Oliver North and denouncing the Sandinistas as “drug smugglers corrupting American youth.”Īs a result of Seal’s cooperation, the judge in his Florida case praised Seal and reduced his sentence to six months probation. Reagan was ecstatic and went on national television shortly afterwards, waving the photograph given to him by Col. As part of his agreement with DEA, he rigged the C-123 with a hidden camera and was able to photograph Pablo Escobar helping Nicaraguan soldiers load 1,200 kilos of cocaine at the Managua airport. The larger transport plane, which he affectionately referred to as The Fat Lady, was needed to haul tons of cocaine for the cartel. Because Reagan feared another communist regime in the Western Hemisphere, Seal was enlisted as an undercover informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).īy this time, Seal had purchased a C-123. That news proved too enticing for President Reagan who was eager to wage an all-out war on the Sandinistas. The agreement, Seal said, called for the cartel to give a cut of drug profits to the Sandinistas in exchange for use of an airfield in Managua as a trans-shipment point for narcotics.
In secret testimony before the task force, Seal said the Medellin Cartel had cut a deal with the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He flew to Washington and met with two members of Vice President George Bush’s Task Force on Drugs. Facing a 10-year prison sentence, he decided to flip but federal prosecutors were not interested in a deal so he simply went over their heads. In 1984, Seal was indicted in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on charges of smuggling Quaaludes and money laundering. Whether known or not at the time by Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, the use of the Mena airport by Seal and others would be used by detractors in efforts to tie Clinton to drug smuggling conspiracies, especially during his first four years as President. It was at this time that he moved his operations from Baton Rouge to Mena, Arkansas. Reeves, Ochoa’s New Orleans business manager, brought Seal into what in 1982 officially became the Medellin Cartel after Jorge Ochoa and Pablo Escobar joined forces to form a 2,000-man army to destroy M-19, the Marxist revolutionary group that was causing problems for the Colombian drug barons.īy 1982, Seal was making regular runs on behalf of the Medellin Cartel, bringing tons of cocaine into the U.S. He spent nine months in a Honduran prison and while there, met William Roger Reeves, a fellow prisoner who worked for the Ochoa family of Medellin, Colombia.
Soon after that, Seal turned to drug smuggling and subsequently was arrested in Honduras with 40 kilos of cocaine worth a reported $25 million. The buyer, it turned out, was a federal agent. He was fired by TWA after his 1972 arrest in New Orleans on charges of flying explosives to anti-Castro Cubans in Mexico. In 1964, Seal went to work for TWA and became their youngest 707 captain and later their youngest 747 captain. It was only after Castro succeeded in overthrowing Batista in 1959 and declared himself a Marxist that other forces then began their efforts to overthrow Castro. Seal, who began flying at age of 15, flew weapons to Fidel Castro in 1958 when Castro was fighting to overthrow Fulgencio Batista. In fact, there was a made-for-cable movie, Double Crossed, that starred Dennis Hopper as Seal.
Seal’s life-and death-would seem a perfect fit for Hollywood. That agenda would turn up in the sordid details of the Iran-Contra scandal. Most of all, Seal’s murder would lay bare for all the world to see the seamy underbelly of America’s duplicitous war on drugs, and how drug smuggling was in fact sanctioned by powerful men in order to advance a hidden agenda. It would focus the glare of the media spotlight on not only the Colombian Medellin Cartel, but also on the FBI and CIA as well as such political icons as then-Vice President George H.W. The brutal murder of Barry Seal, 46, at a Baton Rouge halfway house in 1986 would send shock waves up and down the political spectrum. Saturday, February 19, will mark the 25th anniversary of one of the most sensational high-profile killings to rock Baton Rouge since the 1935 assassination of U.S.
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