Wanda Palacios
Miami FBI informant and wife of a Colombian trafficker who witnessed Southern Air Transport planes being loaded with cocaine and unloading guns in Colombia.
Wanda Palacios was a Miami FBI informant and the wife of a Colombian trafficker who reported in 1986 that she had witnessed Southern Air Transport planes being loaded with cocaine and unloading guns in Barranquilla, Colombia, in 1983 and October 1985. Her story was later corroborated by flight logs recovered from a downed CIA-contracted aircraft.1
Witness Accounts
Palacios said she accompanied Medellín cartel boss Pablo Escobar in a limousine to the landing site and spoke with Jorge Ochoa, who bragged that he was working with the Central Intelligence Agency to get cocaine into south Florida.1
Kerry Committee Investigation
Palacios was interviewed in 1986 by the staff of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, which was investigating Contra drug smuggling allegations. Kerry's staff found her and her story credible and took an eleven-page statement. The senator and an aide took it to the Justice Department in September 1986 and met with William Weld, one of Attorney General Edwin Meese's top assistants.1
Kerry aide Jonathan Winer wrote in a memorandum that "Weld read about a half a page and chuckled. I asked him why. He said this isn't the first time today I've seen allegations about CIA agent involvement in drugs. He stated several times in reading Wanda's statement that while he couldn't vouch for every line in it, there was nothing in it which didn't appear true to him, or inconsistent with what he already knew."1
Dismissal and Vindication
When her allegations leaked to the press, Palacios was publicly dismissed as a crank by top Justice Department officials, who said polygraph tests were "inconclusive." Southern Air Transport called her "a lunatic" and sued or threatened suit against news organizations that aired her allegations.1
Her story was buttressed by subsequent events. When the Sandinistas shot down a Southern Air Transport C-123K over Nicaragua in early October 1986, the dead pilot's flight logs revealed several Southern Air Transport flights to Barranquilla during October 1985—exactly as Palacios had claimed. She was able to identify the pilot's picture in a lineup. Southern Air Transport said in a statement that the planes were carrying drilling equipment, not drugs.1
Sources
- Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends" ↩
Local network
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