"I have put thousands of Americans away for tens of thousands of years for less evidence for conspiracy with less evidence than is available against Ollie North and CIA people. . . . I personally was involved in a deep-cover case that went to the top of the drug world in three countries. The CIA killed it."
The CIA and Cocaine: Some Quotes Posted to the CIADRUGS List, 1996-07-02 — Former DEA Agent Michael Levine
CNBC-TV, October 8, 1996
"The connections piled up quickly. Contra planes flew north to the U.S., loaded with cocaine, then returned laden with cash. All under the protective umbrella of the United States Government. My informants were perfectly placed: one worked with the Contra pilots at their base, while another moved easily among the Salvadoran military officials who protected the resupply operation. They fed me the names of Contra pilots. Again and again, those names showed up in the DEA database as documented drug traffickers.
"When I pursued the case, my superiors quietly and firmly advised me to move on to other investigations."
Former DEA Agent Celerino Castillo
Powder Burns, 1992
"The Subcommittee found that the Contra drug links included:
- Involvement in narcotics trafficking by individuals associated with the Contra movement.
- Participation of narcotics traffickers in Contra supply operations through business relationships with Contra organizations.
- Provision of assistance to the Contras by narcotics traffickers, including cash, weapons, planes, pilots, air supply services and other materials, on a voluntary basis by the traffickers.
- Payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies."
Senate Committee Report on Drugs,
Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy
chaired by Senator John F. Kerry
"I really take great exception to the fact that 1,000 kilos came in, funded by U.S. taxpayer money." — DEA official Anabelle Grimm, during a 1993 interview on a CBS-TV "60 Minutes" segment entitled "The CIA's Cocaine." The 1991 CIA drug-smuggling event Ms. Grimm described was later found to be much larger. A Florida grand jury and the Wall Street Journal reported it to involve as much as 22 tons.
The smuggling of tons of cocaine into the US by the CIA has thus (in 2001) been common knowledge for at least eight years, despite the billions of dollars spent by the U.S. government allegedly to combat the import of addictive drugs. What is going on here? Is it possible that the U.S. government wants to keep addictive drugs illegal so that street prices remain high — so as to maximize the profits from its covert trafficking in these drugs?
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