Barry Seal

Adler Berriman Seal, or "Barry Seal" was a legendary pilot and drug smuggler turned DEA informant who gained a reputation as one of the most successful drug smugglers in American history. After a 1984 arrest in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for money laundering and quaalude smuggling, Seal negotiated a plea bargain that included him becoming an informant for the DEA and testifying against his former Columbian employers, putting several of them in jail. He was murdered on February 19, 1986 in Baton Rouge Louisiana on orders of the Ochoa cartel from Medellín Columbia.

Undercover Informant

In an attempt to lessen his sentence from his 1984 arrest in Florida, Seale agreed to cooperate with the DEA, and testify against his former colleagues. Amongst those Seal testified against were Prime Minister Norman Saunders and members of the Medellín Cartel. Seal also testified before the President's Commission on Organized Crime in October of 1985.

Seal had also been used by the DEA and CIA in an attempted sting operation against the Sandinistan government in Nicaragua. In 1984 Seal arrived at into Homestead Air Force Base in Florida with a shipment of cocaine that had been allegedly brokered through the Sandinistan government. Seal testified that pictures taken during the trip showed Sandinistan officials brokering a cocaine deal with members of Columbia’s drug cartel, although the poor quality of the pictures meant that Seal’s eyewitness account was the primary evidence for the claim. The story was later broken by both the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal, exposing Seal’s idendity and involvement of his former Columbian associates.

As part of his plea agreement, Seal was ordered to a halfway house in Baton Rouge Louisiana, where he was murdered by cartel hit men.

Further reading

• PBS’s Frontline: Thirty Years of America’s Drug War: A Chronology
• "The Kingpin and his many connections" Michael Haddigan, The Arkansas Gazette