re: Vice Article On Barry Seal

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In an attempt to avoid an expected 10 year sentence, Seal made contact with George H. W. Bush. He then appeared before a secret session of Bush's Task Force on Drugs in Washington where he testified that the Sandinistas were directly involved in drug trafficking into the United States. Seal claimed that the Medellin Cartel had made a deal with the Sandinistas, awarding them cuts of drug profits in exchange for the use of an airfield in Managua as a trans-shipment point for narcotics. This news was welcomed by President Ronald Reagan who wanted to launch an all out war on the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was now put under pressure to enlist Seal as an undercover informant with a special emphasis on the "Nicaraguan connection". Seal agreed to organize a sting operation where he managed to get a photograph of Pablo Escobar helping Nicaraguan soldiers to load 1,200 kilos of cocaine on a C-123 military cargo plane. Soon afterwards Reagan went on television with the photograph to denounce the "Sandinistas as drug smugglers corrupting American youth".

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