In essence, not only was the airport used to smuggle illegal drugs into the United States, but it was also a departure point for weapons used to arm the Contras in Nicaragua.". The DEA eventually took him up on his offer because of his knowledge and connections to the cartel. However, her real name is Debbie, not Lucy. Gov. Jacoby mentioned Seal's mission as evidence, which effectively outed Seal as a government agent. alan dershowitz cost per hour; what is pak po chicken; sonamukhi powder benefits; Arthur, the chief council, investigated the CIA and questioned Col. Oliver North, who is depicted in American Made. Cops and investigators surround Barry Seal's body in 1986. The gunman hurried into a waiting Buick, which sped away. It does seem, however, that Clinton was far less cautious. In 1986, Colombian hitmen caught up with Seal in Baton Rouge, shooting him to death in his white Cadillac. Question: Was Barry Seal's C-123K aircraft (serial number 54-File: Attachment Size; DOC_0001289717.pdf: 37.21 KB: . "Despite the availability of evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges, and over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, the cases were dropped," according to the report. He was unaware that a Colombian assassin was hiding behind one of the donation drop boxes. He is married to Lucy (Sarah Wright) and has two children with her, with a third on the way. Leveritt was reluctant at first, but soon warmed to the task and got to work. Patterson was being deposed in a legal suit filed against Buddy Young, the former head of Clintons security detail, and another man by Terry reed, who says he trained Contra pilots, under Seals supervision, at Nella, Arkansas. Two years later, he would be shot dead in Louisiana. : Then the plane dropped to what Brown calls an altitude a hell of a lot lower than what youd think youd fly. He suspected Seal was trying to evade radar. Seal's exploits brought him into close contact with infamous figures like Medelln cartel kingpins Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa and Panama dictator Manuel Noriega and he was . "It's my understanding that no drugs ever came to the airport," said Fred Ogden, the current airport manager. Young has since been made head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration in Denton, Texas. This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. Material from the Associated Press is Copyright 2023, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. After Barry spoiler . All rights reserved. He also referred to Clinton, familiarly, as the guv. He said parts of it could have been provided to people under previous information requests. Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal (July 16, 1939 - February 19, 1986) was an American commercial airline pilot who became a major drug smuggler for the Medelln Cartel.When Seal was convicted of smuggling charges, he became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and testified in several major drug trials. For a portion of this time, the alleged ringleader of the drug smuggling, Seal, appeared to have been working with the CIA and the Drug Enforcement Agency. "The estimated value of the narcotics smuggled through the facility is $3 [billion] to $5 billion. Leveritt had in-depth knowledge of the travails of investigators Duncan and Welch, and state and federal officials, in attempting to get to the truth about Mena. Still unknown at the time, the cartel would go on to make hundreds of millions from the explosion of cocaine use in the U.S. Barry Seal, who became known as "El Gordo" (The Fat Man), ended up being an integral part of that success. He carries it around and begins spending it, which attracts the attention of the local authorities. JB is fictional. Counterrevolutionaries, known as Contras, were battling the Sandinistas. Ochoa was arrested in Spain on a U.S. warrant, but due to pressure from the cartel was never extradited to the U.S. -Court Documents (STATE of Louisiana v. Miguel VELEZ, Bernardo Vasquez, and Luis Carlos Quintero-Cruz), Yes. Advertisement. var sc_invisible=1; The CIA does not talk about these things, and so Browns exact relationship with the agency may never be known. (NWA Media). He relocated to a small regional airport in Mena, Arkansas, which had a population of only 5,000. "The original information dates back to the activities of a pilot, Barry Seal (now deceased), who is purported to have flown guns to South America from Mena and drugs back into the United States," according to the memo. -Daily Mail Online, No. Her character in the American Made movie is much more aware and suspicious of her husband's activities, stating that she flat out doesn't trust him, which is the opposite of Seal's real-life wife. -The Independent, In the movie, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) starts working for the Medelln Cartel after they abduct him while he is refueling his plane and then make him an offer he can't refuse. After a barrage of requests from different people and media outlets under the federal Freedom of Information Act, on Wednesday the FBI released more than 1,000 pages of its file on Seal: vault.fbi.gov/recently-added. And the U.S. was covertly backing the Contras. File: Attachment Size; Documents and a surviving crew member tied the shipment to the CIA and the White House, dragging a Seal connection into the Iran-Contra affair. commission charbonneau liste de noms. ABC was also told that brown had failed a psychological test. Jeffrey Epstein: Predator, Spy plus FULL access to all newsletters. Watch an interview with the real Barry Seal where he discusses his undercover mission, and listen to President Ronald Reagan talk about the photos Seal obtained on the mission. Many of the more baroque allegations emerge from the fever swamps of conspiracy theorists, but certain facts are indisputable. In the years that followed his split from Clinton, Brown investigated white-collar crime for the Arkansas State Police. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use. No. CIA and DEA activities flowed out of Mena in the Clinton years. As stated in the previous question, there is no strong evidence to confirm that Barry Seal was working with the CIA prior to becoming an informant after his arrest in 1983. Tom Cruise got his pilot's license in 1994. Judicial Watch Sues Air Force Academy for Records about Critical Race Theor DOJ & FBI Target Biden Political Opponents, Judicial Watch Warns: Critical Race Theory Rising. Please read our Terms of Use or contact us. He took it out for a test flight and never came back." The book was killed at the last minute. Photograph: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP . Liman has referred to the film as "a fun lie based on a true story" (TIME). "The aircraft flew with various cameras used to obtain photographic evidence of the Sandinistas in the act of smuggling narcotics," Sherwood wrote. FBI agents in Miami wanted to know what Seal might have told people at Rich Mountain Aviation regarding his smuggling activities, according to the document. On one CIA-involved mission in 1984, a secret camera in Seals C-123 cargo plane snapped photos of an alleged Sandinista official loading cocaine aboard the aircraft. A month before that, the Southwest personnel representative for the CIA, Ken Cargile, in a letter to Brown, wrote that I am pleased to nominate you for employment with the Central Intelligence Agency. Another entry in Browns daybook indicates that he had met with another CIA representative only a few days before that. Brown says he never saw the bags again. One mission involved a C-123K cargo plane that was outfitted at the Mena airport. Welsh said it had not, but Youngs concern was intriguing. Judicial Watch, Inc. is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. On Watch: The #COVID19 Crisis on our Southern Border the Media ISN'T Coveri On Watch: Marxism & the Current Insurrection in America. Connor Hagan, a spokesman for the FBI in Little Rock, said the release of so much information into the FBI's public "vault" doesn't mean that the documents haven't previously been made public. Three Colombians eventually were arrested and convicted of the murder. -TIME. -The Independent, Not likely. Bush's anti-drug task force in hopes of convincing them of his value as an informant. Current Address: HERA E Avalon Dr, Phoenix, AZ. The CIAs inspector general investigated and released a terse statement saying no evidence has been found that the CIA was associated with money laundering, narcotics trafficking, arms smuggling or other illegal activities at or around Mena. There was, however, a classified two-week exercise and some contracting for routine aviation-related services.. Later, after Seal's cover was suspiciously blown, President Reagan used the photo shown below in a 1986 television address to the nation. About 25 pages of that trove refer to Arkansas or Mena. Lets hope that Cruises high-powered version of Seal prompts an equally high-powered demand for disclosure of all government records on him, especially after his move to Mena.. Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for Judicial Watch. He hands wads of cash to a kid on a bike, telling the boy, "You never saw me." The extent of Barry Seal's involvement with the CIA in the 1980s has provided fuel for speculation and conspiracy theories. It alleges, explicitly and implicitly, that an aircraft operated by a CIA front company in 1984 used the airfield at Mena, Arkansas, as a stating point for weapons supply flights to the Contras in Nicaragua; on the return flights from Honduras, the aircraft allegedly carried illegal narcotics to Mena. In his research for the book, the only confirmed connection Hahn could make between the CIA and Barry Seal was in 1984, after Seal had started working as an informant for the DEA. Why arent these pilots who flew trafficked minors arrested and charged? It must be noted now that Clintons efforts to distance himself from Mena have persisted for years. Yet, it's also certainly possible that Seal had no involvement with the CIA in the early 1980s at all, given there is nothing to support the claim but rumors. He suspected a CIA involvement, although his brother did not confirm it. Dr. Faucis "SHADY" Gain of Function Research! In February 1986, Seal was killed in a hail of machine-gun fire outside a Baton Rouge Salvation Army halfway house after allegedly crossing Pablo Escobar and the Medellin drug cartel. Yes. The assassination happened on February 19, 1986 in the parking lot in front of the Salvation Army building on Airline Highway (U.S. 61) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In his book, he uses case documents and first-person accounts to dispel this idea and other half-truths about Seal. "There are also allegations that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency used the airport as a base of operations to help train pilots and troops for the intervention in the Nicaraguan uprising by the Contras during the 1980s," according to the encyclopedia entry, which was written by Robert Sherwood of Georgia Military College. Tips: [emailprotected], Investigative Bulletin is published by Judicial Watch. No investigation was blocked.". -Daily Mail Online, No. In another deposition in the Reed case, Russell Welch, an Arkansas state police investigator who has looked extensively at Mena, says that Young asked him in 1992 if Clintons name had ever come up in connection with Mena. Subsequently, the special prosecutor investigating Whitewater subpoenaed Brown to disclose what he knew about Clintons connections to David L. Hale. Operative Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) approaches Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) and tells him, "We need you to deliver stuff for us." A Baton Rouge, Louisiana native, Barry Seal was eventually forced to move his drug smuggling operation after he drew the attention of Louisiana authorities. They also claimed that the pilot who died lacked the necessary experience for the flight. Asa Hutchinson was U.S. attorney for Arkansas' Western District in the early 1980s. The New York Times and "West 57th," a CBS television news show, were working on stories about CIA activities at the Mena airport, according to a 1987 FBI memo released last week. -Vulture.com, Yes. In 1981, Seal set up shop at Mena. Lisa Seal Frigon, Barry's daughter from his first marriage, sued Universal, claiming that the studio should have purchased Barry's life rights from her, not his third wife Deborah who they paid $350,000. Clinton had been asking him a similar question for months, ever since, with Clintons encouragement, he had applied for a job with the CIA. The mysteries of Mena revolve around a drug-smuggling pilot named Barry Seal. Seal made an estimated $60 million off smuggling drugs into the country and became one of the richest people in America. In the film, his abductors take him to a secret airstrip in the Colombian jungle where three businessmen, including Pablo Escobar, make him an offer he can't pass up. Using pilots like Barry Seal was a means to an end. Soon after, JB is killed by a car bomb. With the publication of The American Spectator article, we expect more. Under previous information requests no drugs ever came to the film as `` a fun based. At first, but Youngs concern was intriguing more baroque allegations emerge from the fever of... Plus FULL access to all newsletters a small regional airport in Mena, Arkansas, which attracts attention. A kid on a bike, telling the boy, `` You never saw me ''. It 's my understanding that no drugs ever came to the task got... Of cash to a kid on a true story '' ( TIME ) shot dead in Louisiana convicted of more! 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