Dusty & the boys: CIA, Cocaine, & Congress

[alkemical]

Dusty & the boys: CIA, Cocaine, & Congress

WORLD EXCLUSIVE
April 23 2007
by Daniel Hopsicker




The first anniversary of the April 10 2006 seizure in Mexico’s Yucatan of a American-registered DC9 caught carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine passed virtually unnoticed last week. It shouldn’t have...

Porter Goss resigned less than a month later, the same day the FBI executed a search warrant at the house of the No. 3 official in the Central Intelligence Agency, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, soon to go on trial for corruption with accomplice Brent Wilkes.

Not since the downing of a C-130 military cargo plane over Nicaragua in 1986 with Eugene Hasenfus onboard—kicking off the Iran Contra Scandal—has an aviation incident been remotely as important or as fraught with significance.

And not since the massive cocaine smuggling through Mena, Arkansas has the CIA’s hand been so flagrantly caught in the cookie jar.


Shocking details come as no surprise

In a series of stories beginning today, and continuing over the next ten days, the MadCowMorningNews will report the results of a year-long investigation into the secret history of this operation.

Some of the highlights include:

· SkyWay Aircraft of St Petersburg, FL., the company which owned the DC9 airliner stuffed to the top of the overhead bins with cocaine, was a CIA front.

· SkyWay’s genesis can be traced to In-Q-Tel Inc., a secretive, Arlington, Va., investment group owned, operated, and financed out of the black box budget of the Central Intelligence Agency.

· SkyWay was part of a network of companies, three of which—L-3 Communications, Net Command Tech Inc, and Triton Network Systems Inc.— were cited by Elliot Spitzer, then the Attorney General of New York State, for being used by Wall Street brokers in “pump and dump” schemes which cost unwary investors tens of millions of dollars.

· The suspicious involvement of L-3 Communications subsidiary Titan Corp of San Diego, the biggest donor to Southern California Congressmen convicted or being investigated by fired San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam.

· The Israeli connection to SkyWay, including the involvement of an Israeli tele-com firm, Tadiran, accused of being involved in worldwide espionage, and which owned the headquarters of SkyWay in Clearwater, Florida.

· The involvement of Gulf Arab financiers, including an overseas bank, Banque Francaise de l'Orient, long associated with the Saudi bin Laden family.

· Evidence of Republican party involvement in the network, which included the free use of one of the smuggling aircraft by the current head of fund-raising for the national Republican party, U.S. Senator Mel Martinez, who "traveled to nighttime rallies in luxury," the St. Petersburg Times reported, “on a DC-9 owned by Skyway Global, a Clearwater security company whose owners are Martinez supporters.”

Still more shocking details

Over the next ten days, we’ll present evidence for each of these heady claims, and attempt to find the answer to what is still a major mystery:

Why haven’t U.S. authorities arrested the owners of an American-registered plane busted with 5.5 tons of cocaine?

The story began here:

The drug trafficking operation was flying an airliner carrying 128 suitcases...but no passengers. There was no attempt to camouflage their activity.

Mexican soldiers unloaded the American-registered DC9, whose cargo consisted of 128 identical black suitcases stuffed with cocaine, onto the hot asphalt runway in Cuidad del Carmen, an out of the way airport nestled in the middle of the Yucatan jungle.

in what may have been someone’s idea of a joke, each suitcase bore a stamp on its side, with the single word “Privado.”

The DC9 sported a distinctive Seal on its fuselage: blue-and-white with gold trim surrounding an eagle clutching twin olive branches, making it virtually indistinguishable from official U.S. Government planes belonging to the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.

Even veteran plane-spotters were fooled

[alkemical]

Walking on water in Tampa
This was perhaps not much of a stretch: SkyWay’s Chairman, Glenn Kovar, boasted of long-standing ties to the CIA. And today he and his son are operating another front company called “Homeland Security Tracking Enforcement.”

Although owned by SkyWay, the airliner was registered to Royal Sons Inc., a company controlled by an aircraft broker from Tampa, FL. named Frederic Geffon.

Geffon partnered with SkyWay in the company’s three planes, two DC9’s and a Cessna, then illegally appropriated them when SkyWay went bankrupt in 2005, to the annoyance of SkyWay’s Federal Bankruptcy Trustee, who filed suit to get the planes returned.

“Geffon was under court order to not let the planes leave the St Petersburg-Clearwater Airport,” stated a source close to the Bankruptcy proceedings.

“The Airport Tower had even been ordered not to let the plane take off. When the DC9 took off for Venezuela on April 5, he was in direct violation of the court order,” the source stated last week.

Legally speaking, there is growing evidence that Frederic Geffon has the ability to walk on water.

We wondered: Where did he get that?


It depends on your definition of "is"

When news of the plane's seizure reached Tampa, there was a mad scramble to get out of the way. The FAA website stated that the airliner was registered to Frederic Geffon, who denied it, claiming he'd already sold it.

Geffon’s claim then received a big boost, one week after the seizure, from an FAA spokesman, who stated the FAA had received a copy of a letter from Royal Sons, dated April 7, asking that the plane be exported to Venezuela.

This pronouncement was enough to quiet immediate suspicion… The heat was off Geffon, at least for a while.

Investigators figured out that the spokesman hadn’t said the FAA received the documents on April 7, just that the letter had been dated April 7, and requested the plane's registration documents from the FAA, where they are mandated by law to be freely available.


Come in here, boy, have a cigar

More than two months later, the FAA released the plane’s records. They showed that Frederic Geffon didn't request transfer of ownership and file export documents to the FAA until the day after the plane was busted.

The FAA stamp shows they were “received,” on April 11th. And since they were faxed, not mailed, they clearly didn't get lost in the mail.

In the eyes of law enforcement, this would seem, would it not, to be a clear case of: “Close, but no cigar.”

But Tampa, FL is Cigar City, where deals are still made in smoky backrooms.

Law enforcement officials in the U.S. and Mexico are today apparently no closer to “identifying” the owner of the plane than they were a year ago.


That terror flight school again

Nor has anyone been held accountable higher up than the airliner’s unfortunate co-pilot, a Venezuelan paid just $500 for the flight, which must have seemed small recompense when he was left holding the bag by the pilot who hired him, who somehow managed to "slip away."

Geffon’s Royal Sons Inc has one other distinction that needs to be mentioned: The firm occasionally listed its address as 224 E Airport Ave at the tiny Venice, FL airport, in a hangar belonging to terror flight school Huffman Aviation.

For the past three years the MadCowMorningNews has been pointing out—to anyone who'll listen— that the owner of Huffman Aviation, Wally Hilliard, during the same month Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi arrived to attend his flight school, had his jet confiscated by DEA agents on a runway at the Orlando Executive Airport, where they found 43 pounds of heroin onboard.

Although over 60 percent of the world’s heroin comes from Afghanistan--a country then being run by Mohamed Atta’s boss--Atta's arrival and the discovery of a huge amount of heroin happening at the same time... is just a coincidence. Because otherwise Wally Hilliard might today be in prison, and of course, he's not.

And neither is Frederic Geffon.

[alkemical]

"Get the picture? Yes, we see!"


Six months ago we received an email alleging that Dusty Foggo and Barry Seal had more than a nodding acquaintance in Honduras during the go-go ‘80’s.

Honduras was then known at the time as “The Trampoline,” because drug flights from Colombia would refuel there, then “bounce” back into the sky and flying to the States.

And Barry Seal, of course, was a long-time CIA pilot, as well as what the U.S. Government, back in the 1980's called "the biggest drug smuggler in American history."

But as we are seeing, time marches on, and he has no doubt lost that distinction since then.

Of course, we already knew that Porter Goss knew Barry Seal. Here’s a picture of the two of them together, taken in 1963 in Mexico City. With them in the photo are two other famous names in America’s secret history: Felix Rodriguez, and Frank Sturgis.

But Seal and Foggo was just a rumor. We needed confirmation.


Think "Snakes on a plane" in a bar

Then we read "Dusty Abroad" in the Washington Babylon column by Ken Silverstein in Harpers magazine online. It contained new information on Foggo’s years in Honduras in the early 1980s, when, according to the article, “the Agency was using the country as a base both to support the Nicaraguan contras and for a variety of other covert programs in Central America.”

The article, concerned with Foggo’s involvement in “a brisk hooker trade,” revealed that while Foggo was based in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, he had been a regular at the Maya Hotel and casino.

Barry Seal hung out there too.

While researching “Barry & ‘the boys’” five years ago, we met a steely-eyed former NSA operative in Central and South America named Russ Akin. “I first met Barry Seal in the lobby of the Hotel Maya in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, back in the late ‘70’s,” he told us.

“Barry was good friends with the owners of the hotel, which was the center of intrigue in Central America back then. And just by looking at each other, we both knew what the other was doing, although neither of us stated it openly to the other when we met, or for a long time afterwards.”

So Seal and Foggo were in the same place, at the same time. It’s not definitive, and its not confirmation that they knew each other.

Another similarity: Both Seal and Foggo made a habit of doing favors for politicians. Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards had enough of a personal friendship with Barry Seal to borrow $10,000 from him at the tables in Vegas, on an occasion when Lady Luck had not been kind to “the Guv.”

Foggo’s largesse will presumably be explored during his upcoming trial... Though we suspect it will be in a more, shall we say, truncated form than if Carol Lam were still running the prosecution.


Top Republican fundraiser

The boys from SkyWay Aircraft also knew whose favor to curry...

U.S. Senator Mel Martinez visited SkyWay just before it went bankrupt, and pronounced the firm’s non-existent technology to be "awesome."

Martinez was running for the Senate, and the boys returned the favor: Martinez flew a SkyWay drug smuggling plane--presumably vacuumed out first--in his barnstorming finish in his successful 2004 campaign… for free.

"Martinez traversed the state, including a trip to a nighttime rally with several hundred people in downtown Delray Beach in luxury, on a DC-9 owned by Skyway Global, a Clearwater security company whose owners are Martinez supporters,” reported the Nov 2 2004 St. Petersburg Times.

A story in yesterday's Miami Herald labeled Martinez "the national Republican Party's new top fundraiser."

No wonder.


Baptist poseur Asa Hutchinson
One reason we found the idea that Foggo and Seal might have known each other so intriguing is that it would fit with what we know about the nature of covert ops.

A US Customs Agent who spent twenty-five years watching the merry-go-round in Florida and Louisiana explained it to us one time. He said, "You know, there aren't all that many 'players' out there. You can count 'em, pretty much, on one hand."

“After a while they get to know each other on a first-name basis. No different than people that own stationary stores going to the Holiday Gift Show every year. Its just good business.”

When Barry Seal was bringing cocaine back from Honduras in a CIA military cargo plane to Mena, Arkansas, the U.S. Attorney there was craven Southern Baptist manqué Asa Hutchinson.

Whether Dusty Foggo and Barry Seal knew each other or not, it’s a safe bet that when Porter Goss mysteriously “plucked him (Foggo) from obscurity” in the words of the New York Times, and named Foggo to be the CIA’s executive director, it wasn’t because Foggo sings too loud in church.

SkyWay Aircraft was never a real business. It was set up to make money, but not through selling a product. The company didn’t have one, and its owners were recently cited from criminal intent for pretending there was one.

Even the SEC, an agency not known for much except taking long lunches, is investigating.

[Dudeskey]

Isn't Dusty Foggo also somehow tied to Duke Cunningham's case?

[alkemical]

Originally Posted by Urinal_Cake

Isn't Dusty Foggo also somehow tied to Duke Cunningham's case?

Yes - it also appears that not only that - but one of the fired attorneys that gonzoles let go - was one heading up the investigation on some wheelings and dealings tied to all of this. Which somehow also links to abramoff....

Interesting, eh?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_%22Dusty%22_Foggo

Criminal investigation
Foggo was charged on Feburary 13, 2007 with fraud and other offenses in the bribery case of US congressman Randy Cunningham.

Foggo is also currently under investigation by the CIA inspector general for involvement in the Cunningham corruption investigation due to his personal and professional connections with Cunningham co-conspirator Brent Wilkes. Other agencies involved in the investigation include the FBI, IRS, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the United States Attorney's Office in San Diego.[1]

The Cunningham scandal involved defense contractors who paid bribes to members of Congress, and officials in the Defense Department, in return for political favors in the form of federal contracts. Most notable amongst the recipients of the bribes was Rep. Cunningham who pleaded guilty to receiving over $2.3 million in bribes. The primary defense contractors were Mitchell Wade (owner of MZM), who also pleaded gulty, and Brent Wilkes (owner of ADCS Inc.). Wilkes was named as "co-conspirator #1" in Cunningham's plea agreement. All three are from the San Diego area.

Foggo is a long time friend of Wilkes. They attended school together at Hilltop High School in Chula Vista and San Diego State University, served as best men in each other's weddings, and named their sons after each other. [2]

Suspicions were raised when Foggo, a mid-level career manager, was promoted to be the number three official of the CIA. Investigations have centered on whether Foggo helped steer agency contracts to companies run by Wilkes. Specifically, "according to two intelligence sources who spoke with National Journal, one of Wilkes's corporations received at least one CIA contract -- to supply water to CIA personnel in Iraq during the U.S. invasion in 2003." [3]

On May 8, 2006, Newsweek reported:

[A] source has told Newsweek that Foggo had acknowledged to associates that he may have tipped off Wilkes that CIA contracts were coming up for bid—an activity which, according to the source, Foggo said was neither improper nor illegal. The source is close to a group of poker players who took part in a 1999 game arranged by Wilkes and attended by Foggo, Cunningham and a nine-fingered former CIA officer named Brant Bassett, who worked for Goss when the outgoing CIA chief was House Intelligence Committee chair. Foggo denies giving Wilkes any such tip-offs, according to another source close to the outgoing CIA official; Bassett and lawyers for Wilkes and Cunningham had no comment. [4]

Also on May 8, 2006, The New York Daily News reported:

The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers.

Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP fund-raiser and a member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos and hotel suites to Cunningham....

Wilkes hosted regular parties for 15 years at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers and lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attending the parties as CIA director, but that left open whether he may have attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was head of the House Intelligence Committee. [5]

On Friday, May 12, 2006, the Copley News Service reported that Foggo's home in Vienna, Virginia had been raided by federal agents. The agents reportedly refused to answer questions about the purpose of the raid or what agency they represented.

On Tuesday February 13, 2007, Foggo and Brent Wilkes were indicted by the US Attorney's Office in San Diego.

[alkemical]

Well from doing some news searches today - this is pretty much valid. It looks to me like the attny firings have to do with what the attny's were working on....

[TailgateNut]

Time for the righty's to enter with their classic "where's the proof". We all know the media is totally anti-right!

[mosca]

Good post, Josh... I am a big fan of Hopsicker's work. It's always a great glimpse into an underworld that's rarely ever reported in the mainstream news.

[Blueflame]

Originally Posted by claviculasolomonis

Well from doing some news searches today - this is pretty much valid. It looks to me like the attny firings have to do with what the attny's were working on....

Yep... and apparently AG Gonzales told Sen. Domenici that he wouldn't fire USA Iglesias without Bush's OK... Iglesias was subsequently fired, so it's probably safe to "connect that dot" that the order (to fire Iglesias) came right from the top.

[alkemical]

It appears that this is huge. Gary Webb did some stories on the CIA selling coke and he died from a suicide of multiple gunshot wounds to the head.

[mhgaffney]

I just finished Hopsicker's earlier book BARRY AND THE BOYS. I can't recommend it highly enough.

The upshot: Drug smuggling is countenanced and protected by the highest levels of the US govrenment.

If Hopsicker is right, and I'd bet that he is, former Pres George Bush Sr was personally involved in the payola from massive cocaine smuggling from S America.

From there it only gets worse. Don't take my word for it. Read Hopsicker. You can get his books at
http://www.madcowpress.com/

[colosilverado]

Originally Posted by claviculasolomonis

It appears that this is huge. Gary Webb did some stories on the CIA selling coke and he died from a suicide of multiple gunshot wounds to the head.

Wow, what a lousy ****in' shot he was if he can't even hit himself in the head.

Seriously though, I can believe that the government would be involved in the drug trade. CIA, FBI, probably the BATF, even. There is just too much money floating around for some of it not to 'disappear' into people's hands

[alkemical]

oh it doesn't surprise me either - just really angers me.

[colosilverado]

Originally Posted by claviculasolomonis

oh it doesn't surprise me either - just really angers me.

Yeah, it angers me too. Lawyers anger me, politicians anger me, corporate ****s anger me, my list is quite long in that regard...lol. The CEO's of these companies that keep outsourcing and cutting jobs while earning their millions, the lawyers who earn their money no matter what they really think of a case and regardless of what the outcome of the case is, the politicians who got there by backing for their buddy's agenda so that their buddy will back theirs and many of whom are former lawyers or lobbyists.

Nobody gets serious about changing things until something very painful happens it seems.

[mhgaffney]

The US intelligence community has been in the drug business since at least the post WW II period -- when the US allied itself with the Italian mafia to prevent left wing parties from dominating Italian politics.

In the 1950s the CIA took over the drug trade in SE Asia when the French pulled out.

The only thing that has changed in the years since is that it's gotten worse.

[alkemical]

Originally Posted by colosilverado

Yeah, it angers me too. Lawyers anger me, politicians anger me, corporate ****s anger me, my list is quite long in that regard...lol. The CEO's of these companies that keep outsourcing and cutting jobs while earning their millions, the lawyers who earn their money no matter what they really think of a case and regardless of what the outcome of the case is, the politicians who got there by backing for their buddy's agenda so that their buddy will back theirs and many of whom are former lawyers or lobbyists.

Nobody gets serious about changing things until something very painful happens it seems.

Oh i agree. It's sometimes very frustrating to look and see that noone really cares genuinley about what is going on. It will have to take something very drastic for people to do something, so with that i do agree with you.

The sad part is, it doesn't have to be that way.

[alkemical]

Contractor Wants Indictments Dismissed

Wednesday April 25, 2007 5:31 AM

By ELLIOT SPAGAT

Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Lawyers for a defense contractor accused of bribing a congressman and committing fraud with a top CIA official have asked a judge to dismiss charges.

The lawyers claim the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego deliberately and illegally disclosed grand jury secrets to the news media.

It also used ``the grand jury as a weapon in its bureaucratic skirmishes with its Justice Department overseers in Washington, D.C.,'' wrote Mark Geragos, an attorney for defense contractor Brent Wilkes.

The leaks created ``a public atmosphere that compelled the grand jury to return indictments,'' Geragos wrote to U.S. District Judge Larry Burns in a request filed Monday. He called the disclosures a ``gesture of defiance'' by then-U.S. Attorney Carol Lam as she was forced out of office.

The indictments were returned against Wilkes and former CIA official Kyle ``Dusty'' Foggo on Feb. 13, two days before Lam left office. Lam's firing was part of a purge of eight U.S. attorneys.

The charges stem from an investigation of former U.S. Rep. Randy ``Duke'' Cunningham, who pleaded guilty in November 2005 to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office did not immediately respond to a phone message from The Associated Press. Lam did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

The leaks detailed charges that prosecutors proposed to the grand jury and disclosed the anticipated timing of indictments, information that was ``solely within the government's control,'' Geragos wrote.

At least six reporters contacted Wilkes' attorneys with secret grand-jury information, Geragos wrote. His court filing included stories by The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal and quoted from the North County Times.

The judge is scheduled to hear arguments on the request May 14.

Wilkes and Foggo, the CIA's No. 3 official until his resignation last May, have pleaded not guilty to fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. Foggo was charged with directing $1.7 million in contracts to Wilkes, who allegedly reciprocated with lavish trips and a job offer.

Wilkes also pleaded not guilty in a separate indictment on charges of conspiracy, bribery, money laundering and making unlawful monetary transactions of more than $700,000 to Cunningham.

[alkemical]

Heroin is "Good for Your Health": Occupation Forces support Afghan Narcotics Trade

Multibillion dollar earnings for organized crime and Western financial Institutions


By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, April 29, 2007


The occupation forces in Afghanistan are supporting the drug trade, which brings between 120 and 194 billion dollars of revenues to organized crime, intelligence agencies and Western financial institutions.

The proceeds of this lucrative multibllion dollar contraband are deposited in Western banks. Almost the totality of revenues accrue to corporate interests and criminal syndicates outside Afghanistan.

The Golden Crescent drug trade, launched by the CIA in the early 1980s, continues to be protected by US intelligence, in liason with NATO occupation forces and the British military. In recent developments, British occupation forces have promoted opium cultivation through paid radio advertisements.

"A radio message broadcast across the province assured local farmers that the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) would not interfere with poppy fields currently being harvested.

"Respected people of Helmand. The soldiers of ISAF and ANA do not destroy poppy fields," it said. "They know that many people of Afghanistan have no choice but to grow poppy. ISAF and the ANA do not want to stop people from earning their livelihoods." ( Quoted in The Guardian, 27 April 2007)




While the controversial opium ads have been casually dismissed as an unfortunate mistake, there are indications that the opium economy is being promoted at the political level (including the British government of Tony Blair).

The Senlis Council, an international think tank specialising in security and policy issues is proposing the development of licit opium exports in Afghanistan, with a view to promoting the production of pharmaceutical pain-killers, such as morphine and codeine. According to the Senlis Council, "the poppies are needed and, if properly regulated, could provide a legal source of income to impoverished Afghan farmers while, at the same time, depriving the drug lords and the Taliban of much of their income." (John Polanyi, Globe and Mail, 23 September 2006)

The Senlis Council offers an alternative where "regulated poppy production in Afghanistan" could be developed to produce needed painkillers. The Senlis statement, however, fails to address the existing structure of licit opium exports, which is characterised by oversupply .

The Senlis' campaign is part of the propaganda campaign. It has contrbuted to providing a false legitimacy to Afghanistan's opium economy. (See details of Senlis Project), which ultmately serves powerful vested interests.

How much opium acreage is required to supply the pharmaceutical industry? According to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which has a mandate to exame issues pertaining to the supply of and demand for opiates used for medical purposes, "the supply of such opiates has for years been at levels well in excess of global demand".(Asian Times, February 2006) The INCB has recommended reducing the production of opiates due to oversupply.



At present, India is the largest exporter of licit opium, supplying approximately 50 percent of licit sales to pharmaceutical companies involved in the production of pain-killing drugs. Turkey is also a major producer of licit opium.

India's opium latex "is sold to licensed pharmaceutical and/or chemical manufacturing firms such as Mallinckrodt and Johnson & Johnson, under rules established by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the International Narcotics Control Board, which require an extensive paper trail." (Opium in India)

The area allocated to licit State controlled opium cultivation in India is of the order of a modest 11,000 hectares, suggesting that the entire demand of the global pharmaceutical industry requires approximately 22,000 hectares of land allocated to poppy production. Opium for pharmaceutical use is not in short supply. The demand of the pharmaceutical industry is already met.

Soaring Afghan Opium Production

The United Nations has announced that opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has soared. There was a 59% increase in areas under opium cultivation in 2006. Production of opium is estimated to have increased by 49% in relation to 2005.

The Western media in chorus blame the Taliban and the warlords. Western officials are said to believe that "the trade is controlled by 25 smugglers including three government ministers." (Guardian, op. cit).

Yet in a bitter irony, US military presence has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade. Opium production has increased 33 fold from 185 tons in 2001 under the Taliban to 6100 tons in 2006. Cultivated areas have increased 21 fold since the 2001 US-led invasion.

What the media reports fail to acknowledge is that the Taliban government was instrumental in 2000-2001 in implementing a successful drug eradication program, with the support and collaboration of the UN.

Implemented in 2000-2001, the Taliban's drug eradication program led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation. In 2001, according to UN figures, opium production had fallen to 185 tons. Immediately following the October 2001 US led invasion, production increased dramatically, regaining its historical levels.

The Vienna based UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that the 2006 harvest will be of the order of 6,100 tonnes, 33 times its production levels in 2001 under the Taliban government (3200 % increase in 5 years).

Cultivation in 2006 reached a record 165,000 hectares compared with 104,000 in 2005 and 7,606 in 2001 under the Taliban

Multibillion dollar trade

According to the UN, Afghanistan supplies in 2006 some 92 percent of the world's supply of opium, which is used to make heroin.

The UN estimates that for 2006, the contribution of the drug trade to the Afghan economy is of the order of 2.7 billion. What it fails to mention is the fact that more than 95 percent of the revenues generated by this lucrative contraband accrues to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions. A very small percentage accrues to farmers and traders in the producing country.

(See also UNODC, The Opium Economy in Afghanistan,
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/publication...conomy_www.pdf , Vienna, 2003, p. 7-8)

"Afghan heroin sells on the international narcotics market for 100 times the price farmers get for their opium right out of the field".(US State Department quoted by the Voice of America (VOA), 27 February 2004).

Based on wholesale and retail prices in Western markets, the earnings generated by the Afghan drug trade are colossal. In July 2006, street prices in Britain for heroin were of the order of Pound Sterling 54, or $102 a gram.

Narcotics On the Streets of Western Europe

One kilo of opium produces approximately 100 grams of (pure) heroin. 6100 tons of opium allows the production of 1220 tons of heroin with a 50 percent purity ratio.

The average purity of retailed heroin can vary. It is on average 36%. In Britain, the purity is rarely in excess of 50 percent, while in the US it can be of the order of 50-60 percent.

Based on the structure of British retail prices for heroin, the total proceeds of the Afghan heroin trade would be of the order of 124.4 billion dollars, assuming a 50 percent purity ratio. Assuming an average purity ratio of 36 percent and the average British price, the cash value of Afghan heroin sales would be of the order of 194.4 billion dollars.

While these figures do not constitute precise estimates, they nonetheless convey the sheer magnitude of this multibillion dollar narcotics trade out of Afghanistan. Based on the first figure which provides a conservative estimate, the cash value of these sales, once they reach Western retail markets are in excess of 120 billion dollars a year.

(See also our detailed estimates for 2003 in The Spoils of War: Afghanistan's Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade, by Michel Chossudovsky, The UNODC estimates the average retail price of heroin for 2004 to be of the order of $157 per gram, based on the average purity ratio).

Narcotics: Second to Oil and the Arms Trade

The foregoing estimates are consistent with the UN's assessment concerning the size and magnitude of the global drug trade.

The Afghan trade in opiates (92 percent of total World production of opiates) constitutes a large share of the worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, which was estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $400-500 billion.

(Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a Changing World, Technical document No. 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also United Nations Drug Control Program, Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations, Vienna 1999, p. 49-51, and Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000).

Based on 2003 figures, drug trafficking constitutes "the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade." (The Independent, 29 February 2004).

Afghanistan and Colombia (together with Bolivia and Peru) consitute the largest drug producing economies in the world, which feed a flourishing criminal economy. These countries are heavily militarized. The drug trade is protected. Amply documented the CIA has played a central role in the development of both the Latin American and Asian drug triangles.

The IMF estimated global money laundering to be between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. (Asian Banker, 15 August 2003).

A large share of global money laundering as estimated by the IMF is linked to the trade in narcotics, one third of which is tied to the Golden Crescent opium triangle.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[mosca]

Foggo is indicted on new charges

Wilkes dealings at heart of case

By Dean Calbreath
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

May 12, 2007

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO – Federal prosecutors in San Diego have filed new charges against the former No. 3 official in the CIA, alleging that he improperly tried to steer a $132 million contract to Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes.

The indictment, handed down by a grand jury Thursday, alleges that Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, a former executive director of the CIA, tried to arrange for Wilkes to provide air services and armored vehicles to the agency, even though Wilkes had little relevant experience.

The indictment also says Foggo gave Wilkes “sensitive, internal information related to our national security” to help him gain the contracts.

In the meantime, Wilkes was treating Foggo to thousands of dollars' worth of vacation trips and dinners, and promising him a top job at his company.

Attorneys for Foggo and Wilkes could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Both men pleaded not guilty in February to previous charges that Foggo improperly helped Wilkes obtain a $1.7 million contract to supply water to CIA agents in Iraq with a 60 percent markup in price. The new charges are a supplement to the previous ones.

In a separate case, Wilkes and New York banker Thomas Michael have pleaded not guilty to bribing former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who is serving eight years in prison after admitting he took $2.4 million in illegal gifts from Wilkes and Mitchell Wade, a former Wilkes associate.

Wilkes and Foggo have been best friends since attending junior high school in Chula Vista. They were so close that they named each other as the primary beneficiaries of their insurance policies.

“I am now, have been in the past, and will continue to as long as I breathe, be your partner,” Foggo wrote Wilkes in 2004.

By that time, Foggo was the top logistics officer for the CIA in Frankfurt, Germany, overseeing supply shipments to CIA operatives throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Wilkes was a defense contractor who had landed more than $100 million in contracts with help from Cunningham and other politicians.

In June 2003, Foggo introduced Wilkes to Richard Wenzel, head of Global Transportation Systems, a cargo carrier that does contract work for government agencies.

“I have been throwing millions at his company for about 18 months, and I'm thinking we would be able to leverage some Wilkes Group contracts,” Foggo wrote Wilkes.

Wilkes planned to form a joint venture with Wenzel to gain CIA and military contracts, said a former business partner of Wilkes who declined to be identified for fear of being pulled into court. Wilkes even filed lobbying papers for the joint venture, GTS Globalink.

Wenzel says that although he hired Wilkes to help him get contracts, he did not know of his plans for a joint venture.

“We did sign a government relations contract to help us identify some opportunities,” Wenzel said. “We signed the contract in January 2004 and terminated it in March 2004 when it became clear that Wilkes wasn't going to help us.”

A year after the GTS deal fell through, Foggo – who had been promoted to executive director of the agency – began telling CIA executives that he had a friend who could provide commercial air cover for CIA operations.

At the time, one of Wilkes' subsidiaries, Group W Transportation, was leasing Lear and Gulfstream jets on a time-share basis, ferrying politicians such as Cunningham and Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. But that was the sole known extent of his aviation experience.

Foggo set up meetings between Wilkes and top CIA officials to discuss a $132 million contract for Group W. He also wrote to the chief of the CIA's air operations, offering to use some “EXDIR grease” to help Wilkes get clearance for classified information related to the contract. EXDIR is CIA lingo for “executive director.”

Foggo pressed for the contract to go to Wilkes even after Wilkes' name was publicly associated with the Cunningham scandal in June 2005. He gave up only after Wilkes' home was raided by FBI and other officials in August 2005 as part of the Cunningham investigation.

[alkemical]

Thanks mosca. I just saw this.

[mhgaffney]

Oh by the by, Hopsicker's latest is WELCOME TO TERRORLAND, his investigation of Mr Atta, the alleged ringleader for the nineteen 9/11 jihadists. Apparently an updated paperback edition will be out in a few weeks.

It chronicles the CIA front companies in Florida, where our illustrious patsies hung out -- and took some of their military and flight training prior to their brief debut on the stage of history.

Hopsicker thinks the CIA has been managing the cocaine imports from S America through Florida for many years. It makes sense that they would piggy back the preparations for the self inflicted 9/11 wound on the same infrastructure of shell companies and phony airline services.

The book is next on my list.

[alkemical]

http://www.madcowprod.com/05072007.html


A MadCowMorningNews investigation has learned that the company which owned the DC9 airliner caught carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine at an airport in Mexico’s Yucatan last year was engaged in other illegal activities as well, including massive “pump and dump” stock fraud involving a network of companies led by scandal-ridden San Diego defense contractor Titan Corp.

Between 2003 and 2005 Titan Corp and a group of allied firms combined to issue a steady drumbeat of phony press releases, announcing multi-million contracts to purchase products which didn't exist, and major deals which never took place, as part of a concerted effort to "pump up" the price of stock in SkyWay Aircraft of St Petersburg, FL.

The goal was to inflate SkyWay’s stock price--the pump--in advance of a massive sell-off--the dump-- by company insiders.

The coup de grace was delivered by company principals, who stripped the company’s remaining assets before filing bankruptcy through sweetheart deals with officers from other companies in the network.

The network of companies looted over one billion dollars through financial fraud; the sum easily eclipses the drug trafficking payout generated by moving 5.5 tons of cocaine.

Jeb Bush & "Enterprise Florida"

Several of the companies involved in the SkyWay stock fraud scheme have received extraordinary government assistance at both the state and federal level.

Triton Network Systems, for example, closely-related to SkyWay through shared management, was not exactly a triumph for free enterprise...

Instead, the firm was a “double-dipper." It was founded with money from the CIA, and also pocketed cash from a quasi-public state entity called “Enterprise Florida,” controlled by Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

This insider status may help explain why officers and directors of the companies in the network which engaged in blatant stock fraud-- not to mention 5.5 ton shipments of cocaine--have been operating with seeming impunity.

CIA moving in on Mob turf?

Some of the companies involved in the SkyWay pump & dump fraud were also implicated in the epic prosecution of major Wall Street brokerage houses by Elliot Spitzer, then the Attorney General of New York State.

Spitzer charged dozens of Wall Street brokers who defrauded unwary investors of tens of millions of dollars. Major brokerage houses paid over one billion dollars in fines to avoid criminal prosecution.

"This is a horror show. And that is why we as prosecutors feel so determined to root out the merger of organized crime and Wall Street," said New York Atty. Gen. Elliot Spitzer.

Spitzer named more than thirty corporations whose stock was run up and then dumped in the scheme. Little attention seems to have been paid to how these companies were chosen.

However three of the companies involved in Spitzer's probe also are part of the network which "busted out" SkyWay: L-3 Communications, Net Command Tech Inc, and Triton Network Systems Inc.


Its called a 'get out of jail free' card

According to Mexican authorities, the DC9 airliner busted with 5.5 tons of cocaine made at least seven round trips to Venezuela with stop-overs at airports in Mexico before being caught.

The airliner had even been painted in the familiar blue and white colors used on official U.S. Government aircraft, complete with an official-looking Seal: an impressive-looking American eagle surrounded by the inscription: "Sky Way Aircraft -- Protection of America's Skies."

"We never could figure out how they could get away with that," one SkyWay employee told us. "They had the same seal on the fleet of Hummers, and Tampa cops pulled them over and made them take it off."

Yet the DC9 sat on the tarmac at Clearwater-St. Petersburg International Airport less than one hundred yards from the U.S. Coast Guard’s major Caribbean air station, with no questions asked or interference from the Coast Guard.

When questioned, officials at the Coast Guard Station refused to comment.

An American-registered airliner caught with 5.5 tons of cocaine is not an everyday occurrence, even in Florida.

But like Coast Guard officials, top DEA officials were tongue-tied.

We phoned and emailed Oscar Negron, the DEA’s press liaison officer in Miami, almost three weeks ago, politely inquiring about the status of the investigation, if any, into the huge seizure.

“Just to let you know,” he emailed back, “I am waiting for information from our HQ.”

Oscar is presumably still waiting. So are we.


(Cont'd on site)

[alkemical]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/4803729.html

SAN DIEGO — A former top CIA official pleaded not guilty Monday to new charges that he pushed a proposed government contract worth at least $100 million for his best friend in return for lavish vacations, private jet flights and a lucrative job offer.

The indictment, returned last week, replaced charges brought in February against Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who resigned from the spy agency a year ago, and defense contractor Brent Wilkes.

The charges grew from the bribery scandal that landed former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in prison.

Foggo and Wilkes now face 30 wide-ranging counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. Each faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors claimed in their earlier 11-count indictment that in fall 2003, while he was working as a logistics officer at a CIA supply hub overseas, Foggo arranged a $1.7 million contract for one of Wilkes' companies to be a middleman in supplying bottled water to the agency.

The new indictment outlines a second scheme in which Foggo is suspected of providing Wilkes with "sensitive, internal information related to our national security," including classified information, to help him prepare bids for providing undercover flights for the CIA under the guise of a civil aviation company and armored vehicles for agency operations.

Foggo, who was the agency's executive director at the time, is also charged with encouraging his CIA colleagues to hire Wilkes without disclosing that the pair were childhood friends.

Prosecutors say that in return, Wilkes offered to hire Foggo after he retired from government service and treated his friend to extravagant meals and vacations, including a trip to Scotland during which they racked up a $44,000 hotel bill and took $4,000 helicopter rides to play golf.

Wilkes was charged in a separate indictment with conspiracy, bribery, money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions to Cunningham in return for government contracts.

A new indictment was returned in that case last week that included new charges against another defendant, New York mortgage banker John T. Michael, who was described as a co-conspirator in Cunningham's 2005 plea agreement. Michael now faces counts of money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions in connection with wire transfers allegedly used to pay off the mortgage on Cunningham's $2.5 million mansion.

Wilkes and Michael pleaded not guilty to the new charges.

All three men remain free on bail.

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns set a Sept. 18 trial date for Wilkes and Michael, followed by a trial for Foggo and Wilkes starting Oct. 23. Burns denied a request by Foggo's attorneys that their client be tried separately in Virginia, where he lives.

Burns also heard arguments from defense attorneys on several key issues, including a request for an investigation into government leaks to news organizations including The Associated Press during the probe.

Wilkes' attorney, Mark Geragos, has said he believes the information was leaked to pressure Justice Department officials into approving criminal charges sought by prosecutors in San Diego before ousted U.S. Attorney Carol Lam resigned in February. The indictments were returned two days before her departure.

"It's clear — clear to me at least — that they were scrambling," Geragos said after Monday's hearing. "It sure looks to me as though something's going on in that office, and I don't know what it is."

Prosecutors have said that the timing had nothing to do with Lam's departure. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Forge told the judge the matter had been referred to another U.S. attorney's office as part of an internal Justice Department review.

Burns ordered that the results of the review be turned over to him and said he would require the government to disclose to defense attorneys the identities of any witnesses who had been identified as leakers.

The initial charges came 20 months after the FBI opened an investigation into Cunningham, who served on key House committees with oversight of government contracts. He pleaded guilty in November 2005 to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

Foggo and Wilkes played high school football together growing up in Chula Vista, south of San Diego. They roomed together at San Diego State University, were best men at each other's weddings and named their sons after each other.

Foggo, the former No. 3 official at the CIA, resigned from the spy agency in May 2006 after his house in suburban Virginia and office at the CIA's Langley, Va., headquarters were raided by federal agents.

[alkemical]

http://www.madcowprod.com/05182007.html

We first learned of terror flight school owner Hilliard’s loan to Falwell from Stuart Burchill, Hilliard’s former accountant.

At one time Hilliard had assigned him the task, Burchill stated, of dunning deadbeat Falwell, the founder of Liberty University and Pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, to repay the million bucks Falwell owed his boss.

In the course of trying to get Falwell to address the unpaid debt Burchill learned details of the Reverend’s accounting practices upon which the Almighty Himself would presumably frown.

“The Falwell note was an outstanding receivable I was assigned to collect,” Burchill explained.

“I talked to Falwell’s accountant, who was very apologetic. He said there was plenty of money to pay off the loan, except that any time there was money left in the account at the end of the month, Jerry always stripped it out.”

[RkyMtnThunder]

None of this should come as any surprise. The only reason the US hasnt followed the model that the Netherlands has established is because they make too much money on street drugs to ever give up on that gravy train.


I have 1st hand personal accounts of trafficking in Denver in the early 1990's that fully support CIA connections. CIA & DEA in cahoots with the MM. Been this way for years.

I know for a fact that in the early 90's in Denver at least 95% of all the herb, coke, hash, smack and X in the city was coming from one man - allegedly a CIA op. I had no reasons to doubt the man. I was one of (many) delivery boys moving product to drop points all over the city.


(not saying I am proud of that - but I was involved for a short period and might as well been a lifetime ago)