Barry Seal

Adler Seal was born July 16, 1939 in Baton Rouge (Louisiana, USA) in the family of housewife Mary Lou and Benjamin Curtis Seal , a pastry merchant, and, in combination, an active member of Ku- Klux Klan , a secret racist and terrorist organization in the United States.

At a young age, the boy began to be interested in aviation and only 15 years old made his first independent flight, and a year later he received a pilot’s license and enlisted in civil aviation (CAP).

Already in 1956-1957. the young pilot was recruited by the CIA , closely linking his activities with US military intelligence.

In 1958 , the Force began flying to Cuba , transporting weapons to Fidel Castro , who was fighting the dictatorial regime of Fulgencio Batista : at that time, the CIA secretly supported the overthrow of Batista. However, after Castro managed to carry out a coup d'etat and seize power in Cuba, US foreign policy changed dramatically and Sil took a direct part in Cuba's air attacks.

In 1959 , Barry Seal became a CIA pilot in Guatemala , then for several years participated in numerous air operations in Southeast Asia .

In 1964 , he joined the 245th Engineer Battalion in St. Louis , and in 1966 left the military aviation.

He soon began working for the commercial airline TWA , first as a flight engineer , and then became the youngest Boeing 707 ^[1] pilot in the country, making transcontinental flights. In 1972, Seal was arrested for agreeing to transport 7 tons of C-4 explosives from Miami to Mexico - the customer was an undercover FBI agent.

In 1974 , when these charges were proved, he was dismissed from the TWA, and after a while he began to provide advice in the field of private aviation in Latin America.

According to his wife, Deborah Seal , the counseling activity was just a cover, in fact, since 1975, her husband began to participate in the illegal smuggling of marijuana as the main source of income. On December 10, 1979 , he was arrested in Honduras after arriving in a private jet from Ecuador with 40 kg (totaling $ 25 million) of cocaine on board. The force was charged, as a result of which he spent 9 months in prison. In September 1980 , he was released.

In prison, Sil met a certain William Roger Reeves, another drug smuggler who worked with the Ochoa clan (Spanish El Clan Ochoa), which included his brothers Jorge Luis, Juan David, and Fabio Ochoa Vasquez.

In 1981 , Sil arrived in Colombia, where Reeves introduced him to the Ochoa brothers, and as a result, he began close relations with the Medellin Cartel , which was headed, in addition to Ochoa, by the legendary “cocaine king” - Pablo Escobar .

In 1982, Seal began working for the cartel as a pilot, transporting numerous shipments of Colombian cocaine to the United States, very soon becoming the cartel's main “transportation hub” with the United States. According to some reports, for one flight he earned from 0.5 to 1.5 million dollars.

In Louisiana and Arkansas, he had his own bases with runways and a constantly growing fleet of his own aircraft and helicopters, equipped with the most expensive and modern radar equipment .

By 1984, Barry Force had about 150 flights on its account, as a result of which more than $ 5 billion worth of Medellin coke hit the United States, - while flying under false documents with different names, Sil transferred cocaine, possibly more than who ever and ever in history.

In the end, in March 1984, in the city of Fort Lauderdale , Florida , during a regular flight (from Nicaragua ), Barry Seal (this time his name was Ellis Mackenzie) was arrested by officers of the UBN Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

In the state federal court, he was charged with drug smuggling and money laundering, following which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison . To avoid prolonged imprisonment, after the sentencing, the Force offered law enforcement agencies to cooperate with the government as a secret informant. The federal intelligence services initially refused, however, after the personal approval of the then head of the CIA, George W. Bush , agreed to use it to testify against their employers and others directly or indirectly involved in the penetration of cocaine into the United States.

This news was welcomed by President Ronald Reagan himself , who wanted to start a war with the ruling Sandinista party in Nicaragua, which in exchange for a share of the drug sale provided the Colombian drug lords with a transit zone at their airfields.

Since that time, Barry Seal began to play a dangerous double game of a secret federal informant. After his first report, several high-ranking officials from Nicaragua and Panama, as well as several members of the Medellin cartel, were arrested and extradited to the United States.

Seal was also forced to continue to transport “Medellin” smuggling with hidden cameras installed on airplanes.

Soon, Pablo Escobar, Jorge Ochoa, and other drug lords, helping Nicaraguan soldiers load 1,200 kg of cocaine aboard the C-123 military cargo plane, were able to film one of the cameras. The Minister of the Interior of Nicaragua and other officials of this country were also captured in the photo.

After receiving valuable evidence of the involvement of Nicaraguan government members in Colombian drug traffickers, the Florida court reduced the sentence of Barry Force from 10 years to 6 months of probation. The judge praised the Force for his work, saying that "an informant who puts his life at stake to help law enforcement deserves fair compensation."

Of course, the photo should have been strictly classified, but in mid-July 1984, President Reagan, violating all the rules for protecting witnesses , went on the air, showing this photo to the whole country and publicly blaming the Sandinista party, calling them "dirty drug smugglers that corrupt American youth ".

In December 1984 , the Medellin cartel announced a reward of $ 500,000 and $ 1 million, respectively, for the assassination of Force or for his abduction to Colombia.

On February 19, 1986 , Barry Seal, who was on a witness protection program, was shot in the head with a machine gun in his white Cadillac , parked on the side of the highway near Baton Rouge, where he was to meet with one of the CIA agents.

There were three killers; they were detained immediately after the crime, trying to leave the state. According to investigators, one of the Ochoa brothers (Jorge Luis or Fabio) was the direct customer of the murder. In May 1987, these Colombians, Luis Carlos Quinter-Cruz, Miguel Velez, and Bernardo Antonio Vazquez, were convicted of the murder of the Force and sentenced to life imprisonment without the right to parole.

In September 2017, American studios Universal and Imagine Entertainment released the biographical drama American Made , which focuses on the story of his life and death. The main role was played by Hollywood actor Tom Cruise .

• Hahn, Del. Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal. - Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 2016. - ISBN 978-1-4556-2101-9 .
• Gugliotta, Guy , Leen, Jeff. Kings of Cocaine: Inside the Medellín Cartel - An Astonishing True Story of Murder, Money and International Corruption. - Garrett County Press, 2011 .-- ISBN 9781891053344 .
• Haddigan, Michael. The Kingpin and his many connections (Eng.) // The Arkansas Gazette.
• US Senate Commission Report On Organized Crime . (Barry Seal Noted)

• Sidorchik A. Only business: the story of Barry Seal, a smuggler and a "snitch" (neopr.) . Arguments and Facts. aif.ru. Arguments and Facts JSC (October 14, 2017). Date of treatment December 4, 2017.
• Appendices: Cocaine-Contra story . CIA Library .