CONNECT THE DOTS: Crack Cocaine, Contras and the CIA

The story of a CIA drugs pipeline used to support the Nicaraguan Contras – which also raked billions in cocaine profits.

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In 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb discovered links between Nicaragua’s Contra rebels and the CIA’s cocaine drug-running operation in the 1980’s. Webb wrote the Dark Alliance series for the San Jose Mercury News which exposed the CIA’s Contra rebels cocaine shipping into the US, which ended up as crack cocaine flooding cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco – and with the proceeds from the sales of those drugs being funneled back to fund the Contra militants. Webb also uncovered the Mena, Arkansas connection during the time that Bill Clinton was governor of that state.

Later in 2004, Gary Webb would turn up dead in an apparent suicide.

Brasscheck TV says…

‘The Calm Before the Storm’

This 1996 interview with Gary Webb took place after his “Dark Alliance” newspaper series made waves across the country for piecing together the puzzle of the US crack epidemic.

The pipeline of CIA backed drug smuggling into the country and money smuggling out of the country to support the Nicaraguan Contras was wide open from the mid 1970s on, with players using everything from their shoes to freighters to move cocaine.

Webb was widely smeared by the CIA’s favorite newspapers (The New York Times, the Washington Post, The LA Times) shortly after this interview.

He was eventually vindicated, but not before his career was destroyed. He was found dead of an apparent suicide in 2004. The price of being a whistleblower?