17 lines
1.4 KiB
Markdown
17 lines
1.4 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
category: "City"
|
|
tags:
|
|
- geography
|
|
- contra-war
|
|
summary: Houston, Texas was a destination for Contra-connected cocaine shipments and was monitored by federal agencies tracking the Blandón-Meneses drug network.
|
|
---
|
|
Houston, [[Texas]] was a destination for Contra-connected [[cocaine]] shipments and was monitored by federal agencies tracking the [[Danilo Blandon|Blandón]]-[[Norwin Meneses|Meneses]] drug network. The city's port facilities and proximity to the Mexican border made it a key node in the southern drug trafficking corridor.[^1]
|
|
|
|
### Cocaine Smuggling
|
|
|
|
The same cargo ship involved in the 1983 Pier 96 cocaine bust in [[San Francisco]], the Ciudad de Cucuta, was found in Houston the following year with $18 million worth of cocaine secreted behind a steel wall. Both the [[State Department]] and the Department of Defense were monitoring Meneses's movements when the group lost a Ford Escort "loaded with cocaine" in Houston in September 1991. Blandón described to an informant how a Canadian associate was bringing in a load from [[Mexico]] through Houston, illustrating the city's role as a transit point for the network's multi-route smuggling operation.[^2]
|
|
|
|
### Footnotes
|
|
|
|
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 4.
|
|
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 4, Ch. 25.
|