Juan Matta Ballesteros
Juan Matta Ballesteros was Honduras's biggest drug trafficker whose air cargo company SETCO was the principal transportation provider for the Contra army.
Juan Matta Ballesteros was Honduras's biggest drug trafficker whose air cargo company SETCO was the principal transportation provider for the Contra army. The U.S. Customs Service had known about Matta's drug trafficking since 1983, but his company continued to receive U.S. government contracts for Contra supply missions.1
SETCO and the Contra Supply Chain
The Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (NHAO) hired SETCO to transport supplies and personnel for the FDN. Oliver North also used SETCO for airdrops of military supplies to Contra forces inside Nicaragua. Pilot Robert Moss flew FDN supply missions for both Hondu Carib, a company operated by FDN leader Adolfo Calero's brother, and SETCO. The use of a drug kingpin's company as the primary Contra transportation provider demonstrated the direct overlap between narcotics trafficking and the U.S.-backed war.2
Sources
Named without a link 1
Local network
Search or select an entry to see how it connects to Juan Matta Ballesteros.
An interactive diagram of Juan Matta Ballesteros's connections, drawn on a canvas and explored with a pointer. The same connections are listed as links in the Connected and Mentioned-in sections below.
How to read the graph
- People
- Organizations
- Programs
- Events
- Concepts
- Places
Larger = more mentions across the vault.
A link from one entry to another.
A name mentioned in an entry without a direct link. Toggle these with “Inferred”.
Gold rings mark entries mentioned across several clusters.
Orange rings mark your selection.