CIA and Contras cocaine tracking in the US

In 1984, U.S. ocials began receiving reports of Contra cocaine tracking. Three ocials told journalists that they considered these reports reliable. Former
Panamanian deputy health minister Dr. Hugo Spadafora,
who had fought with the Contra army, outlined charges
of cocaine tracking to a prominent Panamanian ocial and was later found murdered. The charges linked
the Contra tracking to Sebastin Gonzlez Mendiola,
who was charged with cocaine tracking on November
26, 1984, in Costa Rica.[2]
In 1985, another Contra leader told U.S. authorities
that his group was being paid $50,000 by Colombian
trackers for help with a 100-kilo cocaine shipment
and that the money would go 'for the cause' of ghting the Nicaraguan government. A 1985 National Intelligence Estimate revealed cocaine tracking links to a
top commander working under Contra leader Edn Pastora.[2][3][4] Pastora had complained about such charges
as early as March 1985, claiming that two 'political gures in Washington told him last week that State Department and CIA personnel were spreading the rumor
that he is linked to drug tracking in order to isolate his
movement.[5]

Central Intelligence Agency

The involvement of the United States Central Intelligence

Agency (CIA) in cocaine tracking in Central America
during the Reagan Administration as part of the Contra
war in Nicaragua has been the subject of several ocial
and journalistic investigations since the mid-1980s.

On December 20, 1985, these and other charges were

laid out in an Associated Press article after an extensive investigation which included interviews with ocials from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),
Customs Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
and Costa Ricas Public Security Ministry, as well as
rebels and Americans who work with them. Five American Contra supporters who worked with the rebels conrmed the charges, noting that two Cuban-Americans
used armed rebel troops to guard cocaine at clandestine airelds in northern Costa Rica. They identied the
Cuban-Americans as members of Brigade 2506, an antiCastro group that participated in the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba. Several also said they supplied information
about the smuggling to U.S. investigators. One of the
1 Early reports
Americans said that in one ongoing operation, the cocaine is unloaded from planes at rebel airstrips and taken
"Once you set up a covert operation to supply arms and to an Atlantic coast port where it is concealed on shrimp
money, its very dicult to separate it from the kind of boats that are later unloaded in the Miami area.[2]
people who are involved in other forms of trade, and esOn March 16, 1986, the San Francisco Examiner pubpecially drugs. There is a limited number of planes, pilots
lished a report on the 1983 seizure of 430 pounds of
and landing strips. By developing a system for supply of
cocaine from a Colombian freighter in San Francisco
the Contras, the US built a road for drug supply into the
which indicated that a cocaine ring in the San FranUS."
cisco Bay area helped nance Nicaraguas Contra rebels.
Former CIA agent David MacMichael[1]
In 1986, the Reagan Administration acknowledged that
funds from cocaine smuggling helped fund the Contra
rebels, but stated that it was not authorized by the US
government or resistance leaders. The Kerry Committee
found that Contra drug links included payments to known
drug trackers by the U.S. State Department to carry out
humanitarian assistance to the Contras. A CIA internal
investigation found that agents had worked with drug trafckers to support the Contra program, but found no evidence of any conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring
drugs into the United States.

Carlos Cabezas, convicted of conspiracy to trac cocaine, said that the prots from his crimes belonged to
... the Contra revolution. He told the Examiner, I just
wanted to get the Communists out of my country. Julio
Zavala, also convicted on tracking charges, said that
he supplied $500,000 to two Costa Rican-based Contra
groups and that the majority of it came from cocaine trafcking in the San Francisco Bay area, Miami and New
Orleans.[6]

FBI probe

In April 1986, Associated Press reported on an FBI probe

into Contra cocaine tracking. According to the report,
Twelve American, Nicaraguan and Cuban-American
rebel backers interviewed by The Associated Press said
they had been questioned over the past several months
[about contra cocaine tracking] by the FBI. The interviews, some covering several days, were conducted
in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado and California, the Contra backers said. Several
of the backers told AP of rsthand knowledge of cocaine
tracking.[7]

Reagan Administration admits

Contra-cocaine connections

On April 17, 1986, the Reagan Administration released

a three-page report acknowledging that there were some
Contra-cocaine connections in 1984 and 1985, arguing
that these connections occurred at a time when the rebels
were particularly hard pressed for nancial support because U.S. aid had been cut o. The report admitted that
We have evidence of a limited number of incidents in
which known drug trackers have tried to establish connections with Nicaraguan resistance groups. The report
tried to downplay the drug activity, claiming that it took
place without the authorization of resistance leaders.[8]

Kerry Committee

Main article: Kerry Committee report

In 1986, Senator John Kerry and Senator Christopher
Dodd proposed a series of hearings at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding charges of Contra
involvement in drug tracking; the hearings were conducted by Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the
Republican Chairman of the Committee. The report of
the Committee, released on April 13, 1989, found that
Contra drug links included ... payments to drug trackers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by
the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras,

INVESTIGATION

in some cases after the trackers had been indicted by

federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while trackers were under active investigation by
these same agencies. The U.S. State Department paid
over $806,000 to known drug trackers to carry humanitarian assistance to the Contras.[9]

5 Gary Webb
Former DEA agent Celerino Castillo alleged that during
the 1980s, Ilopango Airport in El Salvador was used by
Contras for drug smuggling ights with the knowledge
and complicity of the CIA. These allegations were part
of an investigation by the United States Department of
Justice Oce of the Inspector General.[10] Castillo also
testied before the House Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence. Between 1996 and 1998 the Central Intelligence Agency investigated and then published a report about its alleged involvement in cocaine sales in the
US. This was prompted by the journalist Gary Webb's
report[11] in the San Jose Mercury News alleging that the
CIA was behind the 1980s crack epidemic. Gary Webb
alleged through his Dark Alliance series that the government had been complicit in the trade of drugs in the inner
city through the use of a kingpin named Freeway Ricky
Ross. According to the Oakland Tribune, In the course
of his rise, prosecutors estimate that Ross exported several tons of cocaine to New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania
and elsewhere, and made more than $600 million in the
process.[12][13][14]

6 Investigation
After the Gary Webb report in the Mercury News, the
CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz was assigned to
investigate these allegations in 1996. The CIA director
John Deutch pledged that Hitz would present his ndings in three months. But for almost a year and a half,
there was little news. Then on December 18, 1997, stories in the Washington Post and New York Times appeared,
stating that Hitz had found no direct or indirect links
between the CIA and cocaine trackers, despite the reporters never seeing the report. This story of no links between the CIA and cocaine trackers was quickly picked
up by the networks.[15]
Six weeks later, the new CIA director, George Tenet
declared that he was releasing the report. Tenet denied the Gary Webb allegations, which were reported
nationally.[15]

Contents of the report

The contents of the actual report were largely ignored by

the national media. In the 623rd paragraph, the report
described a cable from the CIAs Directorate of Operations dated October 22, 1982, describing a prospective
meeting between Contra leaders in Costa Rica for an exchange in [the United States] of narcotics for arms, which
then are shipped to Nicaragua.[16] The two main Contra groups, US arms dealers, and a lieutenant of a drug
ring which imported drugs from Latin America to the US
west coast were set to attend the Costa Rica meeting. The
lieutenant tracker was also a Contra, and the CIA knew
that there was an arms-for-drugs shuttle and did nothing
to stop it.[15]
The report stated that the CIA had requested the Justice
Department return $36,800 to a member of the Meneses
drug ring, which had been seized by DEA agents in the
Frogman raid in San Francisco. The CIAs Inspector
General said the Agency wanted the money returned to
protect an operational equity, i.e., a Contra support group
in which it [CIA] had an operational interest.[15]

did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut o relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged
to have engaged in drug tracking activity or
take action to resolve the allegations.[17][18]
Hitz also said that under an agreement in 1982 between
Ronald Reagan's Attorney General William French Smith
and the CIA, agency ocers were not required to report
allegations of drug tracking involving non-employees,
dened as paid and non-paid assetspilots who ferried supplies to the contras, as well as contra ocials and
others.[17][18]
This agreement, which had not previously been revealed,
came at a time when there were allegations that the CIA
was using drug dealers in its controversial covert operation to bring down the leftist Sandinista government in
Nicaragua.[18] Only after Congressional funds were restored in 1986 was the agreement modied to require the
CIA to stop paying agents whom it believed were involved
in the drug trade.[15]

9 See also
8

Testimony of the CIA Inspector

General

Six weeks after the declassied and heavily censored report was made public, Inspector General Hitz testied
before a House congressional committee.[15] Hitz stated
that:
Volume II ... will be devoted to a detailed
treatment of what was known to CIA regarding dozens of people and a number of companies connected in some fashion to the Contra program or the Contra movement that were
the subject of any sort of drug tracking allegations. Each is closely examined in terms of
their relationship with CIA, the drug tracking activity that was alleged, the actions CIA
took in response to the allegations, and the extent of information concerning the allegations
that was Shared with U.S. law enforcement and
Congress.
As I said earlier, we have found no evidence in
the course of this lengthy investigation of any
conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring
drugs into the United States. However, during the Contra era, CIA worked with a variety of people to support the Contra program.
These included CIA assets, pilots who ferried
supplies to the Contras, as well as Contra ocials and others. Let me be frank about what
we are nding. There are instances where CIA

Allegations of CIA drug tracking

Kerry Committee report
Project MKULTRA
Iran-Contra Aair
War on Drugs
Coca

10 References
[1] John Licheld and Tim Cornwell, "'America has fought
the wrong war': Did US policy in central America in the
1980s assist the growth of the Colombian cocaine cartels?" The Independent (26 August 1989) p. 8.
[2] Brian Barger and Robert Parry, Reports Link Nicaraguan
Rebels to Cocaine Tracking, Associated Press (December 20, 1985).
[3] Scott, Peter Dale & Marshall, Jonathan (1998). Cocaine
politics: drugs, armies, and the CIA in Central America.
University of California Press. pp. 89. ISBN 978-0520-21449-1.
[4] Marcy, William L. (2010). The politics of cocaine: how
U.S. policy has created a thriving drug industry in Central
and South America. Chicago Review Press. pp. 108109.
ISBN 978-1-55652-949-8.
[5] John E. Newhagen, Commander Zero blasts CIA, State
Department, United Press International (March 25,
1985).

11 FURTHER READING

[6] Report: Cocaine Ring Finances Contras, Associated

Press (March 16, 1986).
[7] Brian Bargar and Robert Parry, FBI Reportedly Probes
Contras on Drugs, Guns, Associated Press (April 10,
1986).
[8] U.S. Concedes Contras Linked to Drugs, But Denies
Leadership Involved, Associated Press (17 April 1986).
[9] Narcotics trackers and the Contras. www.pinkznoiz.
com. Retrieved 2007-03-04.
[10] THE CIA-CONTRA-CRACK COCAINE CONTROVERSY: A REVIEW OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS INVESTIGATIONS AND PROSECUTIONS. pp. Chapter X. Retrieved 2007-07-05.
[11] Restored version of the original Dark Alliance web
page, San Jose Mercury News, now hosted by The Narco
News Bulletin
[12] Oakland Tribune
[13] Cohen, Je (2004-12-13). R.I.P. Gary Webb -- Unembedded Reporter. CommonDreams.org. Retrieved 200703-04.
[14] The return of Freeway Ricky Ross, the man behind
a crack empire. www.contracostatimes.com. Retrieved
2011-06-05.
[15] Cockburn, Alexander; Jerey St Clair (October 1, 1999).
Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press. Versos. ISBN
1-85984-258-5.
[16] Central Intelligence Agency Inspector General Report
of Investigation Allegations of Connections Between
CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Tracking to the United
States (96-0143-IG) Volume II: The Contra Story.
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/
cocaine/contra-story/contents.html''. Central Intelligence
Agency. October 8, 1998. Retrieved January 13, 2008.
[17] Frederick P. Hitz (March 16, 1998). Prepared Statement
of Frederick P. Hitz inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency Before The House Committee On Intelligence subject - Investigation Of allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras In Drug Tracking
to the United States. Federal News Service. Retrieved
April 22, 2006.
[18] Pincus, Walter (March 17, 1998). Inspector: CIA Kept
Ties With Alleged Trackers. The Washington Post:
A12.

11

Further reading

McCoy, Alfred W. (2003). The Politics of Heroin:

CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. Lawrence
Hill Books. ISBN 1-55652-483-8.
Schou, Nick (2006). Kill the messenger: how the
CIAs crack-cocaine controversy destroyed journalist Gary Webb. Nation Books. ISBN 978-1-56025930-5.

Scott, Peter Dale (1998). Cocaine Politics : Drugs,

Armies, and the CIA in Central America. University
of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21449-8.
Webb, Gary (1998). Dark Alliance: The CIA, The
Contras, And The Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven
Stories Press. ISBN 1-888363-68-1.

12
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