William Downing
William "Bill" Downing was Ronald Lister's partner in the Mundy Security Group who designed a laser sighting device for AR-15 assault rifles and was involved in procuring weapons sold to Danilo Blandón and crack dealers in Los Angeles.
William Lee Downing was a partner of Ronald Lister in the Mundy Security Group, the Laguna Beach security company Lister incorporated in mid-1983. Through this "security business" in high-class Laguna Beach, Downing and Lister procured weapons for Danilo Blandón, who resold them to Ricky Ross and other crack dealers in South Central Los Angeles.1
Laser Sighting Device
Downing designed a laser sighting device for AR-15 assault rifles that the Mundy Security Group attempted to market. The device used a tiny laser beam to put a small red dot on a target, facilitating kills at night. Christopher W. Moore, a director of Mundy Security Group, said this gadget was one of the company's only known business activities aside from a few burglar alarm installations.1
Weapons Supply Network
The weapons Downing helped procure included the full spectrum available to Lister's network. Blandón told Central Intelligence Agency inspectors that Lister had access to such a wide variety of weapons that in 1983 or 1984, he arranged for Lister to give a sales presentation to Contra leadership. The Mundy Security Group was licensed with the State Department in 1983 to export U.S. Munitions List items to other countries, receiving three temporary export licenses (DSP-73s) to export laser components and spare parts to "various countries."1
Sources
- Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it" ↩
Local network
William Downing's direct connections. Click any node to navigate, drag to pan, scroll (or pinch) to zoom. + 2‑hop expands the neighborhood one level further.