He was America's most dangerous pilot. Barry Seal flew cocaine for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel, moved 56 tons of drugs into the United States without losing a single load, and became the DEA's most valuable informant in history. Then the CIA turned him into a spy, sent him to photograph Escobar in Nicaragua, and leaked his cover to the press.
Within 24 hours, the cartel put a $1.5 million bounty on his head.
The DEA warned the judge. The FBI tracked the assassins entering the country on false papers. His own lawyers stood in court and said: your honor, this is a death sentence.
The judge sentenced him to a public halfway house anyway. Read his address in open court. Stripped him of armed protection.
Six weeks later, three Colombian sicarios pumped 27 bullets through his windshield in a Baton Rouge parking lot.
This is the true story behind American Made — the CIA drug pilot who worked for three organizations at once, testified against 59 of the biggest traffickers in history, and was betrayed by the government he served.
Follow the money. Always.
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🕐 CHAPTERS
0:00 The parking lot. kmt xi jinping meetings February 19th, 1986.
1:45 Follow the money — how Barry Seal lived
3:00 Born to fly — Baton Rouge to TWA
5:00 The first sting and the lucky break
6:30 The Medellin Cartel comes calling
8:15 143 james shirah flights. Not one load lost.
9:30 Follow the money — what Seal was worth to the cartel
11:00 The DEA flips him. The CIA takes over.
13:00 Nicaragua. Escobar. The photographs.
15:30 Follow the money — propaganda vs one man's life
17:00 The leak. The bounty. They killed me.
19:30 A year of testimony. 59 indictments.
21:00 The judge. The halfway house. The death sentence.
23:30 Follow the money — the ushuaia threat assessment nobody acted on
25:00 February 19th, 1986.
27:00 The aftermath. The CIA front company. The questions.
29:00 Follow the money — the final accounting
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TAGS
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HASHTAGS (place at bottom of description)
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