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Panama City

Panama City was the operational center of Manuel Noriega's military dictatorship and a hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering connected to the Contra war.

Panama City was the operational center of Noriega's military dictatorship and a hub for Cocaine trafficking and money laundering connected to the Contra war. The Panamanian capital served as a financial center where drug money was washed clean and a transit point for narcotics flowing north from South America.1

Drug Trafficking Hub

Noriega's pilots used Panama as a base for drug flights that refueled at Contra airstrips in northern Costa Rica before continuing to the United States. Floyd Carlton, a Panamanian pilot working with Noriega, plotted drug flights and arranged the laundering of cocaine profits through companies based in Panama City. The city's banking secrecy laws made it an ideal location for the financial operations of the Contra-connected drug networks.2

  1. Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 14. ↩
  2. Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 14. ↩

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