U.S. DRUG RING SENT 'PROFITS TO CONTRAS'
Associated Press
San Jose, Calif. -- Throughout the 1980s, a San
Francisco Bay area drug ring sold tonnes of cocaine to
Los Angeles street gangs and funnelled the profits to
CIA-run Contras in Nicaragua, a newspaper has reported.
Repeated attempts to prosecute the ring's kingpin
were thwarted by the CIA, possibly to cover up ties
between the traffickers and Contra leaders, the San
Jose Mercury says.
The report, based on recently declassified federal
reports, court testimony and interviews, also alleges
that the drug network was partly responsible for the
"crack" problem in Los Angeles.
The money pipeline was created after the CIA
combined several armies to create the 5,000-member anti-
Communist Nicaraguan Democratic Force, of FDN, in mid-
1981, the newspaper reported.
The same year, the drug ring sold almost a tonne
of cocaine to notorious Los Angeles gangs, for $54
million, former FDN leader and government informant
Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes said.
-- Reprinted in the Vancouver Sun, August 23, 1996
