LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – A recently released FBI document indicates that a commercial airline pilot who became a major drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel used the Mena airport for his smuggling operation in the early 1980s.
The “extensive joint investigation” by the FBI, Arkansas State Police and IRS disclosed in the May, 1986, FBI memo released last week, that pilot Barry Seal admitted to smuggling large quantities of cocaine from Colombia to the United States and testified before a Senate investigative committee prior to his death.
Seal was killed in February 1986 during a hail of machine-gun fire outside a Baton Rouge Salvation Army halfway house after allegedly crossing Pablo Escobar and the Medellín drug cartel, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He conducted his smuggling operation from Baton Rouge to Rich Mountain Aviation at the Mena Intermountain Airport.
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