That's the mind-boggling conclusion of a 6-month investigation into the life and death of Barry Seal, a pivotal figure of the Iran/Contra '80s. Barry Seal, at the time he died, may have been. Here is another nugget worth chewing on: The George Herbert Walker Bush- Barry Seal Relationship (Daniel Hopsicker, "Barry & the Boys: The CIA, The Mob and America's Secret History," pp. Images like the one earlier on this page show Medelln Cartel boss Pablo Escobar with Sandinista government officials and soldiers, who were loading cocaine onto Seal's plane, nicknamed the Fat Lady. An Investigative Obituary. Barry Seal. He had been arrested in 1972 by the U.S. Customs Service for trying to fly 1,350 pounds of plastic explosives to anti-Castro Cubans via Mexico. But he did become one of the most important DEA informants, infiltrating the Medelln cartels inner circle. JB is fictional. ", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barry_Seal&oldid=1151825800, Drug Enforcement Administration informants, People murdered by Colombian organized crime, Pages using cite court with unknown parameters, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Seal is portrayed by the actor Sebastin Snchez in, Seal is portrayed by theater director Thaddeus Phillips under his real name also of his nickname Ellis McKenzie in the 2013 TV series, This page was last edited on 26 April 2023, at 13:39. -Vulture. They married in 1974. The young Jung was known to be a talented football player, although, in his own words, he was a "screw up" when it came to academics. Born in Baton Rogue, Louisiana, in 1939, Seal developed a love of flying at a very early age - by the age of just 15, the budding airman had taken his first solo flight, and by 16 he'd gained his full pilot's licence. The real Barry Seal never had a brother-in-law who was killed by a car bomb. [18] Jacobsen was impressed with Seal's connections, especially the ones with the Ochoa family, and on March 28, Seal signed a letter agreeing to serve as a DEA informant. And here is the theme of the film. In this video, Dr. Valdes talks about his relationship with Miguel Velez who killed Barry Seals of the movie American Made. The New York Times reported in 1987 that court documents showed there was a $500,000 contract out on the death of Seal, or $1 million if he could be caught alive and taken to Colombia. His flight instructor described him as a naturally gifted pilot. "He would tell me all these wild stories about the missions he had flown. After Seal's death, a 1986-1989 Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigation popularly known as the Kerry Committee report found that the State Department had made payments to known drug. [36], Despite the exposure, Seal was able to put together a second major undercover operation for the DEA later that year. Wikimedia CommonsBarry Seal started working for Pablo Escobar in the 1980s. People in the county seat of Polk County want to put the 1980s saga of drug- and gun-running behind them. From the get-go, he was a talented aviator, and before he graduated from high school in 1957, Seal had earned his private pilot wings. Seal had six children; two from his first wife, one from a relationship he had in between marriages, and three more with Deborah.[62][63]. I was young and it was impressive." The Story Behind an Infamous Escobar Cartel Assassination - Vice "In the case of our story, Barry's wife showed us a photo of her visiting him in a Guatemalan prison on his birthday and cutting his birthday cake with a machete.". Barry Seal even had a cameo role in the Watergate Scandal." Barry And The Boys, p. 19. Exposure of Nicaraguan undercover operation, Criticism of U.S. failure to protect Seal, President's Commission on Organized Crime, "Barry Seal murder in Baton Rouge 25 years ago helped expose Iran-Contra debacle", "Louisiana governor denies parole for man who helped kill Barry Seal for Escobar's cartel", "Slain drug smuggler Barry Seal's daughter sues to halt movie on her father's life", "Family of murdered drug smuggler sue Universal over Tom Cruise film Mena", "North's name bandied about on news leak", "Special Reports - Interview - Drug Wars", "Informants murder puts head on authorities", "TV Reviews: 'Doublecrossed': Story of Drugs and Politics", "Who Killed Barry Seal? Liman has referred to the film as "a fun lie based on a true story" (TIME). Mermelstein testified that he accepted the contract, believing that a refusal would mean death. American Made vs. the True Story of Barry Seal - HistoryvsHollywood.com In this case, the CIA had a hidden camera on Seals plane during a trip to pick up cocaine in Colombia. . The DEA refused to let Seal leave the country due to the danger he was in, so Seal arranged for his ex-brother-in-law William Bottoms to make the flight. Barry Seal died in 1986, long before the Sinaloa Cartel became the Sinaloa Cartel. Concurrently, they had to make sure not to raise the suspicions of the ruthless Colombian drug lords. Wouldn't it be fun if they were fooling around in a plane and the plane went into the same kind of parabolic arc and they got pinned against the ceiling?" As PBS notes, the story was leaked by Oliver North to prove that the Nicaraguan government was involved in the drug trade. Barry Seal: The Renegade Pilot Behind Tom Cruise's 'American Made' "You know, we're not making a biopic," said director Doug Liman. He took it out for a test flight and never came back." It was Reaves who provided Seal with his first connection to the Medelln cartel. Published April 22, 2023 Updated April 23, 2023, 11:17 a.m. American Made stars Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, a real-life former airline pilot who embarked on a wildly successful cocaine smuggling operation between Colombia and a tiny airstrip in Mena, Arkansas, in the 1980s. His character is inspired by the stories we learned about Barry." -Vulture.com. After several months of contacts, the agent negotiated a deal with Seal to smuggle 1,200 pounds of methaqualone tablets into the United States (the tablets were counterfeits, made of chalk). He then turned against them and joined with the Drug Enforcement Administration as an informant. TwitterBarry Seal earned his pilots license when he was just 16, but he grew bored of typical flights and decided to use his skills to smuggle drugs and weapons. Wikimedia CommonsTom Cruise portrays Barry Seal in the 2017 film American Made.. -The Independent, Yes. Seal frequently smuggled 1,000 to 1,500 kilos of the illicit substance between Nicaragua and Louisiana, and he quickly earned a reputation in the world of drug trafficking. In reality, Seal was married three times and had five children. [22] The Colombian government had recently conducted a major raid on the cartel's manufacturing facilities at a remote jungle location called Tranquilandia, and they told Seal that they were making arrangements to set up shipping and production facilities in Nicaragua, where they had struck a deal with the Sandinista government. [25] The drugs were unloaded by the military and Seal and his co-pilot were taken to detention in downtown Managua, where they were released to the cartel's Nicaraguan contact, Federico Vaughan. How did Barry Seal die? He once said in an interview, The exciting thing to me is to get yourself into a life threatening situation. The people who are concerned ought not to point the finger at me. "Tom did all his own flying in the movie," says director Doug Liman, who is a pilot himself (, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. "We're talking about one of the largest drug smugglers in America, and these agents loved him." He also provided testimony that led to drug charges against high-level government officials in Nicaragua and Turks and Caicos. Max Mermelstein, a high-level cartel distributor in Miami, later testified in court that he was shown the documentary a few days after it was broadcast and was told that the cartel wanted Seal either captured or killed: the price was $500,000 if Seal was killed, and $1,000,000 if he was captured alive. He was one of the youngest 707 command pilots in the TWA fleet. Later, after Seal's cover was suspiciously blown, President Reagan used the photo shown below in a 1986 television address to the nation. Both rejected any deals, even though Seal told them a little about his involvement with the Ochoa family. Fact-checking American Made revealed that Monty Schafer is a fictional character created to represent Barry Seal's contacts at the CIA. So the CIA moved him and his family to Mena, Arkansas. Seal served in the Louisiana Army National Guard for six years. [40], Soon after the broadcast, the heads of the Florida and Louisiana task forces met to work out an agreement that would allow Seal to continue working with the Florida task force and testify as a witness at trial. The real story of American Made is so wild, it's almost impossible to make a distinction between fact and fiction in the movie, except when it comes to what happened to Barry Seal's family. In reality, there is no evidence that Seal was ever involved with the CIA. . Like many other modern biopic subjects, Seals story is filled with enough twists and turns that he was perfect for the subject of a movie. The Ochoa Family, along with Pablo Escobar and others, were the founders of the Medelln Cartel. No. Barry Humphries (Dame Edna to You, Possums) Is Dead at 89 In the Hollywood blockbuster 'American Made', Tom Cruise stars as legendary 80s drug smuggler Barry Seal. His career there ended five years later in 1972 when he was arrested for smuggling plastic explosives to Mexico. After this look at the brazen smuggler Barry Seal, check out how the Medelln cartel became one of the most ruthless crime syndicates in history. Widespread publicity and the general public outcry caused a delay of several months before Seal's murder trial began. It proved impossible to impanel sufficient jurors in Baton Rouge, so the venue was moved to Lake Charles. Federal prosecutors also claimed that Seal was offered to join the witness protection program, but declined to do so. We had a chance to arrest all the cartel members, Jacobsen said. The first unexpected death of Barry 's final season comes at the end of Episode 4, "it takes a psycho." And it's a particularly cruel trick by Hader and company, because the character we. -Court DocumentsThe 2016 Bryan Cranston movie The Infiltrator also depicts Barry Seal's assassination, but it is historically inaccurate. The gunman was later identified as Luis Carlos Quintero-Cruz. Also, before the agreement was reached, the Louisiana task force investigation had been looking into Seal's involvement in smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine. In the least, his exploits with the CIA and agent Monty Schafer in the movie are largely fictional and based on speculation. No. Tom Cruise plays Barry Seal in American Made. Overall, though, the film captures just how incredible Seals life really was. As author Del Hahn states in his book about Barry Seal's life, Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal, there is no evidence to support claims that Barry Seal worked for the CIA. Seal told friends that the judge "made me a clay pigeon. Two indictments were returned against Seal in March 1983. You can make shooting at each other appear . Through his cartel contacts in Miami, Seal arranged a meeting using the name Ellis McKenzie (the real name of another Seal associate). He was born on July 16, 1939, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. On June 29, General Paul F. Gorman, US Military Commander Southern Command, made a speech stating the US had evidence that elements of the Nicaraguan government were involved in drug smuggling, though Gorman did not mention Seal or the undercover flights. Not all of Barry Seal's heirs were happy with the making of the movie. Based on an unbelievable true story, watch the #AmericanMade trailer, in theaters September 29. Philip Marshall 'Murder-Suicide' - A Lack of Evidence All three were found guilty and sentenced to life without parole. Mermelstein, who had told the DEA of the murder contract after his arrest in 1985, testified that Ochoa, Escobar, and Cardona had asked him to take the contract and provided him with money and weapons to do the job. [15] The investigation into Seal was part of a major undercover operation called Operation Screamer in which over 80 pilots were eventually indicted. In exploring the American Made true story, we discovered that Doug Liman's father, lawyer Arthur L. Liman, ran the Senate investigation into Iran-Contra. [1], In 1962, Seal enlisted in the Louisiana Army National Guard for six years: six months of active duty, followed by five and a half years of inactive duty. However, her real name is Debbie, not Lucy. The real Barry Seal was married three times and had five children. Yes. Seal served in the Louisiana Army National Guard for six years. He had previously been married to Barbara Bottoms (m. 1963-1971) and Lynn Ross (m. 1971-1972). Yes. [14], By 1981, DEA agents in Florida were aware of Seal's smuggling activities. Barry was a peripheral player back then, but he was a CIA 'contract' pilot all the way back to 1956 or 1957." In 1958 Seal began ferrying weapons to Fidel Castro fighting against the the Fulgencio Batista regime in Cuba. The flight, in January 1985, was successful and led to arrests and convictions. Barry Seal was one of the biggest drug smugglers in America in the 1970s and '80s. [37], In February, Seal also played a central role in an undercover operation against Norman Saunders, chief minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands, a former British colony south of the Bahamas. He moved on to smuggling marijuana, and then cocaine. When it did, the overloaded plane crashed at the Colombia airfield on takeoff. It is believed that the Colombians put a hit out on Barry after they learned he was going to help the feds with the extradition of Jorge Ochoa from Spain, one of the heads of the Medelln Cartel. In 1964, Seal went to work for TWA and became their youngest 707 captain and later their youngest 747 captain. They referred him to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). What Happened To Barry Seal's Wife & Kids? 'American Made - Bustle American Made is one of many "so crazy, it must be real" stories that have hit Hollywood in the form of a major action movie in recent years. Seals career as a pilot for Trans World Airlines crashlanded in 1974 when he was caught trying to smuggle explosives to anti-Castro Cubans in Mexico. Yet, it's also certainly possible that Seal had no involvement with the CIA in the early 1980s at all, given there is nothing to support the claim but rumors. "The DEA agents who worked with Barry loved him," said director Doug Liman. -TIME. He soon told the task force about the contract, and Seal was informed that the cartel was offering $500,000 for his death. The life of the most important witness in the history of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had come to a brutal end. He was assigned to the 20th Special Forces Group and graduated from the United States Army Airborne School selection and training. [66][67] Hawkins told Frontline that neither she nor her staff leaked the information after the briefing. He would have to operate the rear camera by hand. Despite differences in body type Tom Cruise is not the 300-pound man that the Medelln cartel referred to as El Gordo, or Fat Man Seal was just as charismatic and took many of the extreme risks portrayed in the film. You have permission to edit this article. Originally planned for mid-April, the flight did not take place until the end of May. [5], Ironically, Seal's operations received an important boost when he was arrested and jailed in Honduras on the return leg of a drug-smuggling trip to Ecuador. At the beginning of the movie, the fictionalized Seal gets bored on his daily flights with Trans World Airlines and begins performing daredevil stunts with passengers onboard. I highly recommend picking up the book - it's way, way more interesting than the "American Made" Tom Cruise film. [27], The plane Seal acquired was a C-123K, a large aircraft used primarily for military transport. Still unknown at the time, the cartel would go on to make hundreds of millions from the explosion of cocaine use in the U.S. Barry Seal, who became known as "El Gordo" (The Fat Man), ended up being an integral part of that success. Facing major prison time, Seal attempted to cut various deals with the DEA. [29], Seal made one more trip to Nicaragua on July 7, bringing money to Escobar to pay the Nicaraguans for landing rights. Not likely. [66] Jacoby later denied that North was the source of his story and attributed it to a deceased staff member for Representative Dan Daniel. In the American Made movie, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) crash lands a plane in a suburban neighborhood in an effort to escape the DEA who ordered him to land. Bush's anti-drug task force in hopes of convincing them of his value as an informant. "Tom Cruise doesn't look like Barry Seal. On Feb. 19, 1986, three Colombian hitmen that had been hired by the Medelln cartel tracked Seal down at the Salvation Army. He stated that IranContra figure Oliver North had attended two meetings about the sting operation and had the motivation to release the information. [49] Although the newspaper report and the arrest of their Miami distributors confirmed that their pilot was DEA, it was not until the cartel members received a copy of Seal's television documentary that they learned McKenzie was Seal. Three of them, Luis Carlos Quintero-Cruz, Miguel Vlez, and Bernardo Antonio Vsquez, were indicted on state charges for capital murder. Powered by. AKA Adler Berriman Seal. In her suit, Lisa, who is not depicted in the movie, also claimed that there were factual inaccuracies in the script, including the fact that Barry had five children, not three, and that the movie falsely suggests he was an alcoholic and a reckless pilot. However, some still allege the opposite, that the government turned a blind eye to Seal's drug running in order to use him to deliver weapons to the Nicaraguan rebels. Polozola took the occasion to say that people like Seal were "the lowest, most despicable people I can think of." [42] Following his testimony in Las Vegas, Seal spent another month in a witness protection center. "The millions of dollars they said he made if he did, he was holding out on me," she said. Barry Seal: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com After Barry spoiler alert is murdered by Medellin Cartel assassins (or CIA operatives, depending on who you believe), all the already-dwindling riches earned by Barry's illegal dealings disappear, and Lucy is seen working at KFC to support herself and the kids. Partly Fiction: He was married to a woman named Lucy and they had three kids. [29], The drugs could not be distributed, and the immediate arrest of those handling the vehicle would suggest to the Colombians that Seal had betrayed them, so DEA agents staged an accident with the camper, allowing the driver to escape. From earning his pilots license at the age of 16 to his blood-soaked end at the hands of a notorious cartel, Seal certainly got the life of excitement that he so desired. Did Barry Seal Really Die? Escobar and his associates simply knew him as El Gordo, the fat man, and this is why the cartel did not know that Seal had finally been arrested and, rather than serve a long prison sentence, he had agreed to become an informant for the U.S. government.. [13] Seal's activities in Mena later became the subject of rumor and controversy, but according to Seal's biographer, former FBI agent Del Hahn, Seal did not use Mena as a drug transshipment point. Barry Seal likely never worked for CIA, as shown in, Tom Cruise portrays Barry Seal in the 2017 film American Made.. [7], To expand his smuggling capacity, Seal also hired William Bottoms, his ex-brother-in-law, as a pilot. The man who made Baton Rouge headlines in the mid-1980s for the machine-gun killing of drug informant Adler "Barry" Seal died in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola on Aug. 25,. [57], Uribe-Munera was a Colombian drug smuggler for the cartel. In many ways, the movie American Made does a faithful job of portraying Seals larger-than-life personality. Barry and his wife talked about going into witness protection, but like in the movie, he decided against it. Why Bill Clinton And George W. Bush Are Portrayed In A Tom Cruise Movie CIA Linked To Seal's Assassination . George Bush's Personal Phone The film stars Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, a pilot, turned drug runner, turned DEA agent, turned possible CIA operative. 'Barry': What to Remember Before Season 3 - Vulture February 19, 1986 Barry Seal/Date of assassination. The second indictment charged Seal and three others with multiple counts of possession and distribution of methaqualone, phenobarbital, and meperidine.[16]. Although Seals first foray into smuggling failed, by 1975, he had started trafficking marijuana between the U.S. and Central and South America. the contents of the trunk of Barry Seal's Cadillac on the night he died, and discovered that a cover-up was underway before Seal's body had grown cold in the Baton Rouge morgue. But the cartel knew surprisingly little about their star pilot.