From: Daniel Hopsicker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
beneath the flickering glow of a torch light
last night on a gulf coast beach i met a man
who's a good friend of chip tatum.
tatum is alive and well, i learned, living within
a stone's throw of jimmy buffett and hand-stitching
pirate's flags in his spare time in anticipation of the
opening of "jolly roger-land,"
.florida's newest attraction.
incidentally, i have never received one piece of bad
information from tatum, and a story he wrote on
ellis mckenzie over TWO years ago just recently
began making sense to me, after i received a box
of court documents authenticating every damn thing
tatum wrote in the post appended...
WHO THE HELL IS ELLIS MCKENZIE?
They traveled fast and furious on horseback through the high
plains
wilderness, trying to lose those who were tracking them. From the top
of
the bluff, hiding behind a group of boulders, they stared in amazement
as
the dust from the hooves of their pursuers horses told the story. They
were
hot on Butch and Sundance's trail.
"Who are those guys?!" one of them exclaimed, more than
questioned.
But it really didn't matter who these pursuers were. The
undeniable
fact was simple: they were. You may call them what you want. You may
name
them what you will. It doesn't really matter because it's only a name.
As a spy, a covert operative, a talent, an asset or a deep cover
operative, your name is your cover. This alias is the thin layer of
Kevlar
that protects you from the enemy. In my career I have used over twenty
aliases in order to conceal my true identity. This applies, not only in
the
world of espionage, but also in the dark world of crime.
One of the most renowned drug pilots of the 1980's was a man
named
Barry Seal. Even Barry used an alias when he dealt with his friends in
South America. But, unfortunately for Seal, a/k/a Ellis McKenzie, the
thin
Kevlar cover of an alias was not enough to prevent his assassination in
1986. Barry Seal, a/k/a Ellis McKenzie, was shot to death outside of a
federal half-way house in Baton Rouge. It was not until 1988 that I
would
hear his name again.
The tasking came in to go to La Ceiba, Honduras, and debrief a
drug
informant. As I looked at the tasking, my heart jumped. The name of
the
informant I was to debrief was Ellis McKenzie. Could it be that Barry
Seal
was still alive?
Looking at the remainder of the mission dossier, I realized that
this man, Ellis McKenzie, was not Barry Seal. McKenzie was, however, a
member of the Seal smuggling organization. Seal had commissioned
McKenzie
to assemble a small fleet of boats, capable of smuggling drugs to
various
destinations. It was this man that provided Barry Seal with an alias.
The
dossier explained McKenzie's relationship with U.S. Customs, among other
governmental agencies. To avoid prosecution after Seal was compromised
by
the DEA, several members of the Seal organization aligned themselves
with
various law enforcement agencies.
McKenzie was recruited into the informant side of the drug
smuggling
operation by Seal's ex-brother-in-law, William Bottoms. This
Bottoms/McKenzie alliance provided a useful tool for continued drug
smuggling. Bottoms and McKenzie assured their contacts in Colombia that
shipments would remain safe, while assuring their various U.S. law
enforcement contacts that they (Bottoms/McKenzie) had and would provide
information that would devastate the drug smuggling trade. McKenzie and
Bottoms continued smuggling cocaine and heroin into the United States
under
the protection of U.S. Customs agents. In return, the traffickers would
sacrifice shipments and competing drug smugglers in order to appease
their
government contacts. It was with this data, fresh on hand, that I, as
Gene
Duncan, a US Army Intel Officer attached to the Defense Intelligence
Agency,
met with Ellis McKenzie to receive his information.
McKenzie explained that the information he had concerned
shipments
from Colombia to Mexico. That is why he was referred to U.S.
Intelligence
instead of his normal contacts in U.S. Customs or the DEA. McKenzie got
right to the point. He explained that members of the Honduran Air Force
were "in bed" with cartel leaders. Drug shipments were being flown from
Colombia, over-flying Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras,
Guatemala, or
El Salvador and into Mexico. He stated that Colonel Castro Cabus, the
Commander of the Honduran Air Froces in La Ceiba, and Captain Santiago
Perdomo, the Director of Civil Aeronautics in Tegucigalpa, were on the
cartel's payroll. McKenzie claimed that Cabus and Perdomo controlled
the
air space over Honduras and allowed drug over-flights rather than
putting
fighters in the air when these over-flights were reported by radar
operators.
I thanked Mr. McKenzie for his information and departed. I
immediately had reason to suspect the information provided by McKenzie.
Honduras air space had been controlled by a series of radar sites and
electronic monitoring facilities since 1983. On the Caribbean coast of
Honduras is a site which was called "Red Hawk." This site sits on top of
a
4,052 foot mountain. Two additional sites are strategically placed in
La
Mesa and an inland site, named "Carrot Top," on top of a 6,522 foot
peak.
Additional communications facilities are located on Tiger Island, on the
Pacific side of Honduras, and Swan Island on the Caribbean side. Most
of
these sites are controlled and operated by U.S. military personnel. One
site is controlled by the CIA. Although I did not know Captain Perdomo,
I
did know Colonel Cabus and did not doubt his integrity. There was
definately a need to investigate and try to determine what this drug
smuggler, turned informant, was up to.
I called Washington and advised them that I would need some time
to
look into this accusation. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
authorized
my time and the investigation began. It should be noted that in the
early
'80's the US government removed all DEA agents from Honduras. They were
not
placed back in Honduras until the end of the decade. Most intelligence
gathered in the country was provided by drug traffickers turned
confidential
informants, who were first and foremost -- drug traffickers. Or, in the
alternative, by CIA operatives who were in Honduras in support of the
Nicaraguan Revolutionary Forces (Contras).
I was only five days into the investigation when all the pieces
of
the puzzle were in place and I had a clear picture. Our (DIA) primary
concern was the accusation that Colonel Castro Cabus, the air field
commander in La Ceiba, was involved in any illegal activity. Our
concern
lay in the fact that Cabus would most likely become the next Commanding
General of the Honduras Air Force.
I quickly found that the cartels had no problem over-flying
Panama,
Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, but over-flights of Honduras provided a
problem.
The cartel's efforts to buy Colonel Cabus had failed. Bottoms and
McKenzie
saw an opening which, if successful, would provide an invaluable service
to
the cartels. They would, through their association with U.S. law
enforcement agencies, concoct a story which discredited the good Colonel
and
Captain, in effect neutralize them, thinking that their replacements may
be
more amiable toward a relationship with the cartels, especially in light
of
the recent misfortune of their predecessors. McKenzie also implicated a
number of Honduran businessmen involved in drug activities. Those names
were: Arturo Alverado Wood, Abraham Dip, Alan Hyde, and Albert Jackson.
But
I will save the allegations against these men for another report.
I reported my findings to Washington and returned to Canada
where I
had been working on another intelligence gathering mission. The
information, in turn, was passed on to U.S Customs.
END OF REPORT
Gene Duncan, Major
Defense Intelligence Agency
AKA
Chip Tatum
cc: Honduras Air Force
General Castro Cabus
Department of Defense
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Santiago Perdomo
c/o Department of Defense
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Abraham Dip, La Ceiba, Honduras
Arturo Wood, Islena Airlines, Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Alan Hyde, c/o Hyde Shipping, Roatan, Honduras
Albert Jackson, Fantasy Island, Roatan, Honduras
--
Daniel Hopsicker
The Drug Money Times
http://www.MadCowProd.com
"All the news that's ripped from print!"
Scandal in contemporary U.S. life is an institutionalized sociological
phenomenon.
It is not due primarily to psychopathological variables, but is due to
the institutionalization of elite wrongdoing which has occcurred since
1963."
"Many of the scandals that have occurred in the U.S. since 1963 are
fundamentally interrelated: that is, the same people and institutions
have been involved."
--Prof.David Simon, "Elite Deviance 6th edition
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