The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is an American single-engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated from the 1950s by the United States Air Force (USAF) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day and night, high-altitude, all-weather intelligence gathering.
On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory. Flown by American pilot Francis Gary Powers, the aircraft had taken off from Peshawar, Pakistan, and crashed near Sverdlovsk, after being hit by a surface-to-air missile. Powers parachuted to the ground and was captured.
The Cessna A-37 Dragonfly, or Super Tweet, is a light attack aircraft designed and produced by the American aircraft manufacturer Cessna.
The war on drugs is the policy of a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States. The initiative includes a set of drug policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of psychoactive drugs that the participating governments and the United Nations have made illegal. The term was coined by President Richard Nixon and popularized by the media shortly after a press conference given on June 17, 1971 – the day after publication of a special message from President Nixon to the Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control – during which he declared drug abuse "public enemy number one". That message to the Congress included text about devoting more federal resources to the "prevention of new addicts, and the rehabilitation of those who are addicted" but that part did not receive the same public attention as the term "war on drugs". Two years prior to this, in a 1969 special message to Congress, Nixon had identified drug abuse as "a serious national threat". In 2015, the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for an end to the War on Drugs, estimated that the United States spends $51 billion annually on these initiatives, and in 2021, after 50 years of the drug war, others have estimated that the US has spent a cumulative $1 trillion on it.
The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) is an agency that reports to the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights within the Department of State. Under the umbrella of its general mission of developing policies and programs to combat international narcotics and crime, INL plays an important role in the training of partner nation security forces.
The relationship between Colombia and the United States evolved from a mutual cordiality during the 19th and early 20th centuries to a recent partnership that links the governments of both nations around several key issues; this includes fighting communism, the War on Drugs, and the threat of terrorism due to the September 11 attacks in 2001. During the last fifty years, different American governments and their representatives have become involved in Colombian affairs through the implementation of policies concerned with the issues already stated. Some critics of current US policies in Colombia, such as Law Professor John Barry, claim that US influences have catalyzed internal conflicts and substantially expanded the scope and nature of human rights abuses in Colombia. Supporters, such as Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman, defend the idea that the United States has promoted respect for human rights and the rule of law in Colombia; in addition, adding to the fight against drugs and terrorism.
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of involvement in the trafficking of illicit drugs. Books and journalistic investigations on the subject that have received general notice include works by the historian Alfred McCoy, professor and diplomat Peter Dale Scott, journalists Gary Webb and Alexander Cockburn, and writer Larry Collins. These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Inspector General. The various investigations have generally not led to clear conclusions that the CIA itself has directly conducted drug trafficking operations, although there may have been instances of indirect complicity in the activities of others.
The Kerry Committee was a US Senate subcommittee during the 100th United States Congress that examined the problems that drug cartels and drug money laundering in South and Central America and the Caribbean posed for American law enforcement and foreign policy. The Sub-Committee was chaired at the time by Democratic Party Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts so the name of the committee and the report are often referred to under his name.
A number of writers have alleged that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in the Nicaraguan Contras' cocaine trafficking operations during the 1980s Nicaraguan civil war. These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported. The subject remains controversial.
Operation Snowcap (1987–1995), launched in the spring of 1987, was a counter-narcotics operation conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), BORTAC and military/police forces in nine Latin American countries. Operation Snowcap followed Operation Blast Furnace, a four month operation that started in July 1986, which deployed 160 Army personnel and six Blackhawk helicopters to assist Bolivia in operations against cocaine laboratories in the Beni and Santa Cruz regions of Bolivia. At an annual cost to the DEA of $80 million, and involving approximately 140 agents at its onset, Snowcap was the largest counter-narcotics operation that had been launched in Latin America. The U.S. Department of Defense leased 6 UH-1 Huey helicopters, and provided flight training to Bolivian air force pilots and Special Forces training for UMOPAR and DEA agents. Operation Snowcap recruited U.S. Army infantry officers attending the Army Infantry Officer's advanced course in the late 1980s. Senior lieutenants and captains attending the course were given classified briefings attempting to recruit them from the Army to participate for operations in Bolivia and Peru.
This article deals with activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency related to transnational crime, including the illicit drug trade.
The Central Intelligence Agency focuses on fighting two major conflicts, the cultivation and trafficking of cocaine and the local extremist groups in Colombia. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is one of the main extremist groups in Colombia. The CIA activities revolve heavily around stopping the production of cocaine, and stopping the FARC.
The following activities are supposed to have been done by the Central Intelligence Agency in Peru.
On 20 April 2001, the Peruvian Air Force (FAP) shot down a civilian floatplane, killing American Christian missionary Veronica "Roni" Bowers and her infant daughter Charity.
Narcotics in Bolivia, South America, is a subject that primarily involves the coca crop, used in the production of the drug, cocaine. Trafficking and corruption have been two of the most prominent negative side-effects of the illicit narcotics trade in Bolivia and the country's government has engaged in negotiations with the United States (US) as result of the industry's ramifications.
Illegal drug trade in Venezuela is the practice of illegal drug trading in Venezuela. Venezuela has been a path to the United States for cocaine originating in Colombia, through Central America and Mexico and Caribbean countries such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. In the 2010s, Venezuela also gradually became a major producer of cocaine.
The illegal drug trade in Latin America concerns primarily the production and sale of cocaine and cannabis, including the export of these banned substances to the United States and Europe. The coca cultivation is concentrated in the Andes of South America, particularly in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia; this is the world's only source region for coca.
Enrique "Kiki" Camarena Salazar was an American intelligence officer for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In February 1985 Camarena was kidnapped by drug traffickers hired by Mexican politicians in Guadalajara, Mexico. He was interrogated under torture and murdered. Three leaders of the Guadalajara drug cartel were eventually convicted in Mexico for Camarena's murder. The U.S. investigation into Camarena's murder led to ten more trials in Los Angeles for other Mexican nationals involved in the crime. The case continues to trouble U.S.–Mexican relations, most recently when Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the three convicted traffickers, was released from a Mexican prison in 2013. Caro Quintero again was captured by Mexican forces in July 2022.
The Cartel of the Suns is a Venezuelan organization supposedly headed by high-ranking members of the Armed Forces of Venezuela who are involved in international drug trade. According to Héctor Landaeta, journalist and author of Chavismo, Narco-trafficking and the Military, the phenomenon began when Colombian drugs began to enter into Venezuela from corrupt border units and the "rot moved its way up the ranks."
Aviation Drug-Trafficking Control Act of 1984 is a United States Federal law amending the Federal Aviation Act of 1958. The statutory law authorized criminal penalties for the unlawful aerial transportation of controlled substances. The Act of Congress mandated the revocation of aircraft registrations and airman certificates by the Federal Aviation Administration whereas an aircraft aviator knowingly engages in the transit of illicitly used drugs. The Act established authority and a statute of limitations for the reissuance of airman certificates by the United States Secretary of Transportation.
