this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2025
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United States | News & Politics

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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Lmao no fucking way, really?

[–] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 15 points 3 days ago (3 children)

there's more to the story, like using the US military to traffic cocaine

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmings.world 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Well, it didn't really happen like that, but yeah, the Iran-Contra Scandal contributed heavily to the onset of the crack cocaine epidemic. The fact that they couldn't use the US military in this operation is why cocaine became involved.

They needed to smuggle illegally purchased weapons to Central America, so they hired drug smugglers to smuggle guns in the other direction. What does a drug smuggler do after he's dropped off his weapons, and finds himself in Central America with an empty plane, a fistful of dirty money, and CIA cover?

That's right, he fills it full of cocaine, flies it back to America, and quintuplets his money. And they did it over and over and over, until there was so much coke on the streets of America, that it went from being the drug of the wealthy and celebrities, and became the drug of the ghetto.

And how do we know this? Because smuggler Eugene Hasenfus was captured, and he spilled the entire story.

The only question was: Was the CIA aware of the drug smuggling? Some think that they used it to raise even more money for their cause, but I've never seen any real evidence of that, other than speculation. OTOH, I find it hard to believe that they didn't know their pilots were smuggling cocaine back to America. If they didn't know, they should have, they're the CIA. Besides, it's not exactly a big leap to realize they would do this. They didn't hire commercial cargo pilots to do some side gigs, they hired drug smugglers specifically because they were smugglers. They aren't going to fly an empty plane home. Of course, they're going to smuggle Coke (or weed), back in their planes. Duh.

[–] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 6 points 2 days ago

forgot to mention that Congress made a specific law against funding the CONTRA. And Reagan went around it by illegally smuggling weapons and drugs for them.

lol wow, so that’s where Tom Clancy got that plot point for Without Remorse

[–] Tiger666@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

And dumping it in marginalized neighborhoods and starting the '90s Crack epidemic.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmings.world 8 points 3 days ago

It's a wild tale. I once told the entire thing to a friend, who listened through the whole story, then said "Did that really happen?"