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.". "He put the airplane into a parabolic arc and pinned me against the ceiling, and right in that moment, I had this inspiration. In real life, his first encounter with the Medelln Cartel happened less dramatically. Ultimately, we may find out, as Brown tells us that he has been repeatedly questioned by lawyers working for the Whitewater independent counsel about Clintons association with Lasater at a time when illicit drugs allegedly were flowing into Mena airport. Author Del Hahn, a former FBI agent who wrote the book about Seal titled Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal, told Vice, "Seal thought he was smarter and cleverer than the Ochoas," who are one of the founding families of the Medelln Cartel. He said the money had been brought back from Tegucigalpa. Reprints and media inquiries: [emailprotected]. "The estimated value of the narcotics smuggled through the facility is $3 [billion] to $5 billion. Jul 04, 2022 12:40 P.M. In researching the American Made true story, we learned that Barry Seal was arrested by customs officers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1983 as he tried to smuggle 200,000 units of Quaalude, a recreational drug, into the country. As Slate notes, Seal stuck a plea deal, where he testified in three major drug trials and got five years' probation and six months at a halfway house. As part of the application process, Brown had written an essay: Marxist Influence in Central America. One mission involved a C-123K cargo plane that was outfitted at the Mena airport. Though the Clinton machine feared him the most, he showed no intention of breaking his silence until a chain of random events made it inevitable. This draws the attention of the CIA. . Then, Brown says, Seal reached again into the duffel bag and pulled out a kilogram of cocaine. At this juncture, no one, including Brown, can say precisely what Clinton was doing at Mena. In exploring the American Made true story, we discovered that Doug Liman's father, lawyer Arthur L. Liman, ran the Senate investigation into Iran-Contra. In a fruitless effort to curb irregular migration from Central America the Biden administration is sending the region hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian funding with From Breitbart: He said parts of it could have been provided to people under previous information requests. He said, according to Brown, Thats Lasaters deal, thats Lasaters deal.. Dan Lasater, of course, was the celebrated Little Rock bond daddy. Hadaway said an informant told him a "narcotic smuggling operation" was headquartered out of the Mena airport and that a man named Barry from Baton Rouge was in charge of it. During the past few years, the activity at the airstrip has aroused the interest of local law enforcement, who then attempted to conduct some investigations but were blocked by the U.S. Seal became a federal informant in March 1984. ABC was also told that brown had failed a psychological test. -Good Morning America. Brown? Counterrevolutionaries, known as Contras, were battling the Sandinistas. The CIA stonewalled the release of information now sought by Judicial Watch on the Mena Airport controversy, said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. In 1994, Brown told Daniel Wattenberg of The American Spectator that Jim Guy Tucker, then the Arkansas governor had asked him and trooper Larry Patterson for compromising information on Clintons private life in 1990, when Tucker was contemplating a race for governor. ", No. Set in the year 1978, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) works as a pilot for Trans World Airlines. Gov. : 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. In the autumn of 1984, Brown found himself seated on a bench inside a cavernous C-123K cargo plane roaring over a Central American jungle. Seal, Brown says, talked knowledgeably about airplanes, and spoke of an operation he was planning. Brown says Clinton told him not to worry. Counterrevolutionaries, known as Contras, were battling the Sandinistas. After being caught in Honduras with 40 kilograms of cocaine in 1979, Barry spent nine months in a Honduran jail. All rights reserved. "The estimated value of the narcotics smuggled through the facility is $3 [billion] to $5 billion. Indeed, when Clinton was a law professor in Fayetteville, Brown was working on an off-campus magazine, the radical Grapevine. the Colombian drug cartel led by Pablo Escobar Biography Yes. 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. Then Brown says, Seal and the kickers returned, carrying four duffel bags. About 25 pages of that trove refer to Arkansas or Mena. They could locate no files on Seal. Brown was 28 years old in 1984. UNLOCK PROFILE. It must be noted now that Clintons efforts to distance himself from Mena have persisted for years. The DEA had been onto him for a long time. In her suit, Lisa, who is not depicted in the movie, also claimed that there were factual inaccuracies in the script, including the fact that Barry had five children, not three, and that the movie falsely suggests he was an alcoholic and a reckless pilot. BEST OF: Left Targets Elon Musk, FBI Investigated Fauci Agency, CA Court Vi BEST OF: Twitter Changed Rules to Ban Trump! He was not only Gov. Money from the sale of weapons to Iran was used to help fund the rebels in Nicaragua. Later Seal confirmed Browns suspicions: the palettes contained M-16s for the Contras. The narcotics runner, Barry Seal, allegedly paid off then-Governor Clintons protg, L. D. Brown, and one Dan Lasater, a Clinton contributor. Rafael Mena; Arizona; Phoenix; Rafael L Mena; Rafael L Mena, Age 71. aka Rafael J Mena. Yet, some believe that Seal was working for the CIA in the 1980s to fly guns and money to Nicaraguan rebels, a detail that the movie embraces. These are the equivalent of Barry Seal in the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell covert operation. The FBI in Little Rock began investigating Seal's operation at the Mena airport in February 1984, according to the recently released FBI document. And while Clinton would later correctly note that events at Mena were primarily a matter of federal jurisdictionmeaning that Republicans probably had more to lose than Democrats if the truth was exposedits also true that a Clinton friend and supporter named Dan Lasater was under investigation for drug smuggling at the same time Seal was operating in Arkansas. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use. 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. 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. In 1981, Seal set up shop at Mena. Terms & conditions/privacy policy apply. -Vulture. Later Brown would come to know them as kickers. Three early drafts of the essay contain interpolations in Clintons handwriting. "I've heard that stated by a lot of people.". 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. Last March, in a legally binding deposition, trooper Larry Patterson also said that Clinton knew about Mena. He relocated to a small regional airport in Mena, Arkansas, which had a population of only 5,000. He was murdered on February 19, 1986, by contract killers hired by the cartel. That didnt happen. At the time Seals flights took place, Lasater was contributing to Clintons political campaigns. It is believed that the Colombians put a hit out on Barry after they learned he was going to help the feds with the extradition of Jorge Ochoa from Spain, one of the heads of the Medelln Cartel. 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. 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. "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. Barry and his wife talked about going into witness protection, but like in the movie, he decided against it. He suspected a CIA involvement, although his brother did not confirm it. 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. "I fly airplanes. Yet she pressed on with her writing and finished the book. About 25 pages of that trove refer to Arkansas or Mena. For their efforts, their careers were crushed. In fact, even the Wikipedia links Ive included in this paragraph are mostly lies. In the 1980s the smallairportin Arkansas known as Mena became part of the largest covert operation in history. Seal, a pilot, moved much of his smuggling operation from Baton Rouge to Rich Mountain Aviation at the Mena Intermountain Airport, according to the May 1986 FBI memo. 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. The interview with Brown, in which he had spoken only about Hale and not about Mena, was killed. Browns role, after all, was quite limited. With the publication of The American Spectator article, we expect more. The accident didn't happen during filming. Asa Hutchinson was U.S. attorney for Arkansas' Western District in the early 1980s. 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. An entry in Browns daybook indicates that the flight with Seal took place on October 23, 1984. "He would tell me all these wild stories about the missions he had flown. At the rear of the plane, by the beaners, he says were palettes on casters. 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. "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. 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.. Too many secrets have been kept for too long, she wrote, too much important history has been hidden, lost or destroyed. Yes. Past Addresses: See available information. foundations, and corporations and are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. American Made stars Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, a real-life former airline pilot who embarked on a wildly successful cocaine smuggling operation between Colombia and a tiny airstrip in Mena, Arkansas, in the 1980s. It's certainly possible and it's what the movie proposes. He had expected to find, he says, a Baron or King Air, the kind of plane in which he sometimes accompanied the Governor, and in which he had some training as a pilot. An indignant Brown began toying with the idea of exposing the corruption of Arkansas politics. Why arent these pilots who flew trafficked minors arrested and charged? Hadaway said an informant told him a "narcotic smuggling operation" was headquartered out of the Mena airport and that a man named Barry from Baton Rouge was in charge of it. 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 . Vincent G Mena, Age 54. The story took on a new life when Bill Clinton ran for president. -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. Seal Texaco.located corner Acadian Thruway andGoverment Street ,Baton Rouge La.Father Benjamin C Seal and the Sons Benjy Jr,Dean ,Jason ,Aaron, Curtis R,Wendell K, work the gas . His character is inspired by the stories we learned about Barry." Movies have been made, books have been published, hundreds of articles have been written. In 1983, the DEA arrested him on drug smuggling charges. He later claimed to have made as much as $50 million running 1,000 pounds of cocaine a month from Colombia. I knew the agency had an extensive file on Seal, Leveritt wrote, because Id read it decades earlier, shortly after Seals murder. "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. Corporate Office Arcadia Inc. 2301 East Vernon Ave. Vernon, CA 90058. 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. Arkansas State Trooper L.D. Question: Was Barry Seal's C-123K aircraft (serial number 54-File: Attachment Size; DOC_0001289717.pdf: 37.21 KB: . Barry Seal "'Fat Man' key to mystery" By Michael Haddigan THE ARKANSAS GAZETTE June 26, 1988 Allegations of cocaine smuggling and international intrigue swirled about the Mena Airport and Seal for years. Like in the movie, the American Made true story reveals that Barry made a living as a commercial airline pilot for several years. But I was in for a shock, Leveritt writes. -The Hollywood Reporter, Debbie Seal insists that she was unaware of what her husband was up to. 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. In 1983, the DEA arrested him on drug smuggling charges. I started it and pursued it but was unable to complete it because I left the office. That aspect of who he was has never been disputed. After Brown told Sealand Clintonthat he would no longer take part in the drug flights, Seal contacted Brown again. (Brown maintains that he never flunked the test; in fact, he was nominated four months after taking it for employment with the agency.). He concluded by saying that Mena was a federal, not a state, matter. I dont want to be getting any more reports from Brown is the statement by Tucker that Colonel Tommy Goodwin, the recently retired head of the Arkansas state police, quoted in explaining the demotion to me in an interview. Walker said a huge dark-green military plane was parked there, and that when he expressed surprise at seeing a military plane at Mena, Clinton said it was not military; it served another purpose. When ABC News interviewed Brown in the fall of 1994, the White House tried to malign him. The goal was to expose the involvement of the Nicaraguan Sandinista regime as a major supplier of cocaine from Colombia.". Things became worse when a report in the Washington Times on July 17 . The extent of Barry Seal's involvement with the CIA in the 1980s has provided fuel for speculation and conspiracy theories. I was young and it was impressive." The explosives were supposedly going to anti-Castro Cuban fighters. I have re-typed two documents that were scrubbed off the internet. He then, he says, signed a secrecy agreement, and was told he would be contacted further. 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. All rights reserved. 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. How much did Clinton know about what he called Lasaters deal in that conversation with L.D. Over a quarter of a century ago, George H.W. 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. He was unaware that a Colombian assassin was hiding behind one of the donation drop boxes. The mysteries of Mena revolve around a drug-smuggling pilot named Barry Seal. 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