How the People Seldom Catch Intelligence

Or, How to Be a Successful Drug Dealer

Preston Peet

For me, one could write about lies from morning till night, but this is the one most worth writing about, because the domestic consequences are so horrible; it’s contributed to police brutality, police corruption, militarizations of police forces, and now, as we speak, it contributes to the pretext for another Vietnam War. -Peter Dale Scott, July 24, 2000

Peter Dale Scott photo by Preston Peet

On May 11, 2000, the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence made public their “Report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s Alleged Involvement in Crack Cocaine Trafficking in the Los Angeles Area.”[1] The investigation by the HPSCI focused solely on the “implications” of facts reported in investigative reporter Gary Webb’s three-part exposé in the San Jose Mercury News titled “Dark Alliance.” Published on August 18, 19, and 20, 1996, the series alleged that a core group of Nicaraguan Contra supporters formed an alliance with black dealers in South Central Los Angeles to sell cocaine to the Bloods and Crips street gangs, who turned it into crack. The drug-profits were then funneled back to Contra coffers by the Contra supporters.

Approved for release in February 2000, the HPSCI report states the Committee “found no evidence” to support allegations that CIA agents or assets associated in any way with the Nicaraguan Contra movement were involved in the supply or sale of drugs in the Los Angeles area. Utilizing a not-so-subtle strategy of semantics and misdirection, the HPSCI report seeks to shore up the justifiably crumbling trust in government experienced by the American public. But the report is still a lie.

One would have to intentionally not look in order to miss the copious amounts of evidence of CIA-sanctioned and -protected drug-trafficking, even in LA, that exists today in the public record; the HPSCI succeeds admirably, disregarding sworn testimony and government reports, and ignoring what agents on the ground at the scene have to say.

An Eyewitness Strongly Disagrees, Says Its a Lie

The DEA’s lead agent in El Salvador and Guatemala from 1985 to 1990, as well as a Vietnam veteran, Celerino Castillo documented massive CIA-sanctioned and -protected drug trafficking, and illegal Contra-supply operations at Illapango Airbase in El Salvador. Asked what he thought of the HPSCI report, Castillo said, “It is a flat-out lie. It is a massive cover-up.... They completely lied, and I’m going to prove that they are lying with the case file numbers... I was there during the whole thing.”[2]

Former DEA Agent CeleCastillo Holding photo of himself and CIA Agent Randy Capister- photo by Preston Peet

After participating in the historic CIA-Drugs Symposium in Eugene, Oregon, June 11, 2000,[3] Castillo decided to go back through his notes, journals, and DEA-6’s-the biweekly reports he’d filled out at the time-to see just how many times his records didn’t match the “not guilty” verdict of the HPSCI report.

Cele Catillo in front of headlines reporting arms for drugs
photo Preston Peet

“I’ve got them [CIA] personally involved in eight counts of drugs trafficking.... I’ve got them on three counts of murders of which they personally were aware that were occurring, and...to make a long story short, I [also] came out with money laundering, three or four counts.”[4]

Cele Castillo Holding copies of passports of traffickers
murdered by US backed anti-drug forces in Guatamala
photo by Preston Peet

1. House Report: US Congress, House, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s Alleged Involvement in Trafficking Crack Cocaine in the Los Angeles Area,” 106th Cong., 2nd Session, Washington: GPO: Feb. 2000
2. Interview with Celerino Castillo by Preston Peet, July 23, 2000
3. The “CIA-Drugs Symposium” was held in Eugene, Oregon, June 11, 2000, at the Wheeler Pavilion, Eugene Fairgrounds. An all-day event, there were nine speakers and presenters with evidence of CIA and official US-sanctioned drug trafficking, including Catherine Austin Fitts, Mike Ruppert, Didon Kamathi, Kris Milligan, Rodney Stich, Cele Castillo, Dan Hopsicker, and Peter Dale Scott, plus a presentation by Bernadette Armand, an attorney working for teams of attorneys, under the direction of attorneys William Simpich, and Katya Kamisaruk, in the on-going lawsuits filed against the CIA and others for their failure to offer equal protection under the law to everyone in South Central Los Angeles, Oakland, and elsewhere in California. Anita Belle, a Florida attorney, is handling various class-action suits filed in eight other states around the US along the same grounds as the California suits.
4.Op cit., Castillo interview.

this article copyright 2001 Preston Peet
You Are Being Lied To copyright 2001
The Disinformation Company, Ltd.