Internal Affairs
Ricardo Swire
Principal Consultant @ R-L-H SECURITY CONSULTANTS & BUSINESS SUPPORT SERVICES
Caribbean national security and intelligence officials’ relationships with international partners, assigned regional law enforcement roles, can be quite challenging. Especially scenarios related to the global “War on Drugs.” A few years ago a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist exposed the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intimate relationship with a crack cocaine trafficking explosion in America.
“Dark Alliance” described clandestine CIA activity that supported Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government opponents provided exclusive cocaine supplies to South Los Angeles, a racially targeted Afro-American district. The literary expose initiated several US Federal investigations. “Cocaine Cowboys” included the notorious “Torres Brothers” and “Colombian kingpins,” who earned millions of US dollars during CIA covert drug operations. The Contra leader attended “fundraisers” in the San Francisco Bay community.
The right-wing rebel group’s boss also known as “El Rey De Las Drogas” or “King of Drugs” collected “duffle bags full” of US currency during visits to California. A participating Nicaraguan female whistleblower submitted relevant intelligence to the US Department of Justice (DOJ). Subsequently one US Congressional probe found “considerable evidence,” connecting Contra drugs and weapons trafficking to the US government’s shadowy entity.
The CIA contracted pilots from SETCO Aviation in New Jersey to transport such illegal shipments. On Wednesday April 25th 2018 a US court sentenced one former Cuban “Cocaine Cowboy” to eleven years in prison. He was guilty of participating in “Dark Alliance” activity, after enjoying twenty-six years as a fugitive. During that period the Cuban managed large scale cocaine exports. Shipments departed Colombia, transited Caribbean islands, then onward to South Florida.
The CIA Inspector-General’s office investigated one particular Nicaraguan Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE) or Sandino Revolutionary Front (FRS) five member trafficking mafia. Senior CIA officials immediately disassociated with ARDE. A year later interaction with four of the five Southern Front guerrillas continued. A US Immigration Officer assigned to the Bay Area documented intelligence that linked a US based religious organization to two Nicaraguan counter-revolutionary groups.
The transnational networks exchanged cocaine for guns on American soil. On one occasion a logistics meeting was convened in Costa Rica, between an exiled Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN) member residing in San Francisco and a Nicaraguan dealer. The CIA Inspector-General’s probe verified the covert government entity “did not inform Congress of allegations or information received, which indicated Contra-related organizations or individuals were involved in drug trafficking.”
Executive Chair, Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies-Vancouver
6yA lot of good and professional men and women are hard at work in the region. They can only work with what they are given and the degree to which they are allowed to access training funds.
Intelligence and Security Specialist, Safety and Security consultant Tactical intelligence specialist
6yThe Caribbean islands such as Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago are trying where neccessary and Jamaica in my humble opion leads in this regard .In closing I will say again the lack of political will coupled by corruption and a limited understanding for the better part of covert operations can create such a challenge.
Intelligence and Security Specialist, Safety and Security consultant Tactical intelligence specialist
6yI have seen first hand the operations of such and talking it is one thing actually putting it in to practice another .
Intelligence and Security Specialist, Safety and Security consultant Tactical intelligence specialist
6yTraining is one thing the application is another
Warehouse Manager at Bahamas Wholesale Agencies Ltd.
6yThis article is focused on USA actors with Nicaraguan and Columbians thrown in with a reference to Costa Rica, but the most that you have taken from this is the possible level of officials' complicity of the transitted Caribbean insular states? The entire population of the Caribbean insular states cannot compare to the population of a city in most of the continental states mentioned and thus there is less than a 1% chance of interaction in the big drug trade. The Caribbean drug problem starts and finishes north and south.