military units. The plane was hit and Seal had to make an emergency landing at Sandino International Airport in Managua. The drugs were unloaded by the military and Seal and his co-pilot were taken to detention in downtown Managua, where they were released to the cartel's Nicaraguan contact, Federico Vaughan. Vaughan was an aide to Tomas Borge, Nicaraguan Minister of the Interior. In Managua, Seal met again with Pablo Escobar, who was setting up a cocaine lab for production. After a discussion about how to move the increased flow of cocaine, Escobar decided to keep the first shipment in Nicaragua and have Seal return to the States and buy a larger plane. The plane Seal acquired was a C-123K, a large aircraft used primarily for military transport. Before returning to Nicaragua, the DEA arranged for CIA technicians to install hidden cameras inside the plane. Seal returned to the Los Brasiles airfield in Nicaragua on June 25. The pickup went as planned this time, and the cameras successfully photographed Seal and several Nicaraguan soldiers loading cocaine, aided by Pablo Escobar, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha (another important cartel member), and Federico Vaughan. On his return to the U.S., Seal landed at Homestead Air Force Base and the drugs were transferred into a Winnebago camper, which Seal turned over to his Colombian contact. The drugs could not be distributed, and the immediate arrest of those handling the vehicle would suggest to the Colombians that Seal had betrayed them, so DEA agents staged an accident with the camper, allowing the driver to escape. Unfortunately, the driver was arrested by local police, and the circumstances of the seizure raised the suspicions of the cartel. Seal made one more trip to Nicaragua on July 7, bringing money to Escobar to pay the Nicaraguans for landing rights. Another shipment was also planned at this time, but under instructions from the DEA, Seal told Escobar his landing site was under DEA surveillance and unsafe for transport to avoid the need to seize a second load. The DEA felt this would be impossible to explain away, and Seal returned to the U.S. without cargo. The DEA plan was to keep Seal working with the cartel on other parts of the supply chain, such as moving cocaine base into Nicaragua from Colombia and inspecting smuggling airfields in Mexico and the U.S. The ultimate hope was to arrest the cartel leaders in