Miguel Velez was the man driving the getaway car. Clinton also suggested that Brown study Russian, a suggestion Brown took seriously enough to begin making entries in his daybook in Cyrillic. See Rafael L Mena's age, phone number, house address, email address, social media accounts, public records, and check for criminal records on Spokeo. Barry arrived that evening at approximately 6 p.m. and backed his white Cadillac into a parking space. 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 recalls that on the morning of this particular flight, Seal had told him to drive to Mena Intermountain Regional Airport, a remote air strip near the Oklahoma border. Dr. Faucis "SHADY" Gain of Function Research! -Daily Mail Online, 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. . Corporate Office Arcadia Inc. 2301 East Vernon Ave. Vernon, CA 90058. It was dark almost black, and had only the minimal tail markings necessary for civilian operation. Seal was a DEA informant/operative who was deeply involved in Iran-Contra and Gov. In his book, he uses case documents and first-person accounts to dispel this idea and other half-truths about Seal. Barry Seal was an American-born Trans World Airlines pilot who . 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. No. He later claimed to have made as much as $50 million running 1,000 pounds of cocaine a month from Colombia. Last March, in a legally binding deposition, trooper Larry Patterson also said that Clinton knew about Mena. 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. For a portion of this time, the alleged ringleader of the drug smuggling, Seal, appeared to have been working with the CIA and the Drug Enforcement Agency. 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. Debbie became Barry's third wife. However, the U.S. needed a way to covertly get the funds and weapons to the rebels. Images like the one earlier on this page show Medelln Cartel boss Pablo Escobar with Sandinista government officials and soldiers, who were loading cocaine onto Seal's plane, nicknamed the Fat Lady. Past Addresses: See available information. "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. Gov. Subsequently, the special prosecutor investigating Whitewater subpoenaed Brown to disclose what he knew about Clintons connections to David L. Hale. The is the latest repackaging of allegations previously made by the Wall Street Journal. ABC was also told that brown had failed a psychological test. "The aircraft flew with various cameras used to obtain photographic evidence of the Sandinistas in the act of smuggling narcotics," Sherwood wrote. _qacct="p-571RmQ-B866HQ";quantserve(); The CIA stonewalled the release of information now sought by Judicial Watch on the Mena Airport controversy, said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. And the U.S. was covertly backing the Contras. By providing your phone number, you are consenting to receive calls and recurring SMS/MMS messages, including autodialed and automated calls and texts, to that number from the Judicial Watch. Past Addresses: See available information. Buddy Young that little beady-faced fellow, and said he was with Clinton at Mena. In the least, his exploits with the CIA and agent Monty Schafer in the movie are largely fictional and based on speculation. "Tom did all his own flying in the movie," says director Doug Liman, who is a pilot himself (Vulture.com). Thats when he said, You having any fun yet.. I'm a multi-engine, instrument-rated commercial pilot," Cruise said in a Wired interview. "I trusted him so I didn't ask questions," says Debbie. They were all sentenced to life in prison. Although, the truth, as it happened has never been revealed to the public. And move on, the world did. Scared the s---- out of me just taking off. Brown says that when the plane took off, he was sitting on a bench behind the two pilots. Hagan said he didn't know how many pages of material on Seal have yet to be made public by the FBI. -Daily Mail Online, No. In its review of the 2017 movie "American Made" -- about Seal -- the New York Times called it the Conspiratorial Industrial Complex. 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.. A 1983 document in the recently released trove referred to a telephone conversation between the FBI and Polk County Sheriff A.L. When Brown returned to the Governors mansion, he recalls, Clinton greeted him jovially, You having any fun yet? he asked. 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. However, some still allege the opposite, that the government turned a blind eye to Seal's drug running in order to use him to deliver weapons to the Nicaraguan rebels. When Wattenberg reported this, an angry Tucker retaliated against Brown by demoting him from white-collar investigations to highway patrol. Brown? Executing secret missions for the government in the movie might add a sort of patriotism and redeeming quality to his character, but in real life Barry Seal was a drug smuggler first and foremost. Lasater went to jail for a cocaine connection, as did his friend, Roger Clinton, Bill Clintons brother. Gov. Leveritt was reluctant at first, but soon warmed to the task and got to work. After Brown told Sealand Clintonthat he would no longer take part in the drug flights, Seal contacted Brown again. Follow him on Twitter @micah_morrison. 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. In American Made, Barry Seal's family consists of his wife and their three children, two boys and one girl, all seen at various stages in their lives throughout the film. He hands wads of cash to a kid on a bike, telling the boy, "You never saw me." 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. Officials at the Arkansas Studies Institute suggested their concerns were legal and financial, associated with vetting the book, but Leveritt wasnt buying it. At present, although there is no reason to believe any of the allegations, we are declining to comment publicly, pending exhaustive searches of DO files, as tasked by ICA. Hadaway. Judicial Watch Sues Air Force Academy for Records about Critical Race Theor DOJ & FBI Target Biden Political Opponents, Judicial Watch Warns: Critical Race Theory Rising. Eight months later, Seals C-123 was shot down over Nicaragua with a load of ammunition and supplies for the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels. 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. The goal was to expose the involvement of the Nicaraguan Sandinista regime as a major supplier of cocaine from Colombia.". No convincing explanation was offered for this act of censorship. "The aircraft flew with various cameras used to obtain photographic evidence of the Sandinistas in the act of smuggling narcotics," Sherwood wrote. Welsh said it had not, but Youngs concern was intriguing. Fact-checking American Made immediately revealed that Tom Cruise looks nothing like the real Barry Seal, who weighed around 280lbs and was nicknamed "El Gordo" (The Fat Man) by his bosses. The Judicial Watch lawsuit seeks the report of a November 1996 CIA investigation into drug running, money laundering and intelligence gathering at Mena. It was originally an Air Force transport plane Seal dubbed it the Fat Lady. Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal grew up in south Baton Rouge in the 1950s. 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. The respected Arkansas journalist Mara Leveritt recently outlined what appears to be a continuing effort to cover up the Mena affair. The name of another person under investigation was redacted. In 1981, Seal set up shop at Mena. Approximately 30 minutes later, Brown says, the C-123K landed in what he later learned what Tegucigalpa, Honduras. 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). He took it out for a test flight and never came back." Barry Seal, courtesy of the Baton Rouge Advocate. Jul 04, 2022 12:40 P.M. Regardless, Jacoby's article led to the abandonment of the final piece of Barry Seal's undercover operation. A July 17, 1984 front-page Washington Times article by Edmund Jacoby described a link between Nicaragua's Sandinista government and the Medelln drug cartel. Seal said that he started by doing things like flying guns for the CIA to revolution fighters in Cuba in the late 1950s and flying operations for U.S. Army Special Forces in Laos just prior to the Vietnam War. Approved for Release Date:September 28, 2009. There is no information on Barry Seal's net worth, but it must have been substantial. Too many secrets have been kept for too long, she wrote, too much important history has been hidden, lost or destroyed. This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC. Many of the more baroque allegations emerge from the fever swamps of conspiracy theorists, but certain facts are indisputable. attorney.". "He thought we had more time. Suddenly, though, the Arkansas State Police were uncooperative. Even before he graduated from Baton Rouge High School in 1957, Seal had already earned his private pilot's wings. Brown was 28 years old in 1984. Material from the Associated Press is Copyright 2023, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. After being caught in Honduras with 40 kilograms of cocaine in 1979, Barry spent nine months in a Honduran jail. Two duffel bags were put on board the plane at Tegucigalpa. Seal flipped, becoming a valuable government informant. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use. Instead, he says, he found this huge military plane that was not actually a military plane. According to author Del Hahn, who wrote the book Smuggler's End, next to Barry's yearbook photo was the description, "Full of fun, full of folly" (TIME). 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. Arkansas State Trooper L.D. Brown says he never saw the bags again. For their efforts, their careers were crushed. Seal, a government informant, was murdered outside a halfway house on Airline Highway in Baton Rouge. 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. They married in 1974. Like in the movie, the American Made true story reveals that Barry made a living as a commercial airline pilot for several years. 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. White Kendall, approached ABC, As Time reported, Kendall was working very, very hard to keep Whitewater out of the headlines. Meanwhile, Betsey Wright, a Clinton political fixer, told ABC that Brown was a pathological liar, even though his personnel file in Arkansas abounded with recommendations some from Clinton, and even one from Dr. Joycelyn Elders. Judicial Watch Victories: Courts Declare California Quota Laws Unconstituti BEST OF: Top Anti-Corruption Victories in 2022. Three early drafts of the essay contain interpolations in Clintons handwriting. Please read our Terms of Use or contact us. -The Independent, Not likely. No one responded when she asked if the newly arisen concerns might be political., In the Arkansas Times article, Leveritt pinned her hopes on the new Cruise movie, which opened in 2017 to good reviews. Brown, a narcotics cop, got upset. barry seal mena house address. But I was in for a shock, Leveritt writes. 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. They could locate no files on Seal. "I initiated a grand jury investigation in relation to money laundering through the Mena airport in 1985," Hutchinson said Friday. ", Copyright 2023, Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC. People in Mena say the drugs never got there, that the drugs were jettisoned over drop zones in the Louisiana swamps before Seal's planes made it back to Mena. 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. Clinton, Brown believed, was the CIA. Concurrently, they had to make sure not to raise the suspicions of the ruthless Colombian drug lords. "At the time Seal started cooperating with DEA Miami, he had an established base at Rich Mountain Aviation and had frequent contact with subjects," according to the document. Many names in the documents have been redacted. All rights reserved. Bill Clinton? he replied: Yes, sir. Asa Hutchinson was U.S. attorney for Arkansas' Western District in the early 1980s. Rayburn House Office Building, Chairman James Leach (R-IA), Committee on Banking and Financial Services, and staffer . Yes. Seal was shot dead in 1986 at a safe house in Baton Rouge . Three Colombians supposedly sent by the Ochoas, including Cruz and Velez, were later arrested at the airport. 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. "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. Bushs Attorney General was William Barr. var _gaq = _gaq || []; Barry's widow, Deborah Seal, says that he began smuggling drugs in 1975, first focusing mainly on marijuana. Seal became a federal informant in March 1984. -Daily Mail Online. "The estimated value of the narcotics smuggled through the facility is $3 [billion] to $5 billion. var sc_invisible=1; 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. An entry in Browns daybook indicates that the flight with Seal took place on October 23, 1984. The Mena operation reveals the essential reckless of our present president. Dwayne Brown says his brother seemed terribly upset, and that he immediately drove over to the Governors Mansion to meet him. When Bill Clinton became president, Mena got a closer look. As early as 1982, his firm had been censured by the Arkansas security commissioner for cheating customers. Seal, Brown says, had also prescribed the dress code, and insisted that no one carry identification, not even keys or jewelry. Creating Epstein: Bill Barr Leslie Wexner & the CIA, Bonnie's Clyde: The True Story of Jeffrey Epstein & Ghislaine Maxwell, Revisiting Mena, Bill Clinton, the CIA & Barry Seal. Why arent these pilots who flew trafficked minors arrested and charged? Browns break with Clinton came after Brown made what he says was his second flight from Mena to Central America. Brown says Clinton told him not to worry. He also says he was mindful of the secrecy agreement he had signed with the CIA. -Vulture. I started it and pursued it but was unable to complete it because I left the office. 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