disinfozone/The_Info_Web
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull requests Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity Actions

vault backup: 2026-10-15 11:55:05

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
disinfo.zone 2026-10-15 11:55:05 -04:00
parent de84622565
commit 70fb85249f
No known key found for this signature in database
55 changed files with 2213 additions and 364 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

19
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/John Hull.md
View file

@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
updated: 2026-10-15
tags:
- Person
- Person/Intelligence
@ -21,15 +22,27 @@ Pilot [[Fabio Ernesto Carrasco|"Tito" Carrasco]], who flew drug missions for Mor
On July 31, 1987, Fiers briefed the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] on Hull's alleged relationship with Morales. According to the committee transcript as quoted by the CIA Inspector General, Fiers said that Morales "saw John Hull in his, Morales' office, with [Marcos] Aguado in 1983. However, Morales didn't meet him. He didn't want to." The Inspector General also reports that on March 7, 1989 a Costa Rican judge charged Hull with "hostile acts" and "drug trafficking," and that Costa Rican court documents claimed Hull and Contra pilot [[Gerardo Duran]] had met Morales in Miami to discuss the sale of drugs and weapons, and that planes piloted by Duran and Aguado had landed at Hull's airstrips carrying military supplies and, with Hull's knowledge, left loaded with drugs. The Inspector General quotes Hull's reply to the allegations of [[Gary Betzner|Gary Wayne Betzner]]: "not true, not true! He made it up. He was coached."[^3]
On April 6, 1987, the [[CBS]] program West 57th Street broadcast Gary Wayne Betzner's statement that "I took two loads, small aircraft loads of weapons to John Hull's ranch in Costa Rica and returned back to Florida with approximately a thousand kilos of cocaine."[^4] On the same program Betzner said that personnel working for Hull "would load the aircraft" and that Hull "physically saw the bags" of cocaine, and he described a whistle used to signal the strip before landing. Hull denied the allegations on the program, saying "There's never been any drug movement through this zone or through any of our farms," and that his strips had no air-to-ground communication system.[^4]
Hull told investigators that his grass airstrip had only about 1,600 usable feet, with hills at one end and a river at the other, and that a Cessna 402B loaded as Betzner described would have been about 800 pounds over its gross weight for a takeoff from a grass strip.[^4] Betzner testified in 1988 that the strip he landed on was "a little over 3,000 feet long" and ran along the river.[^5]
At the April 7, 1988 hearing John Kerry introduced a letter from the [[U.S. Customs]] Service to Ralph Martin, Department of Justice public integrity attorney, reporting that a Treasury Enforcement Communications System check of names from the 1986 subcommittee report returned 21 matches, and that "the name John Hull resulted in 293 possible matches." Kerry told the hearing that Hull continued to operate with impunity after that finding.[^6]
Morales said a Cessna 404 Titan had been bought for the Contras and turned over to [[Adolfo Chamorro|Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro]]; [[Federal Aviation Administration]] records showed the aircraft purchased by a Costa Rican company, Cultivos Experimentales, listing Chamorro as vice-president, with a transfer in October 1984. [[Jack Blum]], counsel to the Senate subcommittee, said the committee would not pursue Betzner's allegations because his credibility "could be easily attacked."[^7]
### The Kelso Visit
In August 1986, [[Joseph Kelso]], a CIA and [[U.S. Customs]] informant fleeing [[DEA]] agents in Costa Rica, arrived at Hull's ranch seeking refuge. Kelso told Hull and [[Robert Owen|Rob Owen]] that DEA agents had maps of cocaine lab locations but were protecting them, including "one large lab located in southern Nicoya. And another in Talamanca region." Hull wrote a detailed report and gave it to Owen to deliver to [[Oliver North]], noting: "If the DEA people are in the drug business it should be stopped." Hull eventually concluded Kelso was telling the truth: "He was giving me locations of cocaine labs in Costa Rica and who they belonged to and then a week later one of them was busted and it was right where he said it was."[^4]
In August 1986, [[Joseph Kelso]], a CIA and U.S. Customs informant fleeing [[DEA]] agents in Costa Rica, arrived at Hull's ranch seeking refuge. Kelso told Hull and [[Robert Owen|Rob Owen]] that DEA agents had maps of cocaine lab locations but were protecting them, including "one large lab located in southern Nicoya. And another in Talamanca region." Hull wrote a detailed report and gave it to Owen to deliver to [[Oliver North]], noting: "If the DEA people are in the drug business it should be stopped." Hull eventually concluded Kelso was telling the truth: "He was giving me locations of cocaine labs in Costa Rica and who they belonged to and then a week later one of them was busted and it was right where he said it was."[^8]
The next morning, Costa Rican Rural Guards awakened Kelso with automatic rifle fire and beat him with rifle butts. A colonel told Hull the embassy said Kelso "should be shot if he resisted arrest." Hull's Contras surrounded the guards with 12-gauge riot guns. Hull broke up the standoff but permitted the guards to take Kelso away.[^4]
The next morning, Costa Rican Rural Guards awakened Kelso with automatic rifle fire and beat him with rifle butts. A colonel told Hull the embassy said Kelso "should be shot if he resisted arrest." Hull's Contras surrounded the guards with 12-gauge riot guns. Hull broke up the standoff but permitted the guards to take Kelso away.[^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 11: "They were looking in the other direction"
[^2]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), Chapter 13, "The wrong kind of friends," and Cast of Characters.
[^3]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States*, Volume II (October 8, 1998), chapter on other individuals (John Hull; March 7, 1989 reporting; July 31, 1987 SSCI briefing transcript), https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 17: "We're going to blow your fucking head off"
[^4]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States* (96-0143-IG), Volume II (October 8, 1998), passages quoting the CBS West 57th Street broadcast of April 6, 1987 and Hull's responses. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
[^5]: U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: Hearings*, S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3 (April 1988), testimony of Gary Betzner, April 7, 1988, p. 263. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0005
[^6]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 270 to 271 (Kerry's statement and the Customs letter). https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0005
[^7]: "Committee probes smugglers' claims," *Tampa Tribune*, September 3, 1987, p. 1B.
[^8]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 17: "We're going to blow your fucking head off"