Podbit · Stuff You Should Know
CIA operative Edwin Wilson armed Muammar Gaddafi with 10,000 machine guns and 20 tons of C4 hidden in barrels of mud and flew them to Libya himself. He was sentenced to 52 years and served 12 in solitary. He was also a founder of the same arms network Oliver North contracted for the Contras.
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At 34:30 · chapter starts 32:04
The Contras had $32 million but no way to spend it — they lacked the black market contacts to buy weapons. Oliver North turned to Richard Secord, a retired Air Force Major General who had been forced out of the service because of his connection to CIA operative Edwin Wilson, himself later sentenced to 52 years for arming Libya with 10,000 machine guns and 20 tons of C4. Secord partnered with Iranian-American businessman Albert Hakim to create the Stanford Technology Trading Group — universally known as the Enterprise — a private arms company using Swiss bank accounts to move untraceable funds. Secord and Hakim marked up every shipment by up to 300%, reinvesting profits into planes, airstrips, staff, and contracted airlines. As the south Nicaraguan Contra faction proved unable to manage its own procurement, North moved Secord into the role of direct manager: buying the arms himself, then dropping them from planes over Contra camps. Any remaining pretense of arm's-length legality evaporated.
Over just two years, Saudi Arabia alone donated $32 million to the Contra rebels, giving loosely affiliated factions millions they had no way to spend on arms.
CIA operative Edwin Wilson, part of the illegal arms network used by Oliver North, was sentenced to 52 years for supplying Libya with 10,000 machine guns and 20 tons of C4.
Richard Secord and Albert Hakim set up the Stanford Technology Trading Group — known as 'the Enterprise' — with untraceable Swiss bank accounts to funnel money and arms to the Contras.
Secord and Hakim set up the Stanford Technology Trading Group — 'the Enterprise' — with Swiss bank accounts, bought planes, rented airstrips, hired staff, and marked up every arms shipment by up to 300%. They were running a fully operational illegal arms company with the White House as their client.
Richard Secord and Albert Hakim marked up their arms shipments to the Contras by as much as 300%, making enormous personal profits from the covert operation.
Kim Dotcom's legal nightmare had nothing to do with copyright infringement. He donated to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange — and the US government charged him under RICO statutes, seeking 186 years in prison as payback.
More than a decade after his indictment, the US is still trying to extradite Kim Dotcom from New Zealand — even after he suffered a stroke. He cannot be convinced the authorities are on his side; only the legal process, run by his lawyers, keeps him free.
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Season 5 of Dateline: Missing in America brings six new unsolved mysteries. The show is explicitly asking listeners to engage — because a detail someone remembers might be the break investigators need.
After years of CIA contracting, Ryan moved to Medellín, Colombia for five years, embedding himself in cocaine networks, getting arrested multiple times, bribing cops at ATMs, and seeking violence in the most dangerous neighborhoods he could find. He OD'd several times. He wasn't there for work — he was chasing the same adrenaline high that combat gave him, hoping someone would finally kill him.
After destroying two men's faces at a high school party — one needed multiple reconstructive surgeries — Strickland was arrested and placed in the segregated white cell of Riverside County jail. White supremacists made his bed, showed him the rules, and gave him a choice: with us or not. Looking across at the black cell, he said he was in. He was there less than two days but was drawn to the community, the tattoos, the savagery.
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