An "extensive joint investigation" by the FBI, Arkansas State Police and IRS revealed that Barry Seal used the Mena airport for "smuggling activity" from late 1980 until March 1984, according to . The case against the cartel had been engineered by Barry Seal, a convicted drug dealer turned informant who worked closely with Vice President George Bush's anti-drug task force in Washington. [66][67] Hawkins told Frontline that neither she nor her staff leaked the information after the briefing. While the filmmakers were shooting the movie in South America, a local pilot who was working with them said that he had met Barry. TwitterBarry Seal, the drug smuggler-turned-DEA informant who helped take down Pablo Escobar. [8], In 1981, Seal began smuggling cocaine for the Medelln Cartel. Do your research about it, link the dots, because Democrats were defending the Sandinistas, while they smeared the Contras and the Reagan administration, who they were fighting to prevent the US and USSR from getting the IMD treaty nuclear weapons treaty from being signed. In the American Made movie, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) crash lands a plane in a suburban neighborhood in an effort to escape the DEA who ordered him to land. She is a brunette, not a blond like Sarah Wright's character in the movie. In yet another conspiracy-stoking morsel, the C-123 used by Seal was the same one later piloted by Eugene Hasenfus when he was shot down over Nicaragua while piloting illegal U.S. arms shipments . Bush's anti-drug task force in hopes of convincing them of his value as an informant. [66] Jacoby later denied that North was the source of his story and attributed it to a deceased staff member for Representative Dan Daniel. Overall, though, the film captures just how incredible Seals life really was. -Daily Mail Online, No. -Daily Mail Online, No. Please consider donating. This leads to the CIA recruiting him to take reconnaissance photos in Central America. But the 1984 investigation got derailed when Seal told his handlers that cocaine was being trans-shipped through Nicaragua with the permission of high-level government officials. Watch President Ronald Reagan's address to the nation on Nicaragua and Central America, delivered from the Oval Office on November 13, 1986. 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. Barry Seal liked to use pay phones. "I helped rig that camera on the 123." (The C-123 "Fat Lady" was the aircraft Seal used on a government-sanctioned drug run to Nicaragua.) [25] The drugs were unloaded by the military and Seal and his co-pilot were taken to detention in downtown Managua, where they were released to the cartel's Nicaraguan contact, Federico Vaughan. The life of the most important witness in the history of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had come to a brutal end. Yes. Daniel Rennie is a freelance writer residing in Melbourne, Australia. However, the film takes certain liberties in regard to Seals life as well. In total, he had illegally imported $3 to $5 billion worth of drugs and an estimated 56 tons of cocaine into the U.S., making over 100 flights. The DEA eventually took him up on his offer because of his knowledge and connections to the cartel. The office referred Seal to DEA headquarters, which assigned DEA agent Ernst Jacobsen to debrief Seal and evaluate his potential as an informant. No. On Feb. 19, 1986, three Colombian hitmen that had been hired by the Medelln cartel tracked Seal down at the Salvation Army. Filed under: Covert Operations, Drugs, Extra! He then was able to get a meeting with Vice President George H.W. [65] In an interview with Frontline, North said he was told by his superiors on the National Security Council to brief Senator Paula Hawkins about the operation, but he denied leaking the report. Barry Seal was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the son of Mary Lou (ne Delcambre) and Benjamin Curtis Seal, a candy wholesaler. The Nevada aviator killed when a cargo plane was shot down in Nicaragua last weekend served as one of the CIA's chief pilots in . According to Del Hahn's book Smuggler's End, Barry Seal was not chummy with the cartel bosses. November 15, 2017. The photo was taken in Mexico when he was 24. . The box housing the camera was supposed to be soundproof, but when he took the first picture, it was loud enough for everyone to hear. In April 1981, a DEA informant introduced Seal to an undercover DEA agent. On his return to the U.S., Seal landed at Homestead Air Force Base and the drugs were transferred into a Winnebago camper, which Seal turned over to his Colombian contact. [23], These arrangements were not yet complete, so Seal's first shipment was to be a direct flight to the U.S. That last statement was quite the understatement. The pickup went as planned this time, and the cameras successfully photographed Seal and several Nicaraguan soldiers loading cocaine, aided by Pablo Escobar, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha (another important cartel member), and Federico Vaughan. Before returning to Nicaragua, the DEA arranged for CIA technicians to install hidden cameras inside the plane. WASHINGTON . The case against the cartel had been engineered by Barry Seal, a convicted drug dealer turned informant who worked closely with Vice President George Bushs anti-drug task force in Washington. In reality, there is no evidence that Seal was ever involved with the CIA. 1986, President Ronald Reagan showed one of the photos Seal had taken of Pablo Escobar and Nicaraguan government official Federico Vaughan loading cocaine onto Seal's C-123 cargo plane, The Fat Lady. At the beginning of the movie, the fictionalized Seal gets bored on his daily flights with Trans World Airlines and begins performing daredevil stunts with passengers onboard. Donate today to be a part of this important mission. [10][11] By 1982, Seal was using over a dozen aircraft in his smuggling operation. Vasquez was identified as the purchaser of the halfway house vehicle by the car agency salesman and paid for hotel rooms and rental cars using his name. Just prior to the movie's release, news broke that the family of deceased stunt pilot Alan Purwin was suing American Made's producers for wrongful death. Mermelstein, who had told the DEA of the murder contract after his arrest in 1985, testified that Ochoa, Escobar, and Cardona had asked him to take the contract and provided him with money and weapons to do the job. Their operation proved so successful that Seal was at one time considered the biggest drug smuggler in Louisiana state. In court documents, the family alleged that "lapses in planning, coordinating, scheduling, and flight safety" contributed to the fatal crash in the mountains of Colombia. [19] Seal then pleaded guilty to the second indictment in Florida and was released with his sentence to depend on his performance as an informant. However, the U.S. needed a way to covertly get the funds and weapons to the rebels. . Seal used his knowledge of aviation to aid in his life of crime. Barry Seal (July 16, 1939 - February 19, 1986), was a drug smuggler and aircraft pilot who flew covert flights for the FBI, . Also, view a news story about Barry Seal's death. Also, before the agreement was reached, the Louisiana task force investigation had been looking into Seal's involvement in smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine. They agreed to a sentence for Seal's Louisiana activities no greater than the sentence he received for his Florida smuggling, with both sentences to run concurrently. While there, he had a chance meeting with Jorge Ochoa's New Orleans business manager. [36], The evidence acquired from the arrest, plus the evidence gathered by Seal, provided the basis for the first drug trafficking indictment in the U.S. against Escobar and the Ochoas. After several months of contacts, the agent negotiated a deal with Seal to smuggle 1,200 pounds of methaqualone tablets into the United States (the tablets were counterfeits, made of chalk). But before he died, the photographs he captured made Pablo Escobar a wanted criminal and ultimately played an important part in the drug kingpins downfall in 1993. -TIME. [26], In Managua, Seal met again with Pablo Escobar, who was setting up a cocaine lab for production. Barry Seal (Photo: Facebook) . The DEA had been onto him for a long time. Domhnall Gleeson, right, stars in director Doug Liman's crime drama 'American Made,' based loosely on the story of Baton Rouge native Barry Seal, a pilot-turned-smugger-turned-federal-informant. During Bill Clinton's campaign to become president of the United States in 1992, his biggest financial contributor was a billionaire businessman named Jackson Stevens. Also, Mr. Seal, who also went by the name Bill Elders as well as variations of his real name, "testifies he made 6 or 7 hundred thousand dollars in trafficking drugs after he went to work for . After a discussion about how to move the increased flow of cocaine, Escobar decided to keep the first shipment in Nicaragua and have Seal return to the States and buy a larger plane. [4], Seal admitted that he started smuggling small amounts of marijuana by air in early 1976. [58], There was also extensive eyewitness and forensic evidence against Quintero-Cruz, Vlez, and Vsquez. [52], Six Colombians were quickly arrested in connection with the murder. The Story Behind an Infamous Escobar Cartel Assassination. Instead, he testified against Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder, and Jorge Ochoa in front of a federal grand jury. Twitter/VICEBarry Seal likely never worked for CIA, as shown in American Made. Despite the movie attempting to pin it on North, Jacoby later said that North was not his source and that it was a deceased Special Forces and CIA guy named Ted Lunger, who at the time worked as a staff member for Representative Dan Daniel. Two indictments were returned against Seal in March 1983. The incredible story of Barry Seal - the man who worked for both the CIA and Pablo Escobar. In 2017, Seals life became the subject of a Hollywood adaptation titled American Made, starring Tom Cruise. No other name is perhaps more associated with the Iran-Contra affair than Oliver North, but his involvement in exposing Barry Seal's mission and blowing his cover is unknown and entirely speculation. Universal Pictures. The flight, in January 1985, was successful and led to arrests and convictions. 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. Photos; Visual Stories; Sub Menu 1. They referred him to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Adler Berriman 'Barry' Seal se convirti en el piloto ms joven de los Estados Unidos, destreza que us para hacerse uno de los hombres ms ricos de ese pas en la dcada de los 80's. Ello . I'm a multi-engine, instrument-rated commercial pilot," Cruise said in a Wired interview. On the morning of June 25, Seal, Camp and their mechanic, Peter Everson, landed . [5], Ironically, Seal's operations received an important boost when he was arrested and jailed in Honduras on the return leg of a drug-smuggling trip to Ecuador. No word of the Hughes hearings appeared in the Washington Post or the New York Times. [3] Seal's career with TWA ended in July 1972, when he was arrested for involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle a shipment of plastic explosives to Mexico using a DC-4. He was born on July 16, 1939, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Barry Seal vol nuevamente a Nicaragua con una misin secreta de la CIA: tomar fotos de los involucrados en el operativo de narcotrfico en el aeropuerto Los Brasiles. When Seal was convicted of smuggling charges, he became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and testified in several major drug trials. (Barry) Seal was a key player at Mena. "I trusted him so I didn't ask questions," says Debbie. The Fat Lady, over Nicaragua. Wikimedia CommonsA Fairchild C-123 military cargo plane similar to Barry Seals Fat Lady.. His father was a candy wholesaler and an alleged KKK member, according to Spartacus Educational. It's certainly possible and it's what the movie proposes. 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. [59], In January 2023, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards denied Vsquez's request for clemency. Alder Berriman, or Barry Seal, was one of America's most notorious drug smugglers. "You know, we're not making a biopic," said director Doug Liman. UPI reported: "By linking the Sandinistas with drug traffic aid to the rebels accused of human rights violations might seem more palatable". He was assigned to the 20th Special Forces Group and graduated from the United States Army Airborne School selection and training. Nicaragua, where Seal flew a cocaine shipment in a C-123 outfitted with cameras to prove that Nicaragua's Sandinista government was involved with the drug . Facing a heavy sentence, and having been rejected by regional drug task forces in both Florida and Louisiana, Seal decided to try contacting the Vice President's Drug Task Force, a special program in the office of then-Vice President George Bush. The second marriage, to Lynn Ross, lasted from 1971 to 1972. In 1961, he joined the Louisiana Army National Guard and served with the 20th Special Forces Group for six years. Sixteen year-old Baton Rouge Civil Air Patrol cadet Barry Seal boards a U.S. Air Force plane on July 23, 1955 to fly to a two week training camp at Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he will meet fellow cadet Lee Harvey Oswald . Seal began to fly as a teenager, earning a student pilot certificate at 16 and a private pilot's certificate at 17. [56] Mermelstein also knew the defendant Vlez. . 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. The real Barry Seal claimed he had been working for agencies . Using pilots like Barry Seal was a means to an end. -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. . The extent of Barry Seal's involvement with the CIA in the 1980s has provided fuel for speculation and conspiracy theories. Synopsis. Barry emerges from the plane covered in cocaine. The truth behind the CIA/Mena Conspiracy!Notorious Louisiana drug smuggler Barry Seal made countless runs from Central America to the United States, flying thousands of pounds of cocaine and marijuana into the country and making millions of dollars. CBS obtained pages from Col. Oliver Norths diary revealing that the former National Security Council aid communicated frequently with the CIA about the sting operation in the weeks before the photo was leaked to the press despite objections from the DEA. A leak regarding the operation came to light before Seal's second trip. He ultimately offered to act as an informant, passing along information about Escobar, the Medelln cartel, and high-level government officials in Central America who were involved in trafficking drugs to the U.S. All three trials resulted in convictions for all defendants. Questioned about the identity of the source, DEA agent Ernst Jacobson replied, "I heard that the leak came from an aide in the White House". -Good Morning America. 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. After refueling, Seal left Los Brasiles flying without lights, and when he came close to Managua, he was fired on by Nicaraguan military units. The White House saw the pictures as proof of the communist Sandinista government's corruption and believed that the photos would help to convince the public of the need to support and arm the rebels (Contras) in Nicaragua. Wouldn't it be fun if they were fooling around in a plane and the plane went into the same kind of parabolic arc and they got pinned against the ceiling?" FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation. Times Staff Writers. -Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal. In the least, his exploits with the CIA and agent Monty Schafer in the movie are largely fictional and based on speculation. "Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal had a brief, but spectacular, career as a cocaine smuggler-turned DEA informant. Enough cold, hard cash to . The documentary series, titled "Uncle Sam Wants You", ran on five consecutive evenings. They were all sentenced to life in prison. Barry Seal, at the time he died, may have been the . Yes. 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. Additionally, the movie version of Seal quits his job with the airline to pursue a life of crime. Hahn was part of the task force that pursued Seal in the 1980s. -Daily Mail Online, No. It was probably shortly before the operation or thereabouts when he was enlisted to give us proof that the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua was actually . Adler Berriman Barry Seal (July 16, 1939 February 19, 1986) was an American airline pilot who became a major drug smuggler for the Medelln Cartel. In 1973, he married Deborah DuBois. A Fairchild C-123 military cargo plane similar to Barry Seals Fat Lady.. In fact, it was Seal who provided the DEA with the photos of Escobar that exposed him as a major drug kingpin. CASA NO MINUTO. I was young and it was impressive." When the cartel caught wind of Seals betrayal, they sent three hitmen to gun him down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, bringing a bloody end to his work as an informant. Adler "Barry" Seal's third wife and the three children she had with him did not violate the slain drug smuggler-turned-government informant's privacy rights when they sold the story of his life to . American Made, the new Tom Cruise crime drama out Sept. 29, has all the makings of a romp: drug running and arms smuggling. Then, flip through these wild Narco Instagram posts. He is married to Lucy (Sarah Wright) and has two children with her, with a third on the way. Barry also got lucky and captured photos of the communist leader of the Sandinistas . "He stopped in there and, just like that, he asked me out," says Debbie. 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. . He spent years working for Pablo Escobar and the Medelln cartel, flying tons of cocaine and marijuana into the United States and earning millions of dollars. The plane Seal acquired was a C-123K, a large aircraft used primarily for military transport.
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