The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been involved in several drug trafficking operations. Often, the CIA worked with groups which it knew were involved in drug trafficking, so that these groups would provide them with useful intelligence and material support, in exchange for allowing their criminal activities to continue[1], and impeding or preventing their arrest, indictment, and imprisonment by U.S. law enforcement agencies[2].
CIA and Kuomintang (KMT) opium smuggling operations[]
In order to provide covert funds for the Kuomintang (KMT) forces loyal to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, who were fighting the Chinese communists under Mao, the CIA helped the KMT smuggle opium from China and Burma to Bangkok, Thailand, by providing airplanes owned by one of their front businesses, Air America.[3][4]
Soviet Afghanistan[]
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The CIA supported various Afghan drug lords, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who were fighting against the Soviets[5].
Historian Alfred W. McCoy stated that:[6] Template:Quote
Iran Contra Affair[]
- Main article: CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US
Released on April 13, 1989, the Kerry Committee report concluded that members of the U.S. State Department "who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking...and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers."
In 1996 Gary Webb wrote a series of articles published in the San Jose Mercury News, which investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had smuggled cocaine into the U.S. which was then distributed as crack cocaine into Los Angeles and funneled profits to the Contras. The CIA was aware of the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S. by the Contra personnel and directly aided drug dealers to raise money for the Contras.
In 1996 CIA Director John M. Deutch went to Los Angeles to attempt to refute the allegations raised by the Gary Webb articles, and was famously confronted by former LAPD officer Michael Ruppert, who testified that he had witnessed it occurring.[7]
Venezuelan National Guard Affair[]
Template:See also The CIA - in spite of objections from the Drug Enforcement Administration, allowed at least one ton of nearly pure cocaine to be shipped into Miami International Airport. The CIA claimed to have done this as a way of gathering information about Colombian drug cartels. But the cocaine ended up being sold on the street[8].
In November 1996 a Miami jury indicted former Venezuelan anti-narcotics chief and longtime CIA asset, General Ramon Guillen Davila, who was smuggling many tons of cocaine into the United States from a Venezuelan warehouse owned by the CIA. In his trial defense, Guillen claimed that all of his drug smuggling operations were approved by the CIA[9].
Haiti[]
According to unnamed sources in the mid 1980s, the CIA created a unit in Haiti, whose purported purpose was anti-drug activity, but was in reality "used as an instrument of political terror", and was heavily involved in drug trafficking. The members of the unit were known to torture Aristide supporters, and threatened to kill the local head of the DEA. According to one U.S. official, the unit was trafficking drugs and never produced any useful drug intelligence[10].
Panama[]
The U.S. military invasion of Panama in 1989 destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure and took many lives, but it failed to capture Manuel Noriega
In 1989, the United States invaded Panama as part of Operation Just Cause, which involved 25,000 American troops. Gen. Manuel Noriega, head of government of Panama, had been giving military assistance to Contra groups in Nicaragua at the request of the U.S.—which, in exchange, allowed him to continue his drug-trafficking activities—which they had known about since the 1960s.[11][12] When the DEA tried to indict Noriega in 1971, the CIA prevented them from doing so.[11] The CIA, which was then directed by future president George H. W. Bush, provided Noriega with hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as payment for his work in Latin America.[11] However, when CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinistas, documents aboard the plane revealed many of the CIA's activities in Latin America, and the CIA's connections with Noriega became a public relations "liability" for the U.S. government, which finally allowed the DEA to indict him for drug trafficking, after decades of allowing his drug operations to proceed unchecked.[11] Operation Just Cause, whose ostensible purpose was to capture Noriega, killed numerous Panamanian civilians, but failed to capture Noriega, who found asylum with the Papal Nuncio, and later surrendered to U.S. authorities in Miami, where he was sentenced to 45 years in prison.[11]
Other operations[]
In the 1990s, the CIA and DEA were involved in a drug smuggling operation with Lebanese and Syrian drug traffickers, which used Pan Am aircraft to smuggle opium out of Frankfurt, Germany[13] Sandro Bit, from well reknown internet based comunity MontrealRacing.com, alleges the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been involved in several drug trafficking operations. The CIA is accused of working with groups which it knew were involved in drug trafficking, so that these groups would provide them with useful intelligence and material support.
See also[]
- War on Drugs
- United States and state terrorism
- MKULTRA
- Air America
- War crimes committed by the United States
- Human experimentation in the United States
References[]
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- ↑ 9 November 1991 interview with Alfred McCoy, by Paul DeRienzo
- ↑ p. 385 of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, by McCoy, with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard P. Adams II, 2003, ISBN 1-55652-483-8
- ↑ "Crack the CIA" , winner of the 2003 Sundance Online Film Festival
- ↑ New York Times Service, "Venezuelan general who led CIA program indicted," Dallas Morning News (26 November 1996) p. 6A.
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Further reading[]
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External links[]
- NarcoNews: U.S. Cocaine-Plane Invasion Spooking Latin America
- Chip Tatum - Assassin For The Whitehouse
- The CIA - America's Premier International Terrorist Organization
- CIA Drugs - Defrauding America
- Consortium News - CIA Admits Tolerating Contra- Cocaine Trafficking in 1980s - 08/06/00
- Frontline: Guns, Drugs, and the CIA
- North Coast Express - CIA Covert Actions and Drug Trafficking
- Rational Revolution - The CIA Drug connection under Reagan
- Salon.com - Genocide, and drug-trafficking too - 05/03/99
- San Francisco Chronicle - What Will Congress Do About New CIA-Drug Revelations? - 19/06/00
- Third World Traveller - CIA's Drug Confession - 15/10/98
- Third World Traveller - Drug Fallout - August 97
- We The People - CIA Drugs
- Drugging America: A Trojan Horse
- Drug: Afghanistan’s Silent Enemy
- Vietnam medicine
Template:Central Intelligence Agency
it:CIA e traffico di droga pt:Tráfico de drogas pela CIA