Craig Chretien

Craig Chretien was a DEA Special Agent in Charge of the National City regional office south of San Diego who attempted to persuade Gary Webb to alter or suppress his Dark Alliance investigation in October 1995.¹

Meeting with Gary Webb

On October 19, 1995, Chretien hosted Webb in a room with six DEA agents, including Danilo Blandón's handlers Chuck Jones and Judy Gustafson. Chretien opened by telling Webb that his reporting was getting into "rather sensitive areas" and was endangering undercover operations and putting agents' families at risk. He asked Webb to leave out the fact that Blandón was working for the DEA. "Your story can just go up to a certain point and stop, can't it?" Chretien asked.¹

When Webb mentioned that his story was about Blandón, Norwin Meneses, the Contras, and Ricky Ross, Chretien dismissed the Contra connection: "That whole Central American thing. I was down there. You heard all sorts of things. There was never any proof that the Contras were dealing drugs." Chretien proposed that the DEA might help Webb obtain information on Meneses if Webb would focus his story on Meneses rather than Blandón and omit "some other things."¹

Investigation of Celerino Castillo

Prior to his posting in San Diego, Chretien had been sent to Guatemala by DEA headquarters to conduct an internal investigation of Celerino Castillo III, who had been reporting Contra drug shipments from Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador. Castillo told Webb that Chretien ordered him to use the word "alleged" in his reports to Washington about Contra drug flights. "They said, 'You cannot actually come out and say this shit is going on.' And I told them, 'I'm watching the fucking things fly out of here with my own eyes! Why would I have to say alleged?'" Castillo said of Chretien's claim that there was no proof of Contra drug dealing: "Of all people, he knows perfectly well what was going on. He was reading all my reports, looking for grammatical errors."¹

Promotion to International Division

Eight days after the meeting with Webb, Robert Nieves, the head of the DEA's International Division and Norwin Meneses's former control agent, unexpectedly resigned. Chretien was selected to replace him and was transferred to Washington. Webb never spoke to Chretien again. Webb suspected the San Diego meeting had been organized to determine what he knew and where his investigation was heading.¹