge of it.

14:05 Guerrero told Castillo that a Cuban named Max Gomez was doing the actual day-to-day management of the operation for the U.S. government. And we know from all of our studies who Max Gomez is. Max Gomez is the CIA's codename for none other than Felix Rodriguez, as we all know, was also a Bay of Pigs veteran.

14:35 who had a remarkable career with the CIA, becoming a paramilitary specialist, i.e. Operation Gladio. Among other operations he had been involved in was the execution of Sheikh Havera. In the early 1985, Rodriguez appeared in El Salvador as an advisor for the Salvadoran Air Force.

15:02 working on helicopter-based counterinsurgencies into and attacking the FARC in Colombia. While Rodriguez had always claimed, sometimes under oath, that he was retired from the CIA, and in El Salvador, mainly as a volunteer and a private citizen, former CIA officer Fiers suggested otherwise.

15:30 He testified that Rodriguez was sent there in early 1985 as part of a CIA organization that became after fires took over the Central American Task Force. So basically, he was working there kind of under the reporting of this hierarchy of fires. This is a quote. We undertook a complete review.

15:58 of our efforts in San Salvador and made adjustments in the undertaking that left certain questions, certain activities that we had, it left a void, said, unquote, said Byers in 1992. Quote, Felix Rodriguez was put into, sent to El Salvador to work in the area where we had left a void and

16:27 was going to take over the responsibilities, or at least in part, take over those responsibilities, unquote, not as a volunteer, but as a worker. And we know that he was reporting to Donald Gregg directly to the National Security Advisor of Vice President George H.W. Bush at the time he was there. What Rodriguez's journey from retirement to

16:57 El Opango began with a very strange step. Shortly before he left Washington, D.C. to get final approval for his mission to El Salvador, he received a call from a friendly private eye in Miami who wanted to meet with him. And they wanted him to meet a client that basically

17:26 could compromise the Nicaraguan Sandinista government for drug money laundering. In other words, they want to frame the Nicaraguan government. The client turned out to be former Medellin cartel accountant Ramon Milan Rodriguez, the man who had set up the Costa Rican shrimp company Oliver North would later be using to funnel money to the Contras.

17:58 What Rodriguez said, Milan was trying to broker information to obtain help in the money laundering case pending against him. Not only did he tell Rodriguez of Manuel Noriega's drug activities, but he claimed he could provide proof that the Sandinistas were drug dealing. Rodriguez said he passed the information back to the CIA and FBI and didn't hear anything else.

18:29 Milan tells a different story. He met with Rodriguez to offer $10 million to the Contras in exchange for the U.S. dropping the money laundering charges against him. Rodriguez accepted the offer and money was delivered to him on five separate occasions.

19:01 making payments to Rodriguez. But the examiner reached no conclusion about his claim that he'd been given money to the Contras. In the congressional testimony, Noriega's former political advisor described Felix Rodriguez as a very close friend of Millian. Both were Cubans who had been active in Miami's anti-Castro movement. Most accounts

19:31 date the Contras' use of Ilopango to September 1985 when North wrote to Rodriguez asking him to use his influence with the Salvadoran Air Force commander Juan Rafael Bustillo, a secure hangar for the Contras to use as supply flights. Rodriguez claims

19:56 He greased the skids with Bustillo and eventually became the overseer of Norse Contra resupply operations at the El Salvador base. The Contras had been using El Opango with General Bustillo's blessing since 1983, when Norwin Menendez's friend, CIA pilot Marcos Agordo,

20:26 made arrangements to base Eden Pastora's group in that location. Since he could not devote all of his time to North Secret Air Force, Rodriguez wrote, I found someone to manage the base resupply operations on a day-to-day basis at the air base. They knew that person to be Ramon Medina. I knew him.

20:57 by his real name, Luis Carrillas. The names are crazy. With men like Luis Carrillas, and he went by Posada, because you know how they do the middle name instead of the last name? Luis Posada Pasilas. So the rest of the book will refer to him as Luis Posada. And Marcos Aguardo. They were running things at Ilopango.

21:31 And it's a wonder DEA agent Castillo was hearing rumors about the Contra drug trafficking because it was being ran out of the base. Luis Posada was a veteran CIA agent with a history of involvement in drug trafficking. He also worked with mobsters and terrorists, which we know the CIA funds all of them.

21:58 He was recruited by the CIA in the 1960s after years of working on the Castro Project and with Cubans in Miami and was implicated in a number of terrorist incidents conducted by various Cuban terrorist groups. In 1967, CIA records show Posada was investigated by DOJ for supplying explosives, silencers, and hand grenades to

22:27 Miami mobsters Rosenthal and Norman Rockman. Rockman was a close associate of South Florida's mafia chieftain, Santo Trapicana. A memo in Posada's CIA file said Posada may have been moonlighting for Rosenthal. But in late 1968, he was transferred by the agency.

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 1973, the DEA received a report.

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 the Venezuelan government.

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 identified upper echelons of traffickers in the Miami area. Records show.

24:26 The CIA was fully aware of his agent's reported involvement in drug trafficking because they like to embed these people in these organizations so they can, whenever drugs get discovered, they go, oh, they're coming from the Sandinista government when they weren't. Or, oh, they're coming from Venezuela, whether they are or not. This is done all the time. This isn't the first time we ran across this. Okay. There was also notes.

25:00 as back as not far as 1973, that Posada was involved in smuggling cocaine from Colombia through Venezuela into Miami. I'm not just making this shit up, people. These are well-documented instances of how the CIA operates. According to the notes of a congressional investigator who reviewed Posada's

25:35 Volumous CIA file in the late 1970s. Cables in the file indicate concern that Posada was a serious potential liability. Anxious to terminate associations promptly if allegations prove true. By April 1973, it seems sure that Posada was involved in narcotics drug trafficking.

26:04 seen with known big-time drug traffickers. But after questioning the Cuban about his contacts, the agency found him guilty only of having the wrong kind of friends and continued to employ him. The choice of friends continued to plague Posada. However, in January of 1974, he asked the CIA to provide a Venezuelan passport

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 on the payroll and actually do it. A few months later, the DEA received a report that Posada

27:03 was trading weapons for cocaine with a man the DEA believed is involved in political assassinations. Big surprise. According to records at the National Archive, the CIA formally terminated Posada in 1976. Eight months later, he was arrested in Venezuela and accused of participating in a mid-air bombing of...

27:34 The Cuban DCA, which we talked about that had the fencing people in there. So he's in the Venezuela and basically commits a terrorist act because, of course, it was blamed on other people initially. He was never convicted of a crime. He spent nearly 10 years in Venezuelan prisons in America for doing this. He's still our guy. But in Venezuela.

28:04 He spent 10 years in jail. He escaped in the summer of 1985 and went underground. He resurfaced at the airbase in El Salvador in 1986, working as Felix Rodriguez's right-hand man, telling investigators that Rodriguez and other Cuban friends helped him get out of Venezuela.

28:36 and relocate to El Salvador. Upon arriving in El Salvador, Posada stayed with Rodriguez for two or three days. Rodriguez then helped Posada get a house in San Salvador where he was living for the next year or two, running the airbase for Felix Rodriguez, drug trafficker, money launderer, terrorist, running the Contra operation.

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 surrounded by cliffs. The area where the trafficking was going on was off limits to the public.

29:37 tightly guarded by San Salvadorian military. If he was ever going to find out the truth, he figured he needed to get on that side of the base. He went to the Salvadoran Air Force commander, Bastillo, and asked for permission, but was given the cold shoulder.

30:04 The agent from the DEA branch office in Guatemala City came to San Salvador seeking access to the air base. The New Republic reported in 1990, adding that Bastillo stalled all such requests for Castillo. There was never a good reason given why he just wasn't allowed to go on that side of the base. They just kept putting off meetings time after time.

30:34 So Castillo improvised. He recruited a Salvadorian named Merga, who wrote the flight plans for private planes on the civilian side of the base. Merga had excellent contacts on the military side and could come and go at will. He became Castillo's eyes and ears inside of the air base.

31:05 Mergen knew all about the Contra's drug running, Castillo said, because he was filling out the flight plans and inspecting their aircraft. The pilots were so brazen that they told him they were flying dope to the United States and money to Panama. Sometimes they left with kilos in plain view in the aircraft as well as money.

31:37 A one secret 1992 interview with the FBI ex-CIA agent Posada recounted that the resupply project was always looking for people to carry cash from the United States into El Salvador for Posada to disperse. They were always looking and worried about the restrictions.

32:04 being limited to $10,000 out of the U.S. Anytime any of the resupply people went up to the U.S. for any reason, whether it was personal or otherwise, they were all used as mules to carry money back. The drugs often arrived in private planes flown by contrapilots from Costa Rica, Berga told Castillo.

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 the busiest of the pilots was Francisco. I don't know how you pronounce his middle name.

33:02 Garola Baseli. He was one of El Salvador's most influential families. How Chico Garola wound up in El Opango flying for the Contras is an illuminating tell. He should have been sitting in federal prison in the United States.

33:34 On the morning of February 1985, a white T-39 Sabre Liner jet took off from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with Garola and three other men, Cuban Americans, aboard. It stopped briefly in Kingsville, Texas, to refuel. It was met by a posse.

34:03 of U.S. Custom Service agents welding search arrests, search warrants. The agents had been tracking the men since the month before when they were spotted in the same plane leaving Orange County for Florida. In mid-flight, they had suspiciously diverted to Panama, where they landed with 1.2

34:32 million dollars. Garola and his crew were all listed in Customs Database as suspected drug traffickers, and their aircraft was on a watch list as being involved in smuggling. It turned out that was for good reason. In the Sabre Liner's cargo hole was 14 suitcases, which Garola claimed were his.

35:02 He pulled out a Costa Rican diplomatic passport and advised the agents that they were not allowed to search the suitcases. He was right. They were bulging with cash, a total of $5.9 million, all in small bills. The largest cash seizure in Texas history.

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 charged that the cash was drug money destined for El Salvador. They cited DEA records that said Garola had

36:01 been repeatedly involved in cocaine and arms smuggling in El Salvador and Guatemala, and noted that he was a top aide to Salvadoran death squad leader that was then the president. The later claim was confirmed in a Los Angeles Times article, which reported that Garola had accompanied the president to a...

36:26 very secretive meeting with former CIA Deputy Director Vernon Walters in May of 1984. According to the story, Walters was dispatched in a frantic attempt to talk the El Salvadoran president out of assassinating Thomas Pinkering, the U.S. ambassador in El Salvador. Garola, who attended college in California,

36:57 with one of Anastasio Samosa's nephews, and Samosa was the deposed dictator from Nicaragua, had allowed the El Salvadoran president to use his house as a campaign headquarters when he ran for Salvadoran president in 1984. Garola's passport, which was signed by the president himself,

37:26 identified him as a special advisor to the Salvadoran Assembly. He was also carrying credentials from the Salvadoran Attorney General's office. Since Garola was using an Orange County airport as his departure point, it is possible that the millions he was hauling out of the country came from Los Angeles area drug sales, but the source of the funds was never made public.

37:55 The investigation came to a sudden abrupt halt with a lot of questions left unanswered because U.S., that was according to U.S. Customs Agency, Ernest Allison. That was because the Justice Department had just made a quick deal with Garola. If he let the U.S. government keep the money, he'd be let off on probation.

38:25 Girola and one of his companions pleaded guilty to a minor currency violation charge and walked away. Charges against the other passengers and the pilot was dropped. And the plane returned to them and the U.S. government kept their money to give to the Contras. I had a hard time swallowing it, the federal judge Hayden had said.

38:57 Garola, he could not believe that the Justice Department announced a plea deal with a smuggler. The punishment simply does not fit the crime. I don't know what you were up to, but this conduct cannot be tolerated, the judge said. Less than a year later, DEA agent Castillo and his informants were watching.

39:23 Girola zoom in and out of the airbase hauling drugs and carrying cash to the Bahamas and flashing credentials of the Salvadoran Air Force and the president's office. When I ran Girola's name in the computer, it popped up with 11 DEA files detailing his South American to U.S. cocaine arms and money laundering, wrote Castillo in his memo.

39:51 In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed in 1997, the Customs Service claimed it could not locate any records of him at all. Castillo said that in January 1986, he began firing off a string of reports to DEA headquarters in Washington about all of his suspicious activity, the Contra pilots listing their names, destination, tail numbers.

40:22 and criminal records. He got no reply. It was, he wrote later, as if the report were going into a black hole. But in late March 1986, Castillo got his first official confirmation that he was on the right track. A cable arrived from Costa Rican's DEA office reporting that a pilot named Carloil Armades,

40:57 was intending to fly into Ilopango, pick up cocaine at hangar number four, and take it to Miami. Armador would be carrying San Salvadoran government identification, which got him through customs and any inspections. Castillo was asked to investigate Armador and any persons or companies associated with hangar four.

41:27 As Castillo would soon realize, that was easier said than done. He was about to plunge headlong into the darkness of one of the Reagan administration's most secret operations. A clandestine activity that Reagan privately predicted would result in him and his entire cabinet being strung up by their thumbs on the White House lawn.

41:54 if word ever leaked to the public. CIA records show that Hangar 4 had been used by the agency for covert contra operations until it was turned over in 1985 to the National Security Council and Oliver North for illegal arms called the Enterprise. CIA agent Felix Rodriguez

42:24 also used the hangar for the helicopter-based counterinsurgency program that was attacking the FARC and the Sandinistas. It was being used by the CIA in support of every aspect of the Contra program. Also, the suspected drug pilot, Carlos Amador, had been working with the CIA for years.

42:57 flying missions for Costa Rica and the Contras, the CIA had been collecting information for at least a year indicating that Armillot was also flying drug planes between Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, and Miami for major cocaine traffickers called the Sarkovic brothers. At the same time, he was flying for the White House.

43:28 Excited that his investigation had finally started to bear fruit, Castillo drove to El Salvador to tell his informants that the Salvadoran narcotic police and give the Salvadoran narcotics police the good news. He now had independent confirmation that the drug flights for the Contras were being flown out of El Opango.

43:56 someone would finally start listening. But the CIA had other ideas. Within weeks, cables were shooting off in a dozen different directions as the agency quickly tried to get a handle on the DEA agent. Not on the drug trafficking, not on the money laundering, not on arming the Contras, but on this guy who found out about it.

44:22 In April 1986, the CIA station chief in El Salvador sent a desperate message to the Costa Rican CIA office asking if the DEA office could back off. Hangar 4 at Ilopango was the location of the Contra operations in the El Salvadoran station.

44:48 could assure the only thing Amador and the other pilot had transported during their flights was military supplies, we swear to God, said the cable. Based on that information, El Salvador Station would appreciate Costa Rica Station advising DEA to not make any inquiries into anyone at Hangar 4, since only legitimate CIA operations are being conducted there.

45:18 FYI, station air ops moved from Hangar 4 into Hangar 5, which station will occupy. The CIA official who wrote the cable told the agency's inspector general his statement was not intended to thwart an investigation of activities at Hangar 4. He concedes, however, that the language in the cable could be read as if he were.

45:46 The official alarm was easily understood. Not only was someone like Carlos Armador strolling freely in and out of CIA-run hangars, but there was a host of other contra-traffickers milling around, including none other than Norwin Menendez, Enrique Miranda Jamie, who became Menendez's emissary.

46:14 to the cartels of Colombia in the late 1980s, testified in 1992 that during the Nicaraguan trial, which we'll talk about later, that Norwin was selling drugs and funneling the benefits to the Contras with help from high-ranking military officers of El Salvador, especially with the help and head of the Salvadoran Air Force.

46:43 and a Nicaraguan pilot by the name of Marcos Aguardo. Aguardo was the chief pilot for the Contra Forces in Costa Rica. He was identified in 1987 congressional testimony as a CIA agent. Soon after North set up the resupply operation at the airbase, Aguardo

47:14 moved to El Apengo permanently, working as an aide to a high-ranking Salvadoran commander. The pilot, who had been instrumental in arranging the Contra's 1984 arms and drug deals with the Colombian trafficker, George Morales, was no longer welcome in Costa Rica, having been formerly

47:43 accused of drug trafficking. Aguardo became a colonel in the Salvadoran Air Force, sharing all the privileges of a high-ranking military officer and was accepted into the ranks as the deputy commander of the Air Force. The flights he directed went as far as Colombia and were loaded with cocaine.

48:13 and then redirected to the United States. Many of them were sent to United States Air Force bases in Texas. In interviews, Miranda and the former Nicaraguan anti-drug czar, Roger Mayorga, who arrested Miranda, said that the U.S. Air Base was near Fort Worth. That would be...

48:44 Carswell Air Force Base, most likely. That was home at the time of B-52s, by the way, and one of the most secure bases you're going to find, which would be a good reason for them to land and deliver drugs there because you wouldn't have to worry about security. In response to a Freedom of Information request filed in 1997, the Air Force said all flight records disappeared because guess what?

49:20 We deactivated Carswell as an active duty base and changed it to a reserve base. And therefore, we just destroyed all the records. Miranda, a former Sandinistan intelligence officer who became a double agent for the CIA during the Contra War and was working as a DEA informant in recent years, said that cocaine brought.

49:47 from Colombia by the cartel pilots arrived in Costa Rica in square 25 kilo packages. It was unloaded at various airstrips, including one located on the CIA operative John Hall's farm in northern Costa Rica, where it was placed on Contra planes and flown to Alapango.

50:15 Once it had arrived at the Salvadoran base, Miranda said, Aguardo and Menendez supervised the loading of the cocaine onto U.S.-bound aircraft owned by the Salvadoran Air Force and, on occasion, Miami-based CIA contractor Southern Air Transport. Southern Air Transport had vehemently denied any involvement in that, which we know is a lie.

50:48 CIA and DEA records show that the airline was under investigation for drug trafficking by the U.S. Customs Office by 1987. Southern Air was of record in the DEA's database from 1985 through 1990 for alleged involvement in cocaine trafficking. Several of the firm's pilots and executives were suspected of smuggling narcotics.

51:19 and money, according to a DEA report. Southern Air, of course, was owned by the CIA. Miranda testified that he met CIA pilot Aguardo for dinner at Menendez's mansion in Managua in 1991, where Aguardo regaled them with tales of flying for the Colombian cartel. Aguardo

51:47 told him that he once took a Salvadoran Air Force bomber and leveled a warehouse full of metalene cocaine on behalf of the state-owned Cali cartel. Another time, he made plans to bomb the prison where Pablo Escobar was imprisoned. Agordo also boasted of flying weapons.

52:15 from the Salvadoran military to the Colombian cartel. A story Miranda said he doubted until a Salvadoran Air Force colonel and his associates were arrested in 1992 for selling bombs and explosives to the Colombian drug cartels. Miranda said Menendez told him that the U.S. military hardware

52:43 stockpiled at ilapango was loaded onto salvadoran transport planes and flown south where the guns were traded for cocaine which was then flown back to the salvadoran airbase as wild as it sounds records show miranda is not the first drug trafficker to report any of this during the 1980s the u.s justice department received at least three other reports

53:12 basically saying the exact same thing. They never did anything about it. One of the informants records show was a member of Menendez's drug ring, a boyhood friend who had a long track record of providing information and was considered extremely reliable source, according to the Justice Department IG.

53:37 The friend was questioned in April 1986 by a DEA intelligence analyst as part of a secret DEA assessment of allegations that the Contras were involved in drug smuggling. He not only confirmed that Menendez was selling cocaine to raise money for the Contras, but he said some of the proceeds were being used to buy weapons for the Contras in Colombia.

54:03 The DEA informant related that Menendez had recruited him to coordinate drug and weapons shipments to Colombia and drugs were shipped back to the United States, sometimes through Nicaragua. Menendez boasted that he traveled in and out of Nicaragua freely and that U.S. agents would assist him in doing so. Because, again, they're trying to associate the Sandinista government with drug dealing.

54:32 while they themselves are doing it. Another report of Colombian cocaine being traded for U.S. weapons surfaced fewer than two years later during a 1988 debriefing of a Colombian trafficker turned government informant, Alan Rayol Rudd, who was questioned by the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa.

54:59 In February of 1988, memo marked sensitive, Assistant U.S. Attorney Walter Furry told his boss that Rudd is a very articulate individual and there has been no indication to date that he has not been totally candid. In a real sense, his life is on the line if he cooperates.

55:29 Furr probably thought it necessary to add his testament to his credibility in light of what the report was going to say next. The Medellin cartel reportedly had made a deal with Vice President George H.W. Bush to supply American weapons to the Contras in exchange for free passage of their cocaine.

55:57 into the United States. Rudd told the officials that in the spring of 1987, he'd met in Medellin, Colombia, with cartel boss Pablo Escobar to arrange a drug deal in the course of their conversation at Escobar's home. Rudd said the cocaine lord

56:28 began ranting about Bush and his South Florida drug task force, which was making the cartel's delivery to Miami more difficult. Escobar then stated that Bush is a traitor who used to deal with us, but now doesn't want to. Rudd told the federal officials Escobar described an agreement or relationship between Bush and the American government and members of the Medellin cartel.

56:58 which resulted in planes similar to C-130s, but smaller, with guns to the cartels in Colombia. According to Budd, Escobar stated that the cartel then offloaded the guns, put cocaine on board the planes, and the cocaine was taken to the U.S. Two military bases.

57:28 The guns were delivered and sold to the Contras in Nicaragua and to the cartels. Escobar, Rudd said, explained that it was a swap of cocaine for drugs or for guns. Rudd has stated that while Escobar did not say the CIA was involved in the exchange of guns for cocaine, that was the tenor of the conversation.

57:57 Because, of course, Vice President George H.W. Bush was still performing CIA roles as vice president. Rudd has stated that Escobar and the rest of the cartel members are very supportive of the Contras and dislike the Sandinistas. Rudd claimed that Escobar had a photographic proof of the story. Not only were there photographs of the planes containing the guns.

58:27 being unloaded in Colombia, but he claimed to have a picture of Bush posing with meddling cartel leader Jorge Oca in front of suitcases full of money. After Escobar talked about the photograph, Rudd said that the photograph was not genuine and was merely two individuals and basically photos.

59:00 photoshopped in order to try to discredit it. In response, Escobar stated that the photograph was genuine. It would stand up to any test of its authenticity. Escobar stated that the photo would be made public at the appropriate time. Rudd indicated that the photo is being held back as blackmail against Bush.

59:28 By 1993, Escobar was dead. Well, that's what happens when you try to blackmail somebody like Bush. Purely coincidence. I'm sure it had nothing to do with Bush. Absolutely. Rudd's story is very similar to one told by a Miami FBI informant, Wanda Palacios.

59:53 who reported in 1986 that she had witnessed Southern Air Transport planes being loaded with cocaine and then loaded with guns in Colombia in 1983 and 1989. Palaos, the wife of a Colombian trafficker, said she had accompanied Pablo Escobar in a limousine to a landing site and watched it all happen.

1:00:22 He told her that he was working with the CIA to get cocaine to South Florida. Polisios was interviewed in 1986 by the staff of Senator John Kerry, which was looking into the allegations of the Contra drug smuggling. Kerry's staff found her and her story credible and took 11 pages of statement from her, the senator, and an aide.

1:00:50 took it to the Justice Department in September 1986, and met with William Weld, W-E-L-D, one of the Attorney General Edwin Meese's top assistants. Weld read about a page and a half and chuckled. Carry aide Jonathan Weiner said,

1:01:14 I asked him why he was laughing. He said, this isn't the first time I've seen these allegations about CIA agents' involvement in drugs. He stated several times in reading Wanda's statement that while he couldn't vouch for every line, there was nothing in it that didn't appear true to him or inconsistent with what he already knew and did literally nothing about it.

1:01:43 But when her allegations leaked to the press, Palacios was publicly dismissed as a crank by top justice officials who had basically just admitted it was all true. They basically said she was a liar and a lunatic. Her story, though, was supported by subsequent events. When the Sandinistas blew up a Southern Air Transport C-123,

1:02:13 Out of the sky over Nicaragua in October 1986, the dead pilot's flight logs revealed that he had flown several Southern Air Transport flights from Colombia to the United States. The flights had occurred between October 1985, exactly when Palacios had claimed, and she was able to identify the pilot's picture in a lineup. Having seen him land there,

1:02:43 Southern Air said in a statement that the planes were carrying drilling equipment, not drugs. The wrecked C-123, in which those flight logs were found, had a history of involvement in cocaine, the Medellin cartel, and the CIA. It was the same airplane Louisiana drug dealer Barry Sill used in a joint CIA-DEA sting operation in 1984 against the Sandinistas.

1:03:12 In that case, the CIA had taken Seale's plane, which he recently obtained through a aircraft swap with the cartel, to Rickenbacker Air Base in Ohio, outfitted it with hidden cameras. Then Seale, who was working as a DEA informant, because they all are, flew the aircraft to an airfield in Nicaragua.

1:03:41 Because again, they're trying to set up the Sandinistas in Nicaragua as drug dealers. Snap pictures of the men loading the cocaine onto his airplane so they could use those pictures to implicate Nicaragua for what Colombia was actually doing. Does that sound familiar? It should. One of Seale's grainy, almost indistinguishable photos was later shown on national television by Ronald Reagan.

1:04:12 the night before a crucial vote to provide aid to the Contras. See, we're just fighting the drug dealers. No, you are the drug dealers. That picture secretly taking at a military airfield outside of Managua shows Frederico Vaughn, a top aide to one of nine commandants who rule Nicaragua, loading an aircraft with...

1:04:41 illegal narcotics found for the U.S., Reagan said. No, there seems to be no crime to which the Sandinista government will not stoop. It's an outlaw regime. But declassified CIA records show that the Reagan administration knew there was precious little to substantiate that. Even the entire CIA contingent

1:05:11 in Central America, on alert for Sandinista drug dealing, had found zero evidence of the Nicaraguan government doing any drug deals. Although uncooperated reports indicate there was Nicaraguan involvement in shipping, they were all uncooperated. The CIA was unable to confirm a single report.

1:05:45 And that was even sworn under oath in a Senate committee in intelligence in April 1984. Two years later, Justice Department reached the exact same conclusion. In 1988, congressional investigation raised troubling questions about whether or not the seal sting was even real.

1:06:11 It produced evidence suggesting that the whole episode had been staged by Oliver North and the CIA as a disinformation operation. Among other things, the House Judiciary Committee investigation revealed that the alleged Sandinistan official, named by Reagan, Frederico Vaughn, may have actually been working for the U.S. government.

1:06:41 Committee Chairman William Hugley of New Jersey told reporters that the subcommittee staff recently called Vaughn's number in Managua, Nicaragua, and spoke to a domestic employee who said the home belonged to the U.S. Embassy personnel. They gave him a phone number.

1:07:14 to the U.S. embassy. That's priceless, isn't it? I mean, just nothing like trying to hide it at all, right? Yeah. Yeah. Here's his phone number. Here's this fictitious guy. Here's his phone number. And it just so happens to ring in a contracted house of the U.S. ambassador. Recently, declassified CIA cables lend additional support to the idea that Vaughn was in fact a U.S. double agent.

1:07:45 In March of 1985, the CIA reported that Vaughn was said to be an associate of Nicaraguan narcotics trafficker Norwin Menendez. Menendez, at the time, was working with the DEA in Costa Rica, assisting the Contras and Oliver North on the whole Iran-Contra garbage. Far from being a top aide to a Sandinistan commandant,

1:08:14 Vaughn was a deputy director for Heroes and Martyrs Training Corporation, the official import-export agency, a firm that had been infiltrated by CIA operatives. Records show that one of the Costa Rican-based drug...

1:08:42 Traffickers working for North and the CIA, Bay of Pigs veteran Dagoberto Nunez, obtained a contract with the Heroes and Martyrs Corporation in order to cover an intelligence operation aimed at the Nicaraguan president, Noriega. So basically, it was a CIA front company. And they used it to try to infiltrate the Nicaraguan government.

1:09:15 According to a 1986 memo from CIA operative Rob Owen to North, Nunes was preparing to sign an agreement with the heroes and martyr for shrimping rights off the Pacific, another front company. Nunes is doing this so he can help us. He will cooperate and do anything we ask, Owen told North.

1:09:44 He believes this will provide an opportunity to use his boats for cover operations and to implicate Noriega and his government in taking money on the side for their own pockets. Again, just another setup operation. So that's crazy. All right. We're going to stop there. There's a lot more. So much more. Oh, my God.

1:10:15 It's just about nauseating how openly and fragrantly they just kind of, yeah, you know, we're breaking the law. We're breaking the law. Just look the other way. You're not allowed to look. The frustrating thing to me is it's not even just the CIA. It's literally every element.

1:10:39 As I've been harping for the last several days, having found out that this judge up in Oregon was in the drug task force in Los Angeles in the 80s when all of this stuff was going on, her entire office refused to bring charges, no matter how much information the local sheriffs, the local police, as you're going to see.

1:11:08 We're going to get into that. No matter how much information they had, they would not charge Danielle and they would not charge Norwin Menendez, even though they knew those were the two top dogs dealing directly with Columbia. And so you have local officials, you have the federal government.

1:11:37 There you had the FBI there. You had the DEA there. You also had a CIA, several CIA people in Southern California. Every single one of them was corrupt. You had an entire infrastructure in the DOJ corrupt, an entire infrastructure in the DEA corrupt, an entire infrastructure in customs corrupt, border corrupt.

1:12:04 And then all of those same entities have people deployed forward in Costa Rica, in Colombia, in El Salvador. Every single one of them, with the exception of a couple, this guy here, Castillo, were corrupt. And then the poor guy, he's writing all this shit, risking his life, doing all of this good work, turning people in left and right.

1:12:31 And it all goes into a black hole because it doesn't fit the narrative. So it's. And the one guy paid for it with his life. Yeah, there'll be a few more of them, too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just. Yeah. Wow. Right. Yeah. And all of the people that were in Miami and all of those organizations that are you are you telling me that no one.

1:13:04 And the DEA, Customs, FBI, and the biggest U.S. CIA station in America all residing in Miami. And there's tons and tons of drugs and money laundering and everything else to include the Fed. I mean, the Fed in L.A. and the Fed in Miami had the two largest deposits of cash in the entire United States of any bank.

1:13:35 No one knows what's going on. You can't believe that. Yeah, so. Just not plausible. Well, not possible. I can go that far. It's not possible they didn't know. I mean, they've named names already. They all knew. And anybody that wouldn't play along got rotated out. They just moved them. So, yeah. They need to be burned, thrown away.

1:14:13 but documented so that we never make this mistake again. Well, that's kind of the funny thing. It is all documented. I mean, obviously, this book was written in the 1990s. There's literally been nothing changed. The information is all out there. We found most of it, and we're novices. Right. Yeah.

1:14:44 It's all there. And it is, as we talk about all the time, very frustrating that people and I'm saying this, guys, please understand, I am not saying the Venezuelan government is good. I'm not. But you just heard me read almost the entire chapter of how they went on an all out press and they're not done yet because there's more to it.

1:15:14 In trying to set up the Nicaraguan government because they hated it, he was nationalizing shit. He was kicking the U.S. government out of it, just like Venezuela. They did everything under the sun to set the Nicaraguan government up and generate bad press. So there's not even not a chance.

1:15:44 that they're not doing that to Venezuela when they nationalize the oil industry. Not a chance. Again, two things can be true at the same time. Not saying Venezuela is good, but I just articulated exactly how they do it. They staged aircraft coming in. They staged photographs of loading the quote-unquote Nicaraguan.

1:16:09 cocaine on. It didn't come from Nicaragua. It came from Colombia. And the president of the United States got on national news with a grainy photo saying, here's my proof. Nicaragua is trafficking drugs and killing our citizens. No, you asshole, you are. It was the US government that was trafficking drugs. And they were so evil.

1:16:40 that they would try to frame it on the Nicaraguan government, who they hated because he got rid of their stooge called Somoza. That's the extent to which the U.S. government is corrupt. Well, sometimes it's not always, and this is what I was trying to say, it's not always a bad guy and a good guy. Sometimes it's a bad guy and a worse guy.

1:17:10 That says nothing about Trump. But you guys need to understand the intelligence apparatus that is supporting this administration is still corrupt. The CIA is still corrupt. There are still corrupt people in DIA. There are still corrupt people in NSA. You cannot blindly cheer on shit that doesn't make any sense. And I refuse to play in that.

1:17:40 So just understand that when I make my post. It's not that I don't support President Trump. I'm just not going to play in their bullshit because, honestly, I don't know who's providing the intelligence. And neither do any of us because we're not read in on it. And Trump has been given bad intelligence before. We know that. And I'm not playing along. They are listening. Yeah.

1:18:12 One of the few people that have researched the extent to which these people are criminal. And I'm not going to act like I don't know that. Anyway, apparently nobody wants to come up and talk to us. Or is it just my thing? Do you see anybody up? Nope. Not today. Apparently everybody wants to be preoccupied or whatnot. All right. So that's the lesson for today.

1:18:46 Again, I appreciate you guys' flexibility. I may do the show a little early tomorrow because one of our dear friends that we've met here, who's a local pharmacist and huge patriot, he doesn't listen to my show, so I can tell you this. His family is the one that we camp with here at Cruising the Coast.

1:19:15 And how we met him several years ago. He's having like his 80th birthday party. And we are going to go out to their house. And I don't have a time yet. So if I need to. I will just come in 30 minutes early or so. And have the show. So I can make sure I get out there. Because it's a surprise. They don't know. He doesn't know they're having a party. So anyway. I feel like I'm.

1:19:46 part of the family here because we've been coming here for so long. Also, let me just say this. So you guys can see if you're over here on Rumble, these necklaces that I wear comes from a very dear friend here. Her name's Kay Hudson. She's an amazing woman. She has a shop inside of a

1:20:13 art gallery jewelry store kind of thing in Ocean Springs called the Pink Rooster. You guys can go online, look up Kay Hudson under the Pink Rooster in Ocean Springs. She makes amazing jewelry out of heirloom old vintage jewelry pieces. She modernizes them by taking brooches and earrings and stuff and gluing them on to like silver spoons and all kinds of just crazy things. I don't know how she does what she does, but she does it.

1:20:42 And I have been buying her jewelry for like the last probably five years. I have several pieces of it. Her husband just got diagnosed with stage four cancer and he's not doing well. And so I won't be able to see her. I did buy some of her jewelry, though. I will not be able to see her while we're here. And I just want to ask you guys, since you are big prayer warriors, please keep Kay and her husband.

1:21:09 in your prayers um she has not been able to come into the shop for the last few months um because she is with him 24 hours a day um and um it's it's really bad so please just keep her and her kids um in your prayers and her husband so with that i'm going to say good night

1:21:36 And we will be back tomorrow. And I appreciate you guys' flexibility in working with me. Oh, and by the way, Bridget did let me know that thanks to you guys going to my page, picking a post and reposting it or putting a gift on it or saying something, y'all blew the algorithms out of the water. Like, I guess it was Thursday and Friday, whenever it was. You guys just blew it up.

1:22:04 So thank you for doing that. It is making a difference. I am getting some very interesting offers for speaking engagements. I was just asked over the weekend to come to one of the local Republican clubs in whatever county. I'm not going to remember the name of it for the east coast of Florida and give a.

1:22:33 speech at their Republican, whatever the GOP thing is called, executive committee in central East Coast, Florida. So, again, I can't thank you guys enough for reposting the stuff, all of the information out there, and getting the visibility of it, because it's very, very frustrating for me.

1:23:01 for people other than Brian Cates that have large accounts within our own movement that will not highlight anything that I say. I don't know why that is. It's not like they can't, you can't disprove what I say. So as you guys well know, when a few people come into some of my posts and try to argue with me, like that guy trying to tell me that the

1:23:29 Drugs were coming from Venezuela. You know, I just want to like, it's a good thing I'm not face to face with people because I would be one of those people that takes the butt of your hand and like smacks you in your forehead going, wake up, because you literally feel like doing that. All you have to do is a simple search on the Internet to know that 90 percent of the cocaine that comes into the United States comes from Colombia.

1:23:57 Not from Venezuela. Venezuela is not even on the list. Peru, Colombia, and it used to be the number third was Bolivia, but they've kind of got their shit under control. I'm not sure they do today, but they did. So anyway, thanks for putting the stuff out there, you guys. I really appreciate your support.

1:24:19 And for those of you, again, I don't talk about this very often, but there's been several people that subscribe to us here on X. I appreciate that. And over on Substack. So, again, I just truly appreciate it because we've spent a small fortune in books and subscriptions. We have to pay for our subscription on Rumble to do what we do.

1:24:45 Over there, we have to pay for the stream yard, which I have to use with Alpha. So there is a lot of cost involved in this, but it's well worth it as far as I'm concerned. And I appreciate all of you guys that helped me out. So with that, I'm going to sign off. Let me see if Bridget has something else she wanted to say. She got knocked off. Are you there, Bridget? It keeps knocking you off. Where'd you go? There you go. Okay.

1:25:23 Apparently keeps throwing me down. So, no, I just want to say thanks to everybody because when you guys respond to the post or repost the post or both, it really, it breaks the algorithm. You guys can fight back. You're not powerless. Don't ever let them make you think you are. Thank you. Sure.

1:25:46 Bridget's behind the scenes. I don't pay any attention to this stuff. She's sending me screenshots of my own page going, look what happened here. Look what happened here. Look how many people responded here. I'm like, how do you find that crap? But anyway, we make a good team. I love Bridget. Amen. God made us here for a reason. That's right. All right, guys. Have a nice evening. See you tomorrow.

Entities here

San Salvador32 Contras25 Ilopango Air Base22 CIA22 Colombia21 Luis Posada Carriles18 Felix Rodriguez17 Nicaragua16 DEA16 Sandinistas15 Celerino Castillo III15 Venezuela13 United States13 Francisco Garola Baseli11 Pablo Escobar10 U.S. Department of Justice10 Salvadoran Armed Forces10 Norwin Menendez9 Marcos Aguardo9 Oliver North9 Alan Rayol Rudd9 Enrique Miranda Jamie8 Costa Rica8 Miami7 Carlos Castillo Armas7 Area 516 U.S. Customs Service6 George H.W. Bush6 Guatemala6 Carlos Amador6 Manuel Noriega5 Southern Air Transport5 Ilopango5 Frederico Vaughn5 Wanda Palacios5 Juan Rafael Bustillo4 Alan Fiers4 Los Angeles4 Medellin Cartel4 Panama Canal4

Claims made here

Celerino Castillo III member_of DEA documented ▶ 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, y…”

Celerino Castillo III appointed Guatemala documented ▶ 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 …”

Robert Stia ordered_assassination_of Celerino Castillo III book_quoted ▶ 4:35

Contras trafficked San Salvador book_quoted ▶ 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 justif…”

Alan Fiers member_of CIA documented ▶ 13:34

“While CIA officers denied that they were running the show, they did finally admit they were keeping a very close eye on it. Yeah, sure you were. Quote, we had a capability, indeed, a responsibility fo…”

Felix Rodriguez member_of CIA documented ▶ 14:05

“Guerrero told Castillo that a Cuban named Max Gomez was doing the actual day-to-day management of the operation for the U.S. government. And we know from all of our studies who Max Gomez is. Max Gomez…”

Felix Rodriguez appointed San Salvador documented ▶ 14:35

“who had a remarkable career with the CIA, becoming a paramilitary specialist, i.e. Operation Gladio. Among other operations he had been involved in was the execution of Sheikh Havera. In the early 198…”

Felix Rodriguez member_of CIA documented ▶ 15:30

“He testified that Rodriguez was sent there in early 1985 as part of a CIA organization that became after fires took over the Central American Task Force. So basically, he was working there kind of und…”

Felix Rodriguez member_of Donald Gregg book_quoted ▶ 16:27

“was going to take over the responsibilities, or at least in part, take over those responsibilities, unquote, not as a volunteer, but as a worker. And we know that he was reporting to Donald Gregg dire…”

Oliver North financed_via Contras documented ▶ 17:26

“could compromise the Nicaraguan Sandinista government for drug money laundering. In other words, they want to frame the Nicaraguan government. The client turned out to be former Medellin cartel accoun…”

Ramon Millian Rodriguez member_of Medellin Cartel documented ▶ 17:26

Ramon Millian Rodriguez financed_via Contras book_quoted ▶ 18:29

“Milan tells a different story. He met with Rodriguez to offer $10 million to the Contras in exchange for the U.S. dropping the money laundering charges against him. Rodriguez accepted the offer and mo…”

Luis Posada Carriles member_of CIA documented ▶ 21:31

“And it's a wonder DEA agent Castillo was hearing rumors about the Contra drug trafficking because it was being ran out of the base. Luis Posada was a veteran CIA agent with a history of involvement in…”

Luis Posada Carriles supplied_arms_to Rosenthal documented ▶ 21:58

“He was recruited by the CIA in the 1960s after years of working on the Castro Project and with Cubans in Miami and was implicated in a number of terrorist incidents conducted by various Cuban terroris…”

Luis Posada Carriles supplied_arms_to Norman Rockman documented ▶ 21:58

Norman Rockman member_of Santo Trafficante Jr. documented ▶ 22:27

“Miami mobsters Rosenthal and Norman Rockman. Rockman was a close associate of South Florida's mafia chieftain, Santo Trapicana. A memo in Posada's CIA file said Posada may have been moonlighting for R…”

Luis Posada Carriles member_of Inter-Services Intelligence documented ▶ 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 st…”

Luis Posada Carriles trafficked Venezuela documented ▶ 25:00

“as back as not far as 1973, that Posada was involved in smuggling cocaine from Colombia through Venezuela into Miami. I'm not just making this shit up, people. These are well-documented instances of h…”

Luis Posada Carriles member_of Felix Rodriguez documented ▶ 28:04

“He spent 10 years in jail. He escaped in the summer of 1985 and went underground. He resurfaced at the airbase in El Salvador in 1986, working as Felix Rodriguez's right-hand man, telling investigator…”

Celerino Castillo III recruited Merga book_quoted ▶ 30:34

“So Castillo improvised. He recruited a Salvadorian named Merga, who wrote the flight plans for private planes on the civilian side of the base. Merga had excellent contacts on the military side and co…”

Francisco Garola Baseli trafficked San Salvador documented ▶ 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.…”

Vernon Walters attempted_assassination_of Thomas Pickering book_quoted ▶ 36:26

“very secretive meeting with former CIA Deputy Director Vernon Walters in May of 1984. According to the story, Walters was dispatched in a frantic attempt to talk the El Salvadoran president out of ass…”

Francisco Garola Baseli member_of Salvadoran Armed Forces book_quoted ▶ 36:26

Francisco Garola Baseli pardoned U.S. Department of Justice documented ▶ 37:55

“The investigation came to a sudden abrupt halt with a lot of questions left unanswered because U.S., that was according to U.S. Customs Agency, Ernest Allison. That was because the Justice Department …”

Girola laundered_money_for Contras documented ▶ 38:25

“Girola and one of his companions pleaded guilty to a minor currency violation charge and walked away. Charges against the other passengers and the pilot was dropped. And the plane returned to them and…”

Carlos Castillo Armas spied_on Girola documented ▶ 38:57

“Garola, he could not believe that the Justice Department announced a plea deal with a smuggler. The punishment simply does not fit the crime. I don't know what you were up to, but this conduct cannot …”

Carlos Castillo Armas exposed Girola documented ▶ 39:23

“Girola zoom in and out of the airbase hauling drugs and carrying cash to the Bahamas and flashing credentials of the Salvadoran Air Force and the president's office. When I ran Girola's name in the co…”

Girola trafficked Contras documented ▶ 39:23

Carlos Castillo Armas spied_on Carlos Amador documented ▶ 40:57

“was intending to fly into Ilopango, pick up cocaine at hangar number four, and take it to Miami. Armador would be carrying San Salvadoran government identification, which got him through customs and a…”

Felix Rodriguez supplied_arms_to Sandinistas documented ▶ 42:24

“also used the hangar for the helicopter-based counterinsurgency program that was attacking the FARC and the Sandinistas. It was being used by the CIA in support of every aspect of the Contra program. …”

Felix Rodriguez supplied_arms_to FARC documented ▶ 42:24

Carlos Amador trafficked Contras documented ▶ 42:24

Norwin Menendez trafficked Contras documented ▶ 46:14

“to the cartels of Colombia in the late 1980s, testified in 1992 that during the Nicaraguan trial, which we'll talk about later, that Norwin was selling drugs and funneling the benefits to the Contras …”

Marcos Aguardo trafficked Contras documented ▶ 47:14

“moved to El Apengo permanently, working as an aide to a high-ranking Salvadoran commander. The pilot, who had been instrumental in arranging the Contra's 1984 arms and drug deals with the Colombian tr…”

Marcos Aguardo trafficked United States documented ▶ 47:43

“accused of drug trafficking. Aguardo became a colonel in the Salvadoran Air Force, sharing all the privileges of a high-ranking military officer and was accepted into the ranks as the deputy commander…”

Marcos Aguardo member_of Salvadoran Armed Forces documented ▶ 47:43

Southern Air Transport trafficked Contras host_asserted ▶ 50:15

“Once it had arrived at the Salvadoran base, Miranda said, Aguardo and Menendez supervised the loading of the cocaine onto U.S.-bound aircraft owned by the Salvadoran Air Force and, on occasion, Miami-…”

Southern Air Transport trafficked United States documented ▶ 50:48

“CIA and DEA records show that the airline was under investigation for drug trafficking by the U.S. Customs Office by 1987. Southern Air was of record in the DEA's database from 1985 through 1990 for a…”

Marcos Aguardo supplied_arms_to Cali Cartel guest_asserted ▶ 51:47

“told him that he once took a Salvadoran Air Force bomber and leveled a warehouse full of metalene cocaine on behalf of the state-owned Cali cartel. Another time, he made plans to bomb the prison where…”

Marcos Aguardo trafficked Cali Cartel guest_asserted ▶ 51:47

Norwin Menendez trafficked Contras documented ▶ 53:37

“The friend was questioned in April 1986 by a DEA intelligence analyst as part of a secret DEA assessment of allegations that the Contras were involved in drug smuggling. He not only confirmed that Men…”

Norwin Menendez recruited U.S. Department of Justice documented ▶ 54:03

“The DEA informant related that Menendez had recruited him to coordinate drug and weapons shipments to Colombia and drugs were shipped back to the United States, sometimes through Nicaragua. Menendez b…”

Medellin Cartel supplied_arms_to Contras guest_asserted ▶ 55:29

“Furr probably thought it necessary to add his testament to his credibility in light of what the report was going to say next. The Medellin cartel reportedly had made a deal with Vice President George …”

George H.W. Bush supplied_arms_to Contras guest_asserted ▶ 55:29

Pablo Escobar trafficked United States guest_asserted ▶ 56:28

“began ranting about Bush and his South Florida drug task force, which was making the cartel's delivery to Miami more difficult. Escobar then stated that Bush is a traitor who used to deal with us, but…”

Medellin Cartel supplied_arms_to Contras guest_asserted ▶ 57:28

“The guns were delivered and sold to the Contras in Nicaragua and to the cartels. Escobar, Rudd said, explained that it was a swap of cocaine for drugs or for guns. Rudd has stated that while Escobar d…”

Wanda Palacios trafficked Southern Air Transport documented ▶ 59:53

“who reported in 1986 that she had witnessed Southern Air Transport planes being loaded with cocaine and then loaded with guns in Colombia in 1983 and 1989. Palaos, the wife of a Colombian trafficker, …”

John Kerry exposed Wanda Palacios documented ▶ 1:00:22

“He told her that he was working with the CIA to get cocaine to South Florida. Polisios was interviewed in 1986 by the staff of Senator John Kerry, which was looking into the allegations of the Contra …”

William Wells covered_up Wanda Palacios documented ▶ 1:01:14

“I asked him why he was laughing. He said, this isn't the first time I've seen these allegations about CIA agents' involvement in drugs. He stated several times in reading Wanda's statement that while …”

Sandinistas carried_out_attack Southern Air Transport documented ▶ 1:02:13

“Out of the sky over Nicaragua in October 1986, the dead pilot's flight logs revealed that he had flown several Southern Air Transport flights from Colombia to the United States. The flights had occurr…”

Ronald Reagan framed Sandinistas documented ▶ 1:03:41

“Because again, they're trying to set up the Sandinistas in Nicaragua as drug dealers. Snap pictures of the men loading the cocaine onto his airplane so they could use those pictures to implicate Nicar…”

Oliver North framed Sandinistas documented ▶ 1:06:11

“It produced evidence suggesting that the whole episode had been staged by Oliver North and the CIA as a disinformation operation. Among other things, the House Judiciary Committee investigation reveal…”

Frederico Vaughn member_of Heroes and Martyrs Training Corporation documented ▶ 1:08:14

“Vaughn was a deputy director for Heroes and Martyrs Training Corporation, the official import-export agency, a firm that had been infiltrated by CIA operatives. Records show that one of the Costa Rica…”

Dagoberto Nunez spied_on Manuel Noriega documented ▶ 1:09:15

“According to a 1986 memo from CIA operative Rob Owen to North, Nunes was preparing to sign an agreement with the heroes and martyr for shrimping rights off the Pacific, another front company. Nunes is…”

United States government trafficked Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 1:16:09

“cocaine on. It didn't come from Nicaragua. It came from Colombia. And the president of the United States got on national news with a grainy photo saying, here's my proof. Nicaragua is trafficking drug…”

United States government framed Nicaragua host_asserted ▶ 1:16:40

“that they would try to frame it on the Nicaraguan government, who they hated because he got rid of their stooge called Somoza. That's the extent to which the U.S. government is corrupt. Well, sometime…”

Anastasio Somoza member_of United States government host_asserted ▶ 1:16:40