Roadhouse Magazine Issue 27

H e was so good at getting product back and forth,” said Evan Wright, author of “American Desperado,” a book focused on the ’80s drug trade. “He understood fueling, distances and how to hide on the Louisiana coast.” His finances became so robust that, as depicted in “American Made,” a bank in Mena, Arkansas, turned an entire vault over to Seal and built a smaller one for other customers to share. Spinelli describes Seal as having “half a football field’s worth of cash – and each bill was a crime.” While it’s unclear how much he made, in 1986 Seal boasted about having brought 20,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States. Considering that he received $2,700 per pound smuggled, he would have earned $54 million (worth at least $126 million in 2017 valuations). Spinelli said Seal blew money on jewelry for his wife. Hahn reported that he spent cash on aircraft and possessed two boats. However, Seal hardly came off as a kingpin. “Barry Seal was a nerd. He loved planes – and as long as he had one to play with, he was happy,” said Wright. But he wasn’t exactly careful. “He was a loudmouth and drove a ridiculously showy Cadillac convertible. He liked being the big man,”Wright added. He even went as far as training his former brother-in-law, William Bottoms, to fly in blow while Seal guided him via radio. If Seal truly was in it for the adventure, he got what he wanted: jailtime in Honduras, a plane shot down over Nicaragua with him in the pilot’s seat and a crash in Colombia out of which he managed to escape uninjured. But in 1983, when Seal got busted by the DEA with a reported 200,000 counterfeit Quaaludes that he had transported into Fort Lauderdale, things turned serious. To avoid 10 years in prison, he became a DEA snitch – procuring evidence against major Central American drug players including Jorge Ochoa and Pablo Escobar. For risk-loving Seal, the arrangement proved cozy. He transported at least one 1,400-pound load for the DEA. Additionally, he may have quietly smuggled plenty more while working as an informant – and it appears to have gone beyond drugs. In the book “American Desperado,” Jon Roberts, a now-deceased narcotics trafficker originally from New York City, recalled how “The one time I flew with him [Seal] to Nicaragua [transporting guns, supposedly on behalf of the CIA, in 1983 or 1984], I had told him I was uptight. Barry said, ‘Don’t worry. We’re working for Vice President Bush.’” (The CIA has always denied any connections with Seal.) On June 26, 1984, Seal embarked on an undercover trip that would have him bringing 1,465 pounds of cocaine from Nicaragua to the US Air Force base in Homestead, Florida. He somehow convinced Escobar to be on an airstrip and to help Sandinistas load drugs onto the plane. Via hidden camera, Seal and his co-pilot snapped them in the act. But somehow, Seal wound up in the shots – and in the news. A July 17, 1984, story on the front page of the Washington Times, leaked to reporter Edmond Jacoby, exposed Seal without naming him. Two days later, a similar article appeared in the New York Times, detailing the amount of cocaine that Seal had smuggled in from Nicaragua. It named Nicaraguan officials as well as Escobar and Ochoa as collaborators. “He knew he was screwed,” said Spinelli. “But Barry turned down witness protection because he was told that he could never again fly a plane. That would have been worse than death.” Or maybe not. In 1986 – the same year the IRS concluded that he owed $29 million in taxes and placed a federal lien on him – Seal, who was slated to testify in court against Ochoa, was gunned down behind the wheel of his Cadillac. It transpired in the parking lot of a Baton Rouge Salvation Army halfway house, where he was staying as a condition of probation for a money laundering and cocaine possession plea agreement that dated back to 1984. The shooters were a pair of Medellin Cartel hitmen, sent from Colombia to show what happens to rats. An eyewitness spotted the getaway car. Before they could leave the US, both killers were in police custody. THE FUEL TANK 26 RHM Magazine - roadhouse.net.au