Title: The CIA, Contras, Gangs, and Crack - Institute for Policy Studies
Headings: The CIA, Contras, Gangs, and Crack
The CIA, Contras, Gangs, and Crack
History of CIA Involvement in Drug Trafficking
1947 to 1951, France
Early 1950s, Southeast Asia
1950s to early 1970s, Indochina
1973 to 1980, Australia
1970s and 1980s, Panama
1980s, Central America
Mid-1980s to early 1990s, Haiti
1980s to early 1990s, Afghanistan

Content: When Senate investigators later asked the Justice Department to explain this unusual turn of events, they ran into a wall of secrecy. History of CIA Involvement in Drug Trafficking
“In my 30­year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA.” — Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit. The foregoing discussion should not be regarded as any kind of historical aberration inasmuch as the CIA has had a long and virtually continuous involvement with drug trafficking since the end of World War II. 1947 to 1951, France
CIA arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille to wrest control of labor unions from the Communist Party. The Corsicans gained political influence and control over the docks–ideal conditions for cementing a long-term partnership with mafia drug distributors, which turned Marseille into the postwar heroin capital of the Western world. Marseille’s first heroin laboratories were opened in 1951, only months after the Corsicans took over the waterfront. Early 1950s, Southeast Asia
The Nationalist Chinese army, organized by the CIA to wage war against Communist China, became the opium baron of The Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand, and Laos), the world’s largest source of opium and heroin. Air America, the CIA’s principal proprietary airline, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia. 1950s to early 1970s, Indochina
During U.S. military involvement in Laos and other parts of Indochina, Air America flew opium and heroin throughout the area.