CIA drug trafficking

A number of writers have claimed that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is or has been involved in drug trafficking. Books on the subject that have received general notice include works by historian Alfred McCoy, English professor and poet Peter Dale Scott, journalists Gary Webb, Michael Ruppert, Alexander Cockburn and Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández. These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General. The subject remains controversial.

Following is a summary of some of the main claims made by geographical area.

For eight years, (until October 2009), Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of the then-newly elected President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, was on the payroll of the CIA - but is also alleged to have been involved in opium trafficking in the Middle East.

While the CIA was sponsoring a Secret War in Laos from 1961 to 1975, it was accused of trafficking in opium (an area known as the Golden Triangle).

In response to accusations by Rolling Stone magazine in 1968, and Alfred W. McCoy in 1972, the CIA made its own internal inquiries of its staff and clients in Laos concerning the drug trade. It noted that trading in opium was legal in Laos until 1971. Cultural background was also explored. Opium served the isolated Lao hill tribes as their sole cash crop. Additionally, it was one of the few medicines available in their primitive living circumstances. Nevertheless, the CIA had its own internal security agents investigating any possible commercial exports from mid-1968 onwards. An American single plane airline was barred from CIA airfields on suspicion of drug smuggling. A guerrilla commanding officer was pressured into giving up dealing in opium. The CIA's own conclusion was that small amounts of opium might have been smuggled via their contract aircraft, given wartime conditions. The Agency's case officers even staged a couple of impromptu raids on drug refineries, only to be reined in by their Office of General Counsel.

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