Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2 Num. 67

("Quid coniuratio est?")

THE PHONY WAR
An Interview with DEA Veteran Celerino Castillo

[...continued...]

-+- Planeloads of Cocaine -+-

TARPLEY

If you had to go back and estimate, could you give some kind of a ballpark figure of how much drugs, I guess in this case it means cocaine pretty much, how much cocaine, crack cocaine and other kinds of cocaine, came into the United States as a result of these operations?

CASTILLO

We had thousands of kilos that came in. We had surveillance set up up there. We saw the planes coming in. We had reports where they came in, they dropped it off at Hangars 4 and 5; yet, we were not allowed to touch it.

TARPLEY

Could you just estimate, if at all possible, what percentage that might have been of the total drug-trafficking flow into the United States?

CASTILLO

Maybe one percent -- and that's a lot. One percent is a lot.

Now, you're asking me about monies? Millions of dollars...

We have a guy who was an honorary ambassador to Panama, who flew four-and-a-half million dollars from Ilopango into Panama. This was reported to the DEA Washington...

TARPLEY

Later on, toward the end of his term in office, George Bush came along and pardoned quite a number of the top figures in this, and I guess that had the effect of shutting down most of what was left of the official investigation.

What do you think of George Bush pardoning these people?

CASTILLO

George Bush was trying to save himself, and pardoning these people who were known traffickers was a slap in the face to us, the DEA agents who were out there putting our lives on the line, going undercover in Third World countries.

TARPLEY

And you've done undercover operations in Central America yourself.

CASTILLO

That's correct. So the fact that we could have another branch of our government heavily involved in narcotics trafficking was just devastating to me. And a lot of people go into the government and spend twenty years and then retire; it didn't take me twenty years to figure out that my own government was heavily involved in narcotics trafficking, and putting our lives on the line.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we lost five agents in Peru. We cannot work with Third World countries that are heavily involved in narcotics trafficking.

We had documented reports on Third World countries. For example, Guatemala. Guatemala is heavily involved in narcotics trafficking. The Cerezo government was heavily involved, sleeping with the cartels. Yet, it was a democracy, and the U.S. government did not want to do anything about it.

I went undercover on a Congressman down there. He was going to sell me 200 kilos of cocaine. When they came down to arrest them, I was told by the U.S. embassy not to arrest him, because we were not there to embarrass the Guatemalan government, but we were there to help it.

The same thing happened in El Salvador. All the weapons that were being seized by the guerrillas were being sold to the cartels.

So, we spent $1.5 million a day in El Salvador for the past 10 years, and they couldn't win the war.

TARPLEY

Well, let's sum up now. We have a few minutes left. Do you think that Oliver North is qualified to be a United States Senator?

CASTILLO

No. He is a convicted felon. He lied to Congress, he is a chronic liar. He lies to everybody. A lot of people feel that he can be forgiven for what he did, but what I don't think they realize is the fact that he cannot justify the narcotics trafficking that his organization conducted in the 1980s. And he cannot guarantee to me the fact that nobody, or none of those drugs that were being smuggled into the U.S., that people died of, was not Contra cocaine. So, he's got to take responsibility for what is happening on our streets today, the cocaine epidemic that we have.

We have more cocaine on the U.S. streets now than we did ten years ago; yet, we spend billions of dollars in Third World countries trying to combat this trafficking.

But Oliver North should be in jail, and not be running for the U.S. Senate...

TARPLEY

Would you think that the Virginia voters ought to have the right to see Oliver North's DEA file?

CASTILLO

Absolutely. It's there. Whether the DEA wants to continue the conspiracy to cover it up is a different story...

TARPLEY

You tried to tell your story inside the federal agencies for quite a number of years, we've seen, with very limited results, and then you turned to your book, Powderburns.

What made you decide to get into writing books?

CASTILLO

I was sick to my stomach when I saw Oliver North up there. Everybody looked up to him as a hero, "Oliver North for President", and so forth.

I had to tell my story...

I can live with myself now. North has to hide. What conscience does he or his family have, that they know that his organization is responsible for a lot of deaths in the U.S.? For the epidemic cocaine addiction that we have? What does his family think about it?

TARPLEY

Well, I understand you're going out on the stump in Virginia now, in the closing days of the election campaign?

CASTILLO

Yes, that's correct. I've always made the assumption that I'm going to go out there and try. I'll never quit. I'll go out there, tell them what I know. If people want to listen to me, I'm there. If they don't, it's their prerogative. It's a free country. If they want to elect an official who is a documented trafficker and a convicted felon, then that's their prerogative.

I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."

Brian Francis Redman bigxc@prairienet.org "The Big C"

"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."