vault backup: 2026-10-05 17:25:58

20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/DEA.md

@@ -3,8 +3,9 @@ title: DEA
 aliases:
   - DEA
   - Drug Enforcement Administration
+  - Drug Enforcement Agency
 created: 2026-05-17
-updated: 2026-05-17
+updated: 2026-10-05
 category: "U.S. Government"
 tags:
   - Organization
@@ -12,67 +13,115 @@ tags:
   - UnitedStates
   - 1980s
   - DarkAllianceInvestigation
-summary: "The Drug Enforcement Administration was the principal federal anti-narcotics agency that possessed extensive knowledge of Danilo Blandón's cocaine trafficking as early as 1981 yet took no action while he received U.S. political asylum."
+  - IranContra
+  - Stargate
+  - ContraWar
+summary: "The federal anti-narcotics agency whose files, informants and Central American offices recur in the Contra drug cases, the Seal sting, the Camarena search and the Stargate collection."
 start: 1973-07-01
 location: "Arlington, Virginia"
+relations:
+  - type: member_of
+    with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
+    role: "federal anti-narcotics agency"
+    fn: 1
+  - type: informant_for
+    with: "[[Danilo Blandon]]"
+    reverse: true
+    start: 1994
+    end: 1996
+    role: "paid informant used in the San Diego case against Ricky Ross"
+    fn: 8
+  - type: informant_for
+    with: "[[Norwin Meneses]]"
+    reverse: true
+    start: 1987-07-24
+    end: 1989-12-23
+    role: "formally established informant of the Costa Rica country office, briefly reactivated May 1990"
+    fn: 10
+  - type: informant_for
+    with: "[[Barry Seal]]"
+    reverse: true
+    role: "pilot used to photograph Colombian and Nicaraguan figures"
+    fn: 6
+  - type: investigated
+    with: "[[Ricky Ross]]"
+    start: 1994-10
+    end: 1995-03-02
+    role: "San Diego reverse sting"
+    fn: 8
 ---
-Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a branch of the [[Department of Justice|U.S. Department of Justice]] and the principal federal agency responsible for enforcement of anti-drug laws.[^3] It is the successor to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD). During the Contra war, multiple DEA agents and offices were involved in or aware of Contra-connected [[Cocaine]] trafficking.
 
-### Contra War Involvement
+The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a component of the [[Department of Justice]] and the principal federal agency enforcing the controlled substance laws of the [[United States]]. It was created on July 1, 1973, under Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1973, by merging the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement and a contingent of agents from the [[U.S. Customs|Customs Service]].[^1] Its offices in [[Costa Rica]], [[Guatemala]], [[Mexico]] and [[Los Angeles]] appear throughout the records of the Contra war, and its requests for help appear in the [[Stargate Project]] files.
 
-DEA agent [[Celerino Castillo]] discovered Contra cocaine trafficking at [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]] in [[El Salvador]] and was subsequently forced to retire.[^2] [[Robert Nieves|"The Snowman" Nieves]], head of the DEA office in [[Costa Rica]], was identified by [[Norwin Meneses]] as his control agent. While Nieves was DEA attaché in Costa Rica, the DEA office was alleged by Costa Rican officials to be involved in drug trafficking and protecting cocaine labs in Contra war zones. Nieves later became head of all DEA operations internationally before resigning in 1995 and joining [[Oliver North]]'s company Guardian Technologies.[^2]
+### The 1982 Reporting Agreement
 
-[[Joseph Kelso]], a former [[Central Intelligence Agency]] operative and undercover Customs informant who investigated DEA involvement in cocaine trafficking in Costa Rica, was beaten and threatened with death by DEA agents, deported, and arrested for probation violation.
+On February 11, 1982, Attorney General [[William French Smith]] wrote to Director of Central Intelligence [[William Casey]], on the day the Justice Department and the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] signed a memorandum on reporting federal crimes, that no formal requirement to report narcotics violations by non-employees had been included in the procedures, citing the agency's drug intelligence mandate under Executive Order 12333 and "the fine cooperation the Drug Enforcement Administration has received from CIA." Casey's reply of March 2 did not address the point. The Inspector General found that the memorandum did not list narcotics among the crimes the CIA had to report for non-employees and was unclear on whether it covered paid assets; a 1995 memorandum was amended to require reporting of drug offenses by non-employees. In July 1987 the chief of the CIA Central American Task Force, [[Alan Fiers]], told the congressional intelligence committees the CIA reported "immediately all information on narcotics trafficking" to law enforcement, and said the CIA would meet the DEA about possible trafficking by the Nicaraguan resistance; neither the DEA nor the CIA Inspector General found a record of such a meeting, and Fiers declined an interview.[^2]
 
-### Castillo Investigation and Ilopango
+The Inspector General also found that from 1986 or 1987 the CIA asked the DEA Intelligence Division for "derogatory information" on pilots it was considering for Contra operations, and that the Division ran NADDIS searches and reported the results.[^2] DEA personnel in Costa Rica told the Inspector General that the Station "always took and never gave," that one attache's Station contacts were sometimes "eyes only" and not to be shared with headquarters, and that none recalled the CIA passing information about Contra trafficking or asking them to refrain from investigating Contras.[^3]
 
-Celerino Castillo discovered Contra cocaine trafficking at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador and was subsequently forced to retire.[^2] Castillo began firing off reports to DEA headquarters in January 1986 about suspicious activities of Contra pilots, listing their names, destinations, tail numbers, and criminal records. He received no replies and no offers of assistance. When Ambassador Edwin Corr requested an internal DEA review, the DEA informed him that Castillo's information was "totally inaccurate" and ordered him to close the investigation. The DEA later claimed under FOIA that it had no reports from Castillo about drug trafficking at Ilopango - a claim the [[Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General|Justice Department Inspector General]] exposed as false, having located and quoted from the reports.[^6]
+### The Camarena Search and Project 8501
+
+The DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar disappeared in Guadalajara on February 7, 1985, after leaving the U.S. consulate. The New York Times reported on February 11 that it was the first kidnapping of a U.S. narcotics agent in Mexico since the joint anti-drug effort began in 1975, and that a high-ranking Mexican official said the most unusual aspect was that "they usually just kill them." The Washington Post reported on March 6 that the bodies of Camarena and the pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar were found near Zamora, Michoacan, with a $50,000 U.S. reward unclaimed, on property of a family killed in a police shoot-out the previous weekend, and that a U.S. source said, "There are a lot of inconsistencies, a lot of holes in the story."[^4]
+
+A memorandum for record of March 18, 1985, in the CIA's Stargate collection, titled "Project 8501," states that before February 15 the Army unit conducting remote viewing was alerted that it might assist the DEA with the Camarena case, that the DEA formally requested [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] assistance on February 15, and that authorization came on February 16 with collection beginning within hours. Five sources were interviewed by one interviewer who had no contact with DEA personnel or "close hold" investigative information. A sealed envelope held the coordinates of the Guadalajara consulate, the time and date of the kidnapping, Camarena's name and a photograph, and each source was asked to describe "the critical location." The sources' composite described a poor area of low, flat-roofed buildings with unpaved streets and one taller, hotel-like building of two to three stories with a large domed structure, a large silver water-tank-like structure and water to the east and west nearby. One source described a man alone in a room in a chair; another described the occupant as "afraid and angry yet determined and hopeful." The memorandum notes the data went to the DEA, that Camarena was found dead on March 6, that "no feedback" on the described location had been or was expected to be provided, and that any association between the interviewer and military intelligence was classified CONFIDENTIAL.[^5]
+
+### Seal, Mena and the Cartel Sting
+
+A Senate subcommittee report found that the DEA used the former smuggler Barry Seal as an informant in a sensitive operation against the Colombian cartels and Sandinista officials, that Seal flew to [[Nicaragua]] and photographed [[Federico Vaughn]] and [[Pablo Escobar]] loading Seal's plane, and that the operation was disclosed prematurely by an administration official who leaked the evidence to influence a pending congressional vote on Contra aid, to the fury of law enforcement officials who saw their agents' lives jeopardized. After the exposure Vaughn disappeared; the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime found the telephone number Vaughn used in calls from Seal was one the U.S. embassy had controlled since 1985. The report added that associates of Seal who operated aircraft service businesses at the Mena, Arkansas, airport were targets of grand jury probes, and that the cases were dropped over the protests of State and federal law enforcement officials although the evidence sufficed for money laundering indictments.[^6]
 
 ### Costa Rica: Kelso Investigation
 
-In 1986, Joseph Kelso, a CIA and [[U.S. Customs]] informant, gathered testimony from six witnesses willing to testify that DEA agents in Costa Rica were skimming cocaine from seizures, making counterfeit money, and protecting cocaine labs including on Contra bases. DEA agent Robert Nieves had Kelso arrested and threatened his life. Kelso's evidence tapes were turned over to Oliver North via [[Robert Owen]], who threw them away when the [[Iran-Contra Affair]] broke. The DEA never investigated the allegations. DEA director Jack Lawn told Congress he had never heard of the case.[^7]
+In 1986, [[Joseph Kelso]], a CIA and U.S. Customs informant, gathered testimony from six witnesses willing to testify that DEA agents in Costa Rica were skimming cocaine from seizures, making counterfeit money and protecting cocaine labs including on Contra bases. [[Gary Webb]] wrote that DEA agent [[Robert Nieves]] had Kelso arrested and threatened his life, that Kelso was beaten and deported, that his evidence tapes were turned over to [[Oliver North]] through [[Robert Owen]], who threw them away when the [[Iran-Contra Affair]] broke, that the DEA never investigated, and that DEA Administrator Jack Lawn told Congress he had never heard of the case. Webb is the sole source for the passages so cited.[^7]
 
-### Relationship with Blandón
+### Blandon in DEA Files
 
-[[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]] became a DEA informant after his 1992 arrest. The government secured his cooperation by dropping charges against his wife [[Chepita Blandon|Chepita Blandón]], granting her [[United States|U.S.]] citizenship, reducing his sentence from life to twenty-eight months, and releasing him on unsupervised probation to work as a full-time paid informant. Blandón subsequently served as the chief confidential informant in the DEA reverse sting that arrested [[Ricky Ross]].[^1]
+The Justice Department Inspector General found the first mention of [[Danilo Blandon]] in DEA files was a March 1983 debriefing of a confidential source in Los Angeles, followed by a January 1985 source report that Blandon supplied cocaine to [[Norwin Meneses]] and a February 1986 report that he had attended a Contra support conference in Miami in December 1982. The Inspector General wrote that this was "treated as background intelligence" and that the DEA opened a case on Blandon in August 1986 when an informant walked into the Riverside office. A judge granted Blandon political asylum on August 19, 1985, after a January 1983 denial.[^8]
 
-The DEA possessed extensive knowledge of Blandón's drug dealing years before recruiting him as an informant. The agency opened a NADDIS file on Blandón on May 24, 1983, after receiving a tip from a confidential informant that he was a member of a cocaine trafficking organization. In early 1984, while Blandón's political asylum application was under review at the [[State Department|State Department]], the DEA learned from an informant that he was "the head" of his own cocaine distribution organization based in Los Angeles. The DEA similarly opened a NADDIS file on Blandón's wife Chepita on March 15, 1985, after she was reported as a "member of a cocaine distribution organization" - yet she was granted political asylum later that same year. It is State Department policy to check with the DEA before approving asylum applications. When the Justice Department's Inspector General examined the Blandóns' immigration records, he found them "in disarray."[^4]
+Webb wrote that the DEA opened a NADDIS file on Blandon on May 24, 1983, on a tip that he belonged to a cocaine trafficking organization; that in early 1984, while his asylum application was under State Department review, an informant told the DEA he was "the head" of his own Los Angeles distribution organization; that the DEA opened a NADDIS file on his wife [[Chepita Blandon]] on March 15, 1985, before she was granted asylum that year; that State Department policy was to check with the DEA before approving asylum; and that the Inspector General found the Blandons' immigration records "in disarray." Webb is the sole source for the NADDIS dates and the quoted finding.[^9]
 
-### Relationship with Meneses
+Webb wrote that after Blandon's 1992 arrest the government dropped charges against Chepita Blandon, granted her citizenship, reduced his sentence to twenty-eight months and released him on unsupervised probation as a full-time paid informant. The Inspector General found Blandon was sentenced to 48 months, reduced to 28 on a government motion for substantial cooperation, found no sign the leniency rested on anything but his cooperation, and concluded an INS agent improperly obtained him a green card in 1994 despite his felony conviction because the agent wanted to avoid the effort of obtaining travel documents the proper way.[^8]
 
-Norwin Meneses worked as a DEA informant from 1985 to 1991 despite being under federal indictment for drug trafficking since 1989.[^2] In Costa Rica, DEA agent [[Sandalio Gonzalez]] handled Meneses as an off-the-books informant whose name did not appear in DEA databases until 1987, preventing other DEA offices from knowing about his status. DEA public affairs chief James McGivney offered to facilitate an interview with Meneses but demanded a "quid pro quo" - that reporters leave out details about Danilo Blandón's relationship with the DEA.[^5]
+### Costa Rica: Meneses and Operation Perico
 
-During 1987 Senate subcommittee hearings, Senator [[John Kerry]] told DEA director Jack Lawn that "the head of the DEA office in Costa Rica was interviewed by this committee and he told us that the infrastructure that was used to supply the Contras was used to smuggle drugs." Lawn said he was not familiar with the report. The DEA's position was that there was "no credible evidence" to support such allegations. The DEA officer in question, Robert J. Nieves, was Meneses's control agent throughout the remainder of the 1980s.[^5]
+Norwin Meneses approached the DEA Costa Rica office in July 1986. The Inspector General found that the agent, [[Sandalio Gonzalez]], checked DEA databases, found no warrants, and in December 1986 sent Meneses and a DEA informant ("DEA CI-1") to Los Angeles, where in January 1987 they met Blandon, [[Ivan Torres]] and others. The San Francisco FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office, and FBI agent [[Douglas Aukland]], were surprised. On July 24, 1987, the Costa Rica office formally established Meneses as an informant, noted "no pending charges known at this time," obtained a 45-day visa for him in September 1987 and another in November, deactivated him on December 23, 1989, reactivated him briefly in May 1990 and paid him $7,377.50 over thirteen payments. Meneses had been indicted under seal in San Francisco in February 1989. In a debriefing on February 10, 1987, Meneses told Gonzalez he had personally paid $5,000 "on numerous occasions" to a DEA agent in the San Francisco area three to four years earlier "for protection," and that the agent worked with corrupt San Francisco police officials. Gonzalez forwarded the memorandum to headquarters; a DEA Office of Professional Responsibility official replied by telephone on March 16, 1987, that the allegation had been made in June 1985, investigated and found false (the office had issued a clearance letter to the agent on February 3, 1986), and no further action was taken. The FBI had polygraphed two persons who made the earlier allegation, Jairo Meneses and Renato Pena, in July 1986 and its examiner concluded they were deceptive in denying they had lied.[^10]
 
-Despite obvious and widespread trafficking through Contra war zones in northern Costa Rica, a U.S. Senate subcommittee reported in 1988 that it was "unable to find a single case against a drug trafficker operating in those zones which was made on the basis of a tip or report by an official of a U.S. intelligence agency." Costa Rican prosecutor Jorge Chavarria said the DEA "knew about the Contras and drugs. All these flights and pilots that were flying in and out with drugs could not have been ignored by the DEA. They were looking in the other direction."[^5]
+Webb called the January 1987 operation "Operation Perico" and wrote that the CIA operative "Roberto" accompanied Meneses, that the DEA conducted it without informing Aukland, that the debriefing reports captured admissions that CIA representatives were aware of Contra drug activity and did not mind, that the San Francisco office cabled Costa Rica that it did not know "who was being targeted," and that headquarters was asked "whether an indictment of Meneses by the San Francisco FBI will result in national security problems with other agencies." Webb also wrote that Meneses worked as a DEA informant from 1985 to 1991 despite the 1989 indictment, that Nieves was his control agent, and that the DEA public affairs chief James McGivney offered an interview with Meneses on condition that reporters omit Blandon's DEA ties. Webb is the sole source for these passages.[^11]
 
-### Operation Perico
+Webb quoted Senator [[John Kerry]] telling Lawn in 1987 that the head of the Costa Rica office told the committee "the infrastructure that was used to supply the Contras was used to smuggle drugs," and quoted the Costa Rican prosecutor Jorge Chavarria saying the DEA "knew about the Contras and drugs... They were looking in the other direction."[^12] The subcommittee's own report of December 1988 stated that despite "obvious and widespread trafficking through the war zones of northern Costa Rica" it was "unable to find a single case against a drug trafficker operating in those zones which was made on the basis of a tip or report by an official of a U.S. intelligence agency."[^6]
 
-In December 1986, DEA agent Gonzalez in Costa Rica launched "Operation Perico," sending Norwin Meneses and a CIA operative known as "Roberto" to infiltrate Blandón's drug ring in Los Angeles. The operation was conducted without informing [[Douglas Aukland|FBI agent Aukland]], who was leading the federal investigation of the same targets. In early January 1987, Meneses and Roberto met with Blandón and FDN official [[Ivan Torres]], gathering intelligence about the drug operation and its connections to the Contras. The CIA operative's debriefing reports captured admissions that CIA representatives were aware of Contra drug activities and did not mind.[^8]
+### Morales, Hull and the Southern Front
 
-Other DEA offices were angered by the Costa Rican operation. The San Francisco office cabled Costa Rica complaining it had no idea "who was being targeted by Meneses and [Roberto]" or what they were supposedly investigating. An accompanying cable to DEA headquarters inquired "whether an indictment of Meneses by the San Francisco FBI will result in national security problems with other agencies." After Meneses completed his mission and returned to Costa Rica, he refused to continue as an informant. Once the OCDETF investigation was shelved in July 1987, the DEA rehired Meneses and began issuing him visas that allowed him to travel in and out of the United States at will.[^8]
+The Inspector General reproduced CIA memoranda of October 25, November 5 and December 5, 1984, reporting that Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro of the [[Eden Pastora]] group had agreed in Miami with the trafficker Jorge Morales to provide airstrips in return for aircraft, pilot training and money, and that the CIA told Justice representatives, including DEA and FBI personnel, on November 9, 1984. A later DEA cable said the source "had not furnished actionable information." The Inspector General noted that if the CIA had the information by November 28 it should have notified the DEA immediately. When DEA analysts debriefed Morales in a Miami jail in January 1988, he named [[John Hull]] and a Costa Rican ranch as a transit point. Agent Juan Perez inspected the airstrip, found it short and grass-surfaced, and reported orally to Nieves, then Costa Rica country attache; no one else in the office investigated. The Inspector General noted that Lawn later told the Kerry subcommittee Morales had passed a polygraph, although Morales had changed his allegations about a "Contra connection" after an initial finding of deception.[^3]
+
+### Castillo, Ilopango and Customs
+
+DEA agent [[Celerino Castillo]], assigned to the Guatemala City office, which covered El Salvador, from 1985 to 1990, opened an investigation of the pilot Grasheim, who Castillo wrote had crash-landed near Tamiami, Florida, in May 1986 claiming to be a "secret agent," and whose Salvadoran home was searched on September 1, 1986. At a briefing on October 30, 1986, U.S. Customs agent Richard Rivera told Ambassador [[Edwin Corr]] Customs had investigated Grasheim for years for illegal export of weapons and "hi-tech" equipment; Corr asked that any investigation be "very discreet." On November 21, 1986, the Guatemala country attache Robert Stia closed the DEA case, recording that "the drug aspect" was concluded and that the information went to Customs and the [[Internal Revenue Service]].[^13]
+
+Webb wrote that Castillo discovered Contra cocaine trafficking at [[Ilopango Airbase]], began sending reports to DEA headquarters in January 1986 listing names, destinations, tail numbers and criminal records without reply, that Corr requested an internal review and the DEA told him Castillo's information was "totally inaccurate" and ordered the investigation closed, that Castillo was forced to retire, and that the DEA later claimed under the Freedom of Information Act it had no such reports, a claim Webb said the Inspector General exposed as false. Webb is the sole source for these passages.[^14] The Inspector General reported that Castillo refused an interview unless he could record it and have Representative [[Maxine Waters]] present, found that Castillo had passed such information in 1986 and that the Ilopango investigation was closed amid sensitive covert supply operations, found his broader conclusions unsupported, and recorded that Castillo resigned in 1992.[^13]
 
 ### San Diego Reverse Sting
 
-The DEA's most significant operation involving Blandón as an informant was the March 1995 reverse sting that arrested Ricky Ross. After Blandón was recruited as a full-time paid informant following his 1992 arrest, he reestablished contact with Ross, who had been released from prison in 1993 and was attempting to go straight with the Freeway Academy youth center project. Blandón called Ross repeatedly, paged him constantly, and pressed him to resume drug dealing. Ross's probation officer James Galipeau confirmed Blandón's persistence: "The son-of-a-bitch called him while he was in the car with his probation officer!"[^9]
+Webb wrote that Blandon, recruited as a full-time paid informant, reestablished contact with [[Ricky Ross]], released in 1993 and attempting to go straight with the Freeway Academy youth center, calling and paging him constantly, and that Ross's probation officer James Galipeau said, "The son-of-a-bitch called him while he was in the car with his probation officer!" On March 2, 1995, at the Bonita Plaza Mall in Chula Vista, DEA agents watched [[Leroy Brown|"Chico" Brown]] hand $169,445 to Blandon's Colombian associate for 100 kilos of cocaine in a booby-trapped Chevy Blazer, and agent Charles Jones said agents blocked the vehicle and activated a kill switch. Webb is the sole source.[^15] The Inspector General found the DEA opened its investigation of Ross in October 1994 after Ross contacted Blandon, that Ross was convicted over an entrapment defense and, with two prior felony drug convictions, received a mandatory life sentence, and that Ross's claim of retaliation for his 1991 testimony against sheriff's deputies was not supported.[^8]
 
-When Ross's associate [[Leroy Brown|"Chico" Brown]] proposed a drug deal with Blandón to settle a $30,000 debt, Blandón served as the government's inside man. On March 2, 1995, at the Bonita Plaza Mall in Chula Vista, DEA agents watched as Brown handed $169,445 to Blandón's Colombian associate in exchange for 100 kilos of cocaine in a booby-trapped Chevy Blazer. DEA agent Charles Jones said federal agents blocked the vehicle and activated a kill switch. Ross was captured after a brief foot chase. The DEA had been taping Ross's conversations with Blandón throughout the operation.[^9]
+### October 1995 Meeting With Webb
 
-### Attempt to Suppress the Dark Alliance Story
-
-In October 1995, [[Gary Webb]] was contacted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Hall, who warned that Webb's reporting could endanger Blandón and compromise ongoing investigations. On October 19, 1995, Webb met with [[Craig Chretien|SAC Craig Chretien]] and six agents at the National City regional office. Chretien asked Webb to omit Blandón's DEA ties; agent [[Chuck Jones]] denied any knowledge of Blandón's Contra drug history but inadvertently confirmed the DEA knew about it during the exchange. Chretien proposed trading information about Norwin Meneses if Webb would drop the Blandón angle. Eight days later, Robert Nieves resigned as head of the International Division and Chretien was promoted to replace him.[^10]
-
-The DEA's public affairs office in Washington later attempted to broker a deal: an interview with Meneses in exchange for omitting Blandón's DEA ties. Freelance journalist [[Georg Hodel]] beat them to it, locating Meneses in a Nicaraguan prison.[^10]
+Webb wrote that in October 1995 Assistant U.S. Attorney David Hall warned him his reporting could endanger Blandon; that on October 19 Special Agent in Charge [[Craig Chretien]] and six agents met him at the National City regional office and asked him to omit Blandon's DEA ties; that agent [[Chuck Jones]] denied knowing of Blandon's Contra drug history yet confirmed the DEA knew; that Chretien offered information about Meneses in exchange; that eight days later Nieves resigned as head of the International Division and Chretien was promoted to replace him; and that Nieves later joined Guardian Technologies, a company associated with Oliver North. Freelance journalist [[Georg Hodel]] located Meneses in a Nicaraguan prison before the DEA's brokered interview materialized. Webb is the sole source for these passages.[^16]
 
 ### Footnotes
 
-[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Prologue: "It was like they didn't want to know"
-[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Cast of Characters
-[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Glossary of Organizations and Locations
-[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it"
-[^5]: 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"
-[^6]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends"
-[^7]: 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"
-[^8]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 20: "It is a sensitive matter"
-[^9]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 24: "They're gonna forget I was a drug dealer"
-[^10]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 25: "Things are moving all around us"
+[^1]: Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1973, 38 Fed. Reg. 15932, 87 Stat. 1091, effective July 1, 1973; Drug Enforcement Administration, "DEA History: The Early Years," https://www.dea.gov/es/node/1045
+[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter XI, sections B and E, https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/special/9712/ch11p1.htm
+[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter XI, sections C, D, F and footnote 82, https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/special/9712/ch11p1.htm
+[^4]: Richard J. Meislin, New York Times, February 11, 1985, and William A. Orme Jr., Washington Post, March 6, 1985, as filed in CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750003-8 and -0004-7, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750003-8
+[^5]: Memorandum for Record, "Project 8501," March 18, 1985, CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750015-5, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP96-00788R001900750015-5
+[^6]: U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (December 1988), chapters on the Barry Seal episode and "Intelligence vs. Law Enforcement," https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
+[^7]: 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."
+[^8]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Executive Summary sections II and VI, and Chapter II (Blandon), https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/special/9712/ch02p1.htm
+[^9]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it."
+[^10]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter III (Norwin Meneses), section on continued use of Meneses by the Costa Rica DEA, https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/special/9712/ch03p2.htm
+[^11]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 20: "It is a sensitive matter," Chapter 11: "They were looking in the other direction," and Cast of Characters.
+[^12]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 11: "They were looking in the other direction."
+[^13]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter X (Celerino Castillo), https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/special/9712/ch10p2.htm
+[^14]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends," and Cast of Characters.
+[^15]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 24: "They're gonna forget I was a drug dealer."
+[^16]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 25: "Things are moving all around us."