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Among other things, the panel sought to determine if top leaders of the Colombian cocaine cartel escaped arrest because the much ballyhooed war on drugs took a back seat to a covert operation designed to discredit the Nicaraguan government this at a time when the administration was seeking additional aid to the Contras. On June 29, General Paul F. Gorman, US Military Commander Southern Command, made a speech stating the US had evidence that elements of the Nicaraguan government were involved in drug smuggling, though Gorman did not mention Seal or the undercover flights. In exploring the American Made true story, we discovered that Doug Liman's father, lawyer Arthur L. Liman, ran the Senate investigation into Iran-Contra. Operative Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) approaches Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) and tells him, "We need you to deliver stuff for us." Fact-checking American Made immediately revealed that Tom Cruise looks nothing like the real Barry Seal, who weighed around 280lbs and was nicknamed "El Gordo" (The Fat Man) by his bosses. Photos; Visual Stories; Sub Menu 1. A DC-4 was seized at the Shreveport Regional Airport loaded with almost seven tons of plastic C-4 explosives, 7,000 feet of explosive primer cord and 2,600 electric blasting caps. Barry Seal. WASHINGTON . In 2017, Seals life became the subject of a Hollywood adaptation titled American Made, starring Tom Cruise. [43] After listening to summaries of Seal's successful work for the DEA, Judge Norman Roettger sentenced Seal to time served (a little over three months in witness protection) and three years probation. . The memorable scene never happened in real life. Barry Seal likely never worked for CIA, as shown in, Tom Cruise portrays Barry Seal in the 2017 film American Made.. Unfortunately, this meant that angry cartel members would know exactly where to find him. However, the film takes certain liberties in regard to Seals life as well. The film stars Tom Cruise as Barry . The ultimate hope was to arrest the cartel leaders in a jurisdiction where it would be easy to extract them. [14], By 1981, DEA agents in Florida were aware of Seal's smuggling activities. Debbie, who was 21 at the time, met Barry, 33, while working as a cashier at a restaurant. This doesn't add up with the true story. Even criminals have a love life and Barry Seal was no different. JB is fictional. [46] He warned Seal that he intended to set strict probation provisions and that if Seal violated these, the plea bargain could be revoked and Seal re-sentenced. What is certain is that Barry Seal did work for Pablo Escobar and the Ochoas as a drug smuggler for the Medelln Cartel and single-handedly had one of the largest impacts on the cocaine epidemic in the U.S. in the early 1980s. The first indictment charged Seal alone with two counts of conspiracy to distribute methaqualone. From earning his pilots license at the age of 16 to his blood-soaked end at the hands of a notorious cartel, Seal certainly got the life of excitement that he so desired. At Guste's request, Meese launched an investigation to determine whether or not attorneys in Louisiana, Miami, and Washington had mishandled the case, and to determine whether or not Seal should have been forced into protective custody. The lawsuit claims that the pilots were overworked and that the crash happened after a 12-hour workday. [4], Seal admitted that he started smuggling small amounts of marijuana by air in early 1976. by Allie Gemmill. The plane Seal acquired was a C-123K, a large aircraft used primarily for military transport. FAIRs work is sustained by our generous contributors, who allow us to remain independent. Barry Seal (Photo: Facebook) . Yes. Barry arrived that evening at approximately 6 p.m. and backed his white Cadillac into a parking space. [29], Seal made one more trip to Nicaragua on July 7, bringing money to Escobar to pay the Nicaraguans for landing rights. The pickup went as planned this time, and the cameras successfully photographed Seal and several Nicaraguan soldiers loading cocaine, aided by Pablo Escobar, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha (another important cartel member), and Federico Vaughan. When asked how, he replied, "Oh, Barry stole an airplane from me. During the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s, the U.S. plotted to secretly help the rebels (Contras) overthrow Nicaragua's Communist Sandinista government. It included an interview where Seal denied he was a smuggler and depicted Seal as harassed by the government. Adler Berriman 'Barry' Seal se convirti en el piloto ms joven de los Estados Unidos, destreza que us para hacerse uno de los hombres ms ricos de ese pas en la dcada de los 80's. Ello . [17] Without a deal, Seal was tried in February 1984 and after a month-long trial was convicted on all the counts in the first indictment. Adler Berriman Seal, o como era mejor conocido Barry Seal, naci en Baton Rouge, Louisiana, el 16 de julio de 1939.Sus padres fueron Mary Lou y Benjamin Curtis Seal. Her character in the American Made movie is much more aware and suspicious of her husband's activities, stating that she flat out doesn't trust him, which is the opposite of Seal's real-life wife. The flight, in January 1985, was successful and led to arrests and convictions. Wikimedia CommonsBarry Seal started his career as a pilot for Trans World Airlines but he soon turned to the more profitable life of drug smuggling. Seal used his knowledge of aviation to aid in his life of crime. His character is inspired by the stories we learned about Barry." [38], While Seal had come to an agreement with the DEA and the Florida drug task force in March 1984, he was still under active investigation by state and federal authorities in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Little Rock, Arkansas. [46] We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. All three trials resulted in convictions for all defendants. He ultimately offered to act as an informant, passing along information about Escobar, the Medelln cartel, and high-level government officials in Central America who were involved in trafficking drugs to the U.S. [52], Six Colombians were quickly arrested in connection with the murder. His first marriage, to Barbara Dodson, lasted from 1963 to 1971. Once he flew into U.S. airspace, Seal would drop his plane to 500 feet and slow to 120 knots to mimic a helicopter on the radar screen of anyone who was watching, as the small aircraft frequently flew between oil rigs and the coast. He carried out his smuggling operation under the nose of then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. [50] He had seen Cardona test-fire the murder weapon in Mermelstein's garage and bullets that matched the murder weapon were later extracted from the garage wall by FBI forensics. Instead the Times ran a brief item in its Sunday national edition (7/31/88) quoting President Reagans weekly radio broadcast about how Sandinista officials are still involved in drug trafficking. recalled how "The one time I flew with him [Seal] to Nicaragua . Also, before the agreement was reached, the Louisiana task force investigation had been looking into Seal's involvement in smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine. Seal began to fly as a teenager, earning a student pilot certificate at 16 and a private pilot's certificate at 17. They put out a contract to kidnap or murder Seal. They agreed to a sentence for Seal's Louisiana activities no greater than the sentence he received for his Florida smuggling, with both sentences to run concurrently. However, when a drug shipment was seized by the DEA, the Medellin Cartel blamed Seal for the loss. Daniel Rennie is a freelance writer residing in Melbourne, Australia. The film never set out to be a documentary, according to films director Doug Liman, who described the blockbuster as a fun lie based on a true story, according to TIME. [23], These arrangements were not yet complete, so Seal's first shipment was to be a direct flight to the U.S. [13], To avoid this unwanted attention, Seal moved his aircraft to Mena Intermountain Regional Airport in Mena, Arkansas, where he did maintenance and modifications to improve the planes' carrying capacity and avionics. . Helicopters would pick up the contraband and transport it to off-loading sites and then on to Ochoa distributors in Miami by car or truck. [8], In 1981, Seal began smuggling cocaine for the Medelln Cartel. Their operation proved so successful that Seal was at one time considered the biggest drug smuggler in Louisiana state. He also provided testimony that led to drug charges against high-level government officials in Nicaragua and Turks and Caicos. [37], In February, Seal also played a central role in an undercover operation against Norman Saunders, chief minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands, a former British colony south of the Bahamas. Despite the movie attempting to pin it on North, Jacoby later said that North was not his source and that it was a deceased Special Forces and CIA guy named Ted Lunger, who at the time worked as a staff member for Representative Dan Daniel. As a progressive group, we believe that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information. On 1st July, 1972, Barry Seal was arrested in New Orleans and accused of sending C4 explosives to anti-Castro Cubans in Mexico. Later, after Seal's cover was suspiciously blown, President Reagan used the photo shown below in a 1986 television address to the nation. When did you first hear about Barry Seal?. Escobar decided to keep the first shipment in Nicaragua and have Seal return to the States and buy a larger plane. The mysteries of Mena revolve around a drug-smuggling pilot named Barry Seal. Then the Washington Post leaked the story, revealing that Seal was working undercover for the CIA. But before he died, the photographs he captured made Pablo Escobar a wanted criminal and ultimately played an important part in the drug kingpins downfall in 1993. From the get-go, he was a talented aviator, and before he graduated from high school in 1957, Seal had earned his private pilot wings. Instead, he testified against Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder, and Jorge Ochoa in front of a federal grand jury. [30] Unfortunately, the driver was arrested by local police, and the circumstances of the seizure raised the suspicions of the cartel. Both rejected any deals, even though Seal told them a little about his involvement with the Ochoa family. [7], To expand his smuggling capacity, Seal also hired William Bottoms, his ex-brother-in-law, as a pilot. No of Kids with Barry: Dean, Aaron, and Christina Seal. Despus de haber trabajado como piloto de TWA, la mayor. -Refinery29, Yes. Hahn told Vice that Barry was likable but "not as smart and clever as he thought he was. He was unaware that a Colombian assassin was hiding behind one of the donation drop boxes. Hed work at the drop of a hat, and he didnt care, a fellow smuggler later recalled of Seal. YouTubeThe photograph taken by Barry Seal that outed Pablo Escobar as the Medelln cartels drug kingpin. [36], Despite the exposure, Seal was able to put together a second major undercover operation for the DEA later that year. During Bill Clinton's campaign to become president of the United States in 1992, his biggest financial contributor was a billionaire businessman named Jackson Stevens. In researching the American Made true story, we learned that Barry Seal was arrested by customs officers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1983 as he tried to smuggle 200,000 units of Quaalude, a recreational drug, into the country. They referred him to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Max Mermelstein, a high-level cartel distributor in Miami, later testified in court that he was shown the documentary a few days after it was broadcast and was told that the cartel wanted Seal either captured or killed: the price was $500,000 if Seal was killed, and $1,000,000 if he was captured alive. As Barry opened the driver's side door to get out of the car, the gunman rushed from behind the drop box and fired a .45 caliber Mac-10 machine gun, hitting Barry in the head and body several times. Yet, it's also certainly possible that Seal had no involvement with the CIA in the early 1980s at all, given there is nothing to support the claim but rumors. [25] Vaughan was an aide to Tomas Borge, Nicaraguan Minister of the Interior. Comenz a volar aviones a temprana edad y segn su instructor de vuelo, Seal tena un talento innato. Barry also had a daughter and a son not shown in the movie, Lisa and Alder, with his first wife Barbara Bottoms. [2], In 1964, Seal joined TWA as a flight engineer and was soon promoted to the first officer, then captain, flying a Boeing 707 on a regular Western Europe route. I guess he also thought Colombians would stick out like a sore thumb in Louisiana and they wouldn't come here." Saunders was videotaped paying a bribe to Seal in Miami, and was also successfully prosecuted. The marriage ended with his death in 1986. American Made is one of many "so crazy, it must be real" stories that have hit Hollywood in the form of a major action movie in recent years. He ultimately escaped prosecution, and some believe this was because he was secretly working as an informant for the CIA, though there is no real proof that he ever worked for the agency. "I trusted him so I didn't ask questions," says Debbie. Barry Seal's smuggling operation began in Louisiana, and like in the American Made movie, he sometimes pushed packed duffel bags full of drugs out of his plane and into the Atchafalaya basin, to be collected by associates on the ground. Barry Seal (July 16, 1939 - February 19, 1986), was a drug smuggler and aircraft pilot who flew covert flights for the FBI, . The Charmed, Doomed Life of Barry Seal. Adler Berriman Seal (July 16, 1939 - February 19, 1986), better known as Barry Seal, was a United States drug smuggler and aircraft pilot who flew covert flights for the Central Intelligence Agency and the Medelln Cartel. -The Independent, In the movie, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) starts working for the Medelln Cartel after they abduct him while he is refueling his plane and then make him an offer he can't refuse. [58], There was also extensive eyewitness and forensic evidence against Quintero-Cruz, Vlez, and Vsquez. I was young and it was impressive." The box housing the camera was supposed to be soundproof, but when he took the first picture, it was loud enough for everyone to hear. Alder Berriman Berry Seals life has become somewhat distorted over the years, and it isnt really a mystery why: such an exciting and controversial story is bound to be reproduced or exaggerated. In October 1985 he returned to court over the first indictment in Big Screamer, for which he had originally been sentenced to ten years. The DEA had been informed before the publication of the Jacoby article, so they were still able to have Seal set up a meeting with the chief cartel supervisor in Miami, Carlos Bustamonte, and arrested him on July 17, along with other cartel employees. The cartel was happy, as was Seal, who loved evading law enforcement as much as he loved the money. Yet, some believe that Seal was working for the CIA in the 1980s to fly guns and money to Nicaraguan rebels, a detail that the movie embraces. [6] Also, after his release from prison Seal met William Roger Reaves on the flight back to the U.S. This draws the attention of the CIA. In 2017, Seal's life became the subject of a second Hollywood adaptation titled American Made and starred Tom Cruise. Drug king pin, Adler B. Also, Mr. Seal, who also went by the name Bill Elders as well as variations of his real name, "testifies he made 6 or 7 hundred thousand dollars in trafficking drugs after he went to work for . He made four trips to Nicaragua that year, allegedly to document the complicity in cocaine trafficking. He had previously been married to Barbara Bottoms (m. 1963-1971) and Lynn Ross (m. 1971-1972). The scene was actually inspired by something that happened while director Doug Liman and Tom Cruise were training for the movie. [3] Seal's career with TWA ended in July 1972, when he was arrested for involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle a shipment of plastic explosives to Mexico using a DC-4. He had already been flying planes for nearly half his life, earning his student pilot . He was assigned to the 20th Special Forces Group and graduated from the United States Army Airborne School selection and training. "Doug and I are both aviators, so we both love to fly.". TwitterBarry Seal, the drug smuggler-turned-DEA informant who helped take down Pablo Escobar. While the filmmakers were shooting the movie in South America, a local pilot who was working with them said that he had met Barry. American Made: Directed by Doug Liman. American Made is a fascinating biopic about Barry Seal, a commercial pilot who worked with the CIA to run drugs and guns in South America. In total, he had illegally imported $3 to $5 billion worth of drugs and an estimated 56 tons of cocaine into the U.S., making over 100 flights. As the cocaine was being loaded onto his plane, Seal noticed that the remote control for the camera was malfunctioning. Regardless, Jacoby's article led to the abandonment of the final piece of Barry Seal's undercover operation. The Story Behind an Infamous Escobar Cartel Assassination. -Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal. [24] The cartel provided a new plane, but it lacked the capacity for a direct flight to the U.S., so the cartel arranged a stopover in Nicaragua earlier than one planned at an airfield in Los Brasiles near Managua. CBS obtained pages from Col. Oliver Norths diary revealing that the former National Security Council aid communicated frequently with the CIA about the sting operation in the weeks before the photo was leaked to the press despite objections from the DEA. Featured Image:The low-res image of Frederico Vaughn (in the striped shirt) that Ronald Reagan offered as proof of Sandinista drug trafficking. It proved impossible to impanel sufficient jurors in Baton Rouge, so the venue was moved to Lake Charles. In an effort to frame the Sandinistas, the CIA installed a hidden camera in Seals C-130 cargo plane (the same plane, incidentally, that later crashed in Nicaragua leading to the capture of Eugene Hasenfus in October 1986). Facing a heavy sentence, and having been rejected by regional drug task forces in both Florida and Louisiana, Seal decided to try contacting the Vice President's Drug Task Force, a special program in the office of then-Vice President George Bush. The plane was hit and Seal had to make an emergency landing at Sandino International Airport in Managua. Synopsis. His humble roots certainly didnt foreshadow what would become, quite literally, a blockbuster life. Still unknown at the time, the cartel would go on to make hundreds of millions from the explosion of cocaine use in the U.S. Barry Seal, who became known as "El Gordo" (The Fat Man), ended up being an integral part of that success. In American Made, facts matter less than fiction. He is familiar with Barry's work as a pilot, but . Seal surrendered to federal authorities at the end of April 1983 and attempted to make a deal, first with the Florida task force, then with the Baton Rouge task force. What Journalists, Scholars and Activists Are Saying, The State Department Versus US Reporters in El Salvador, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported. His non-active duty was served in the 245th Engineer Battalion, where his MOS was radio telephone operator. Sixteen year-old Baton Rouge Civil Air Patrol cadet Barry Seal boards a U.S. Air Force plane on July 23, 1955 to fly to a two week training camp at Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he will meet fellow cadet Lee Harvey Oswald . Despite differences in body type To mCruise is not the 300-pound man that the Medelln cartel referred to as El Gordo, or Fat Man Seal was just as charismatic and took many of the extreme risks portrayed in the film. The accident didn't happen during filming. The cameras were rigged so that Seal could use a remote control button hidden in his pocket to snap photos at will. Wikimedia CommonsTom Cruise portrays Barry Seal in the 2017 film American Made.. The story of Barry Seal has since been made into films such as Doublecrossed (1991), Infiltrator (2016) and American Made (2017). [13] Seal's activities in Mena later became the subject of rumor and controversy, but according to Seal's biographer, former FBI agent Del Hahn, Seal did not use Mena as a drug transshipment point. ", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barry_Seal&oldid=1141963050, Drug Enforcement Administration informants, People murdered by Colombian organized crime, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Seal is portrayed by the actor Sebastin Snchez in, Seal is portrayed by theater director Thaddeus Phillips under his real name also of his nickname Ellis McKenzie in the 2013 TV series, This page was last edited on 27 February 2023, at 20:01. Although Seals first foray into smuggling failed, by 1975, he had started trafficking marijuana between the U.S. and Central and South America. With Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons. Barry Seal "'Fat Man' key to mystery" By Michael Haddigan THE ARKANSAS GAZETTE June 26, 1988 Allegations of cocaine smuggling and international intrigue swirled about the Mena Airport and Seal for years. They married in 1974. AKA Adler Berriman Seal. No, in real life he had five children and was married three times. operative extraordinaire - is hardly a familiar name in American politics. Barry Seal liked to use pay phones. They also claimed that the pilot who died lacked the necessary experience for the flight. Barry Seal: El traficante (2017) Primer Triler Oficial Espaol1 de septiembre de 2017Dcada de 1980. The DEA had been onto him for a long time. She is a brunette, not a blond like Sarah Wright's character in the movie. FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation. Using pilots like Barry Seal was a means to an end. The real Barry Seal claimed that he started running covert operations for various government agencies as early as the late 1950s, while he was a member of the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans, well before he became a TWA pilot. He didn't meet Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers in person until 1984, after his arrest when he was working as an informant for the DEA on an undercover operation. [2] He was assassinated in 1986, a hit rumoured to have been ordered by George H. W. Bush, whose personal telephone number was found on . Seal's story is the focus of the . [57], Uribe-Munera was a Colombian drug smuggler for the cartel. . Barry Seal, the drug smuggler-turned-DEA informant who helped take down Pablo Escobar. Investigators are still trying to separate myth from reality. Universal Pictures (@UniversalPicsPT) 5 de junho de 2017. He was married three times throughout his life. Barry Seal with his Wife Deborah DeBois and their kids. -Vulture. In his research for the book, the only confirmed connection Hahn could make between the CIA and Barry Seal was in 1984, after Seal had started working as an informant for the DEA. His flight instructor described him as a naturally gifted pilot. He was hired by Trans World Airlines (TWA) in 1964 and at age 26 became one of the youngest Captains operating a Boeing 707. [19] Seal then pleaded guilty to the second indictment in Florida and was released with his sentence to depend on his performance as an informant. -Daily Mail Online. The Nicaragua drug story first appeared in the Washington Times (7/17/84) and was immediately given big play by all the major papers, wire services and TV networks. Although newspapers published his name after his arrest, Seal was known to the Ochoas as Ellis MacKenzie. Considering . Widespread publicity and the general public outcry caused a delay of several months before Seal's murder trial began. Another shipment was also planned at this time, but under instructions from the DEA, Seal told Escobar his landing site was under DEA surveillance and unsafe for transport to avoid the need to seize a second load. The second indictment charged Seal and three others with multiple counts of possession and distribution of methaqualone, phenobarbital, and meperidine.[16]. It was likely the longest day of his entire life. Barry and his wife talked about going into witness protection, but like in the movie, he decided against it. But nine years after he was murdered in a hail of bullets by Medellin cartel hit men outside a Salvation Army shelter in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he has come back to haunt the reputations of three American presidents. [33], A more detailed account of American efforts in Nicaragua appeared on July 17 in an article by reporter Edmond Jacoby, published on the front page of the Washington Times. Seal told friends that the judge "made me a clay pigeon. "Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal had a brief, but spectacular, career as a cocaine smuggler-turned DEA informant. Funny how these people missed theFACT, now public knowledge, that Pablo Escobar was granted wide and free passage and full protection, by the Sandinistas. Liman has referred to the film as "a fun lie based on a true story" (TIME). Yes. But the media showed much less interest when subcommittee chairman Hughes recently disclosed he had new evidence that the entire Sandinista connection was a US intelligence fabrication. In addition to implicating Escobar as a drug kingpin, Seals photos provided evidence that the Sandinistas, Nicaraguan revolutionaries who overthrew the countrys dictator in 1979, were being funded by drug money. In many ways, the movie American Made does a faithful job of portraying Seals larger-than-life personality. He stated that IranContra figure Oliver North had attended two meetings about the sting operation and had the motivation to release the information. Barry Seal was an ace pilot and a drug smuggler of such proportions that he has been called "the biggest drug smuggler in American History". In Tom Cruise's latest film he plays the pilot, drug smuggler, and informant Barry Seal. [7] At his peak, he earned as much as $500,000 per flight transporting shipments of cocaine from Colombia to the United States. This led to photos of key Nicaraguan government officials . On July 28, the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime, chaired by Congressman William Hughes (D-NJ), held the first of a series of hearings into whether Reagan administration officials condoned drug smuggling and other criminal activities to further its Central America policy. A fourth man was indicted separately on lesser charges, and evidence of direct involvement was insufficient for two, who were released and deported. -TIME. He was then shot 5 times by cartel gunmen, but survived and eventually sought asylum at the U.S. embassy in Bogota. [59], In January 2023, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards denied Vsquez's request for clemency. [18] Jacobsen was impressed with Seal's connections, especially the ones with the Ochoa family, and on March 28, Seal signed a letter agreeing to serve as a DEA informant. He then was able to get a meeting with Vice President George H.W. "[47], The probation conditions prohibited Seal from leaving Baton Rouge without written permission from Judge Polozola, who ordered Seal to spend every night at a halfway house from 6PM to 6AM for the first six months of his probation. Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting124 W. 30th Street, Suite 201 As stated in the previous question, there is no strong evidence to confirm that Barry Seal was working with the CIA prior to becoming an informant after his arrest in 1983. Subcommittee chairman William J. Hughes strongly suggested that North was the source of the leak, but Representative Bill McCollum said, "we don't know who leaked this. Photo 1: This is a photo taken July 23, 1955. Like in the movie, the American Made true story reveals that Barry made a living as a commercial airline pilot for several years. [61], Seal was married three times. Seal took pictures during the Nicaragua sting operation that showed Pablo Escobar, Jorge Luis Ochoa Vsquez, and other members of the Medelln Cartel loading kilos of cocaine onto a C-123 .