33 lines
3 KiB
Markdown
33 lines
3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Seth Rosenfeld
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aliases:
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- Seth Rosenfeld
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created: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-05-17
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category: "Authors & Journalists"
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tags:
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- Person
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- Journalist
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- UnitedStates
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- 1980s
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- DarkAllianceInvestigation
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summary: "San Francisco Examiner reporter whose 1986 investigative stories exposed the Frogman Case Contra drug connections and Norwin Meneses's cocaine trafficking network."
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born: 1956-01-01
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---
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Seth Rosenfeld was an investigative reporter for the San Francisco Examiner whose 1986 stories provided the first hard evidence of a Contra drug ring operating in the United States.[^1]
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### The Frogman Case Expose
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In spring 1986, Rosenfeld broke the story of the [[Frogman Case|Frogman drug case]], exposing the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s handling of the $36,000 found in [[Julio Zavala]]'s nightstand in 1983. Rosenfeld reported Zavala's claim from prison that he had personally delivered about $500,000 in drug profits to the [[Contras]] in [[Costa Rica]]. Rosenfeld also unearthed [[Carlos Cabezas]]'s long-buried testimony about selling [[Horacio Pereira|Horacio Pereira's]] cocaine to raise money for the Contra revolution. Coming on the heels of [[Associated Press]] reports about Contra cocaine trafficking, Rosenfeld's story provided the first hard evidence of a Contra drug ring operating in the United States.[^1]
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### The Meneses Expose
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A month before the State Department issued a White Paper dismissing all Contra drug allegations, Rosenfeld published another front-page story exposing [[Norwin Meneses]]'s cocaine trafficking network and his involvement with the [[FDN]] in [[San Francisco]] and [[Los Angeles]]. Rosenfeld reported on Meneses's meetings with CIA agents [[Enrique Bermudez|Enrique Bermúdez]] and [[Adolfo Calero]] and other Contra leaders. He reported that the FDN's spokesman in San Francisco had been convicted of cocaine charges. He disclosed Meneses's donations at FDN fund-raisers. The story was considerably more damaging than the Frogman story because it directly involved the CIA's primary army with a major international cocaine and arms trafficker.[^1]
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### Government Reaction
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[[Joseph Russoniello|U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello]] mailed a four-page letter to the Examiner's editor calling Rosenfeld's Frogman story "one of the most blatant attempts at contrived news-making we have witnessed in recent years" and suggesting it was a political stunt to harm the Contras' chances of getting aid from Congress. The State Department issued a White Paper portraying Cabezas and Zavala as liars and dismissing Rosenfeld's reporting as malarkey - while studiously avoiding any mention of Meneses. Though the Examiner's Meneses expose appeared just two days before the House was to vote on Reagan's $100 million Contra aid package, not a single major newspaper in the country touched the story.[^1]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 15: "This thing is a tidal wave"
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