He was unaware that a Colombian assassin was hiding behind one of the donation drop boxes. Msg&data rates may apply. Barry emerges from the plane covered in cocaine. They married in 1974. 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. While there, he had a chance meeting with Jorge Ochoa's New Orleans business manager. In 1986, Colombian hitmen caught up with Seal in Baton Rouge, shooting him to death in his white Cadillac. Barry Seal was an American-born Trans World Airlines pilot who . The man said that despite the incident, he was still very fond of Barry. Yet she pressed on with her writing and finished the book. The state really had next to nothing to do with it. "The aircraft flew with various cameras used to obtain photographic evidence of the Sandinistas in the act of smuggling narcotics," Sherwood wrote. An interesting fact we learned while researching the true story was that while training for the Civil Air Patrol in Baton Rouge, Barry Seal met President John F. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. And the U.S. was covertly backing the Contras. When ABC News interviewed Brown in the fall of 1994, the White House tried to malign him. Indeed, Clinton had taken an active role in helping Brown. According to a 1988 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, Seal's associates at the Mena airport were also being investigated. Dwayne Brown says his brother seemed terribly upset, and that he immediately drove over to the Governors Mansion to meet him. About 25 pages of that trove refer to Arkansas or Mena. Purwin was a passenger in a plane that went down, killing both Purwin and Venezuelan pilot Carlos Berl. "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. "Prior to his death, Seal admitted to smuggling large quantities of cocaine from South America (Columbia) to United States and testified before Senate investigative committee," according to the FBI memo, which referred to a telephone call between agents in Little Rock and Miami. They shared an interest in books, ideas, and night life. By 1983, his earnings totaled $60 million, making him one of the wealthiest people in America. Yes. -TIME, As a drug smuggler for Colombia's Medelln Cartel, Barry Seal earned as much as $500,000 per flight smuggling cocaine into the United States. As early as 1982, his firm had been censured by the Arkansas security commissioner for cheating customers. The man who made Baton Rouge headlines in the mid-1980s for the machine-gun killing of drug informant Adler "Barry" Seal died in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola on Aug. 25, Louisiana. Brown and the co-pilot, who never exchanged any more than a few words, remained on board. In another deposition in the case, John Bender, a mechanic, says he saw Clinton at Mena three times in the summer of 1985. Eight months later, Seals C-123 was shot down over Nicaragua with a load of ammunition and supplies for the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels. It would later be serviced and financed by Southern Air Transport, a CIA front company, and it was eventually shot down over Nicaragua in a doomed supply effort to the Contras that left an American, Eugene Hasenfus, a prisoner of the Sandinistas and the CIA link to the Contras revealed. Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for Judicial Watch. . He is married to Lucy (Sarah Wright) and has two children with her, with a third on the way. Over a quarter of a century ago, George H.W. When asked how, he replied, "Oh, Barry stole an airplane from me. 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. Even before he graduated from Baton Rouge High School in 1957, Seal had already earned his private pilot's wings. 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. He then, he says, signed a secrecy agreement, and was told he would be contacted further. var sc_click_stat=1; Rayburn House Office Building, Chairman James Leach (R-IA), Committee on Banking and Financial Services, and staffer . When Wattenberg reported this, an angry Tucker retaliated against Brown by demoting him from white-collar investigations to highway patrol. It was originally an Air Force transport plane Seal dubbed it the Fat Lady. Gov. And ABC producer told me at the time that Brown is telling the truth. Then both men got into the front set of the car, and Seal reached into the duffel bag, and pulled out a manila envelope with $2,500 in it. The Louisiana attorney general would tell the Justice Department that Seal had smuggled between $3 billion and $5 billion in drugs into the U.S.. "I trusted him so I didn't ask questions," says Debbie. Seal's Drug Enforcement Administration file also supports this, noting that he was smuggling marijuana as early as 1976, then adding cocaine to his resume in 1978. But twenty-three years later, Judicial Watch says it is time for answers. He said parts of it could have been provided to people under previous information requests. Copyright 2023, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. An index was completed and the book was listed in the University of Arkansas Press catalog. File: Attachment Size; Approximately 30 minutes later, Brown says, the C-123K landed in what he later learned what Tegucigalpa, Honduras. -Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal, Yes. The pilot of the plane was Barry Seal, a legendary drug trafficker. In the 1980s, the Mena airport was the reported base of a drug-smuggling, money-laundering and arms-smuggling ring run by Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal, according to an Encyclopedia of Arkansas . 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. how to cut cod for fish sticks; air force epr future roles listvasant panchami 2021 for marriage. What is certain is that Barry Seal did work for Pablo Escobar and the Ochoas as a drug smuggler for the Medelln Cartel and single-handedly had one of the largest impacts on the cocaine epidemic in the U.S. in the early 1980s. Concurrently, they had to make sure not to raise the suspicions of the ruthless Colombian drug lords. In its review of the 2017 movie "American Made" -- about Seal -- the New York Times called it the Conspiratorial Industrial Complex. Steal $20 Mil in U.S. COVID Relief Funds. View Alex Mena results in Phoenix, AZ including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. Last March, in a legally binding deposition, trooper Larry Patterson also said that Clinton knew about Mena. commission charbonneau liste de noms. Frigon, who says she administers Seal's estate, contends the estate did not consent. Buddy Young that little beady-faced fellow, and said he was with Clinton at Mena. The is the latest repackaging of allegations previously made by the Wall Street Journal. But Brown says he is lying. Meanwhile, Brown says, he confronted Clinton, asking him if he knew that Seal was dealing in drugs and unreported currency. No. When he was deposed, Bender was shown a photograph of Buddy Young. A 1983 document in the recently released trove referred to a telephone conversation between the FBI and Polk County Sheriff A.L. As author Del Hahn states in his book about Barry Seal's life, Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal, there is no evidence to support claims that Barry Seal worked for the CIA. All were wearing jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers. Welsh said it had not, but Youngs concern was intriguing. 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. It was dark almost black, and had only the minimal tail markings necessary for civilian operation. That aspect of who he was has never been disputed. At this juncture, no one, including Brown, can say precisely what Clinton was doing at Mena. Yes. Hadaway. -Daily Mail Online, "Mena" refers to the small town in Arkansas where Barry Seal moved his operation, smuggling in drugs to a clandestine airfield under the nose of then-Governor Bill Clinton. You can trust him, but the network apparently yielded to White House pressure. In the least, his exploits with the CIA and agent Monty Schafer in the movie are largely fictional and based on speculation. Clinton appeared to have pressured Hale, the head of an Arkansas lending agency, into making loans to Susan McDougal, the Clintons Whitewater real estate partner. In fact, even the Wikipedia links Ive included in this paragraph are mostly lies. So last month, we filed a lawsuit seeking a long-hidden report by the CIA inspector general into events at Mena. As part of his reduced sentence, the judge had ordered Barry to spend his nights, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., at a Salvation Army halfway house for six months. "He thought we had more time. "I resigned from the office in November of 1985, and my successor took over the investigation. At the time Seals flights took place, Lasater was contributing to Clintons political campaigns. Brown still has books that Clinton gave him, one being a bar exam study book in which the politician had made some ironic under-linings. Question: Was Barry Seal's C-123K aircraft (serial number 54-File: Attachment Size; DOC_0001289717.pdf: 37.21 KB: . Hagan said he didn't know how many pages of material on Seal have yet to be made public by the FBI. Judicial Watch is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. In February 1986, Seal was killed outside . In the 1980s, the Mena airport was the reported base of a drug-smuggling, money-laundering and arms-smuggling ring run by Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal, according to an Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry on the airport. "The information indicates that Seal was an informant for DEA at the time but also working as an operative of the CIA. -Daily Mail Online. Two years later, he would be shot dead in Louisiana. In real life, his first encounter with the Medelln Cartel happened less dramatically. A C-123K cargo plane, like this one, was out tted at the Mena airport and ew with various cameras to obtain photographic evi- dence of the Sandinistas in the act of smuggling narcotics, according to an entry in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette file photo). 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. Suddenly, though, the Arkansas State Police were uncooperative. Tom Cruise is set to play murdered DEA informant Barry Seal in Doug Liman's film Mena. Bush's anti-drug task force in hopes of convincing them of his value as an informant. He concluded by saying that Mena was a federal, not a state, matter. One mission involved a C-123K cargo plane that was outfitted at the Mena airport. Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. "The apparent reason was that the prosecution might have revealed national security information, even though all of the crimes which were the focus of the investigation occurred before Seal became a federal informant.". Lasater went to jail for a cocaine connection, as did his friend, Roger Clinton, Bill Clintons brother. He says that Clinton arrived in a Beech aircraft, and was still there when he left for the day. As soon as those searches are complete, we hope to have a crisp statement that distances us from the allegations if the Agencys IGs look into them does not constrain us from doing so. Seal, according to Brown, was familiar with the biographical information he had given the agency. In 1961, he joined the Louisiana Army National Guard and served with the 20th Special Forces Group for six years. Email Address: v EVIO @gmail.com +2 emails. "In other words, the charges of drug smuggling and money laundering were not enough to warrant the release of information about the use of the airport in the Iran-Contra Affair," wrote Sherwood for the Arkansas encyclopedia. In other words: nothing to see here, move on. While the filmmakers were shooting the movie in South America, a local pilot who was working with them said that he had met Barry. "According to some reports, the [Mena] airport, from 1981 to 1985, was a major transit point for the entrance of cocaine and heroin into the United States," Sherwood wrote. Many of the more baroque allegations emerge from the fever swamps of conspiracy theorists, but certain facts are indisputable. His cooperation led to many convictions, as well as indictments against Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa, two of the founding members of the Medelln Cartel. 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.". Seal, he says, laughed, and told Brown that all he had wanted him to do was sit back for the ride. Then he gave Brown an envelope with $2,500 in cash not marked money, not banded money, just twenties, fifties, mostly twenties, used money, like you just went out and spent.. 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. More than 1.2 million registrants have been removed from the voter rolls in Los Angeles County, California, since 2022 as part of a settlement agreement with Judici Al Qaeda Plans Plane Attacks Using New Techniques and Tactics as Air Mars Hackers Tied to Chinas Govt. When asked who his source was, Jacoby implied that it was "an aide in the White House" and that Oliver North had the most motivation to release the information. MENA NOIR: Aircraft pilot Barry Seal, a Baton Rouge native who smuggled drugs into the U.S. for the Medellin Cartel during the 1980s, used this airport in Me. "I can state absolutely that Oliver North had nothing to do with my story as far as I knew, or as far as I know today," said Jacoby. The movie's title was changed to put less emphasis on the Arkansas connection, including the possibility that Bill Clinton was aware of what was going on. Leveritt has written convincing book-length studies of the Memphis Three case and the deaths of teenagers Don Henry and Kevin Ives, the Arkansas boys on the tracks. In Whos Afraid of Barry Seal?, in the Arkansas Times, Leveritt wrote that secrets are still being carefully kept, especially in Arkansas. In advance of the recent Tom Cruise movie about Seal, American Made, an official associated with the Arkansas Studies Institute, an affiliate of the University of Arkansas and the Central Arkansas Libraryboth state institutionsconvinced Leveritt to write a book about Mena, as a tie-in to the movie. The movie proposes that Barry Seal's first foray into smuggling drugs happened in 1980 after he was kidnapped while refueling his plane in Colombia. He was also providing Clinton with the use of a private airplane, and entertaining him at various places, including his New Mexico resort, Angel Fire. 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 . Other photos like the one below show Federico Vaughan (center, striped shirt), a man that Seal claimed was a top aide of Tomas Borge, the Sandinista Minister of the Interior. Brown? Brown says Seal told him theres good money to be had. But Brown, says he was out of that game for good. : 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. One mission involved a C-123K cargo plane that was outfitted at the Mena airport. Then, he says, they regained altitude, by then they descended again, and thats when these two crazy bastards got these palettes and roll them out on casters. Parachutes opened from the palettes. And for thirty years, every attempt to get to the bottom of events at Menafederal, state, judicial, journalistichas failed. He later claimed to have made as much as $50 million running 1,000 pounds of cocaine a month from Colombia. AboutPressCopyrightContact. Hahn was part of the task force that pursued Seal in the 1980s. These are the equivalent of Barry Seal in the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell covert operation. attorney.". 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. The Louisiana attorney general would tell the Justice Department that Seal had "smuggled between $3 billion and $5 billion in drugs into the U.S." He hands wads of cash to a kid on a bike, telling the boy, "You never saw me." He also referred to Clinton, familiarly, as the guv. Subsequently, the special prosecutor investigating Whitewater subpoenaed Brown to disclose what he knew about Clintons connections to David L. Hale. I never saw drugs, that's for sure." Officials at the Arkansas Studies Institute suggested their concerns were legal and financial, associated with vetting the book, but Leveritt wasnt buying it. Photograph: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP . var sc_invisible=1; In the 2017 Doug Liman-directed movie "American Made," which was previously titled "Mena," Deborah DuBois, the third wife of Barry Seal, was portrayed by the character Lucy. "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. 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.. After being caught in Honduras with 40 kilograms of cocaine in 1979, Barry spent nine months in a Honduran jail. "The estimated value of the narcotics smuggled through the facility is $3 [billion] to $5 billion. The American Made true story confirms that the real Barry Seal and his wife Debbie had three children (Aaron, Dean and Christina). Yes. But there were still questions regarding the Mena airport and people who worked there, according to the FBI memo. This doesn't add up with the true story. They also claimed that the pilot who died lacked the necessary experience for the flight. 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Says that Clinton knew about Mena died lacked the necessary experience for the ride,. Other words: nothing to do was sit back for the flight lawsuit a... Was contributing to Clintons political campaigns an active role in helping Brown, ideas, and was still fond. With Seal in the University of Arkansas Press catalog James Leach ( R-IA ), Committee on and! Friend, Roger Clinton, familiarly, as did his friend, Roger Clinton, Clintons... He later claimed to have made as much as $ 50 million running pounds.
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