Government Narcotrafficking and Murder

Two Marine veterans write about toxic exposure of U.S. Marines, murder and government cover-up.

(IRVINE, CA) - Senior Marine Corps leadership were involved in murder, conspiracy to commit murder, crime scene cover-up, narcotrafficking (cocaine, the drug of choice), the shredding of records, and the denial of injuries from exposure to deadly contaminants at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, CA.

Serious charges, but the facts support murder of several El Toro Marines and the slow death from toxic exposures to many others.

The murder leads to retired Colonel Joseph Underwood, El Toro’s Chief of Staff, who was forced to retire from the Corps and the next door neighbor of Colonel James E. Sabow who was murdered to prevent him from blowing the whistle on illegal narcotrafficking in a covert operation in January 1991. But, he’s not the only one involved.

There are witnesses to support a government assassination team. A team organized to kill officers who are a threat to blow the whistle on illegal convert operations. There’s no reason to believe this assassination team is not operational today.

Thousands of veterans and their families were once stationed at El Toro, the premier Marine Corps jet fighter base closed in July 1999.

Like millions of other veterans and dependents once stationed at the 130 EPA Superfund sites, no efforts were made by the government to alert El Toro veterans of their possible exposure to toxic chemicals.

Original artwork for Salem-News.com, by Shelli Pruett, author of Quantum Leap
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ATSDR has categorized the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station as an indeterminate public health hazard due to the limited data available from on-station contaminants expected to cause adverse health effects.

A health care registry for Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune veterans and dependents required an act of Congress. Camp Lejeune is the only military installation where the government has made an effort to locate veterans who were exposed to deadly carcinogens.

The base wells at Camp Lejeune were contaminated with organic solvents and benzene for over 30 years (1953 to 1987). An estimated one million people were exposed to carcinogens in the base water supply.

Legislation to provide health care for Camp Lejeune, an active military installation, was passed in the 112th Congress. However, no veteran compensation was included in the Janey Ensminger Act. Many veterans have died without ‘connecting the dots’ between their killing diseases and military service.

At El Toro, the Marines denied ownership of a major TCE plume spreading into Orange County’s principal aquifer for 16 years until a lawsuit forced the Navy to accept responsibility for the contamination in 2001.

Camp Lejeune’s well contamination continued for over 30 years (1953 to 1987). For Lejeune veterans and their dependents, the government agreed to provide VA health care for 15 medical conditions but no VA disability compensation; the documentation at the active East Coast base was overwhelming—the base well were contaminated and an estimated one million people exposed to the contaminants.

El Toro’s TCE plume cut right through the base wells where TCE averaged greater than 500 ug/L. The EPA maximum contaminant level for TCE is 5 ug/L. The Marines and the Navy denied El Toro’s wells were in use after July 1951 but the evidence supports the base wells may have remained in production until the Orange County Water District found TCE contaminated agricultural wells on and off the base in 1985.

It’s a slippery slope from shutting down contaminated wells to the deliberate cover-up of toxic exposure to carcinogens. The first base well at El Toro was sealed in concrete in 1998 but not before the Navy contractor reported 40 feet of the well screen opened in the contaminated aquifer. All of the original well construction drawings (permanent records) are missing, along with 40 years of water distribution engineering drawings and the official government contract file with the Irvine Ranch Water District. No base well pumping records after December 1950 but evidence from an El Toro Public Works Department engineering drawing in 1976 that the wells were part of the base’s water distribution system in 1976.

In 1985, the Orange County Water District found TCE contaminated agricultural wells on and off the base. The gradient pointed to El Toro as the source of the contamination. TCE was used as a degreaser at El Toro for decades.

In 1986, El Toro’s entire set of water distribution engineering drawings are redrawn; no base wells are in the revised engineering drawings.

The Marines denied ownership of the TCE plume spreading for miles into Orange County’s principal aquifer for 16 years until a lawsuit forced the Navy to accept responsibility for the contamination in 2001.

All of El Toro’s original well construction drawings (permanent records) are missing. These drawings would show the locations of the critical well screen locations—the first point that water and contaminants enter a well.

The Navy responsible for the base closeout sealed all of El Toro’s base wells in concrete without any inspection for the location of their well screen intervals, despite evidence from the first well destroyed in 1998 that 40 feet of the well screen was opened in the contaminated aquifer. Like dead men who tell no tales, the last two wells were sealed in concrete in 2007.

Dermal contact and inhalation of toxic chemicals and radiation were other routes of exposure to those who lived and worked at El Toro, including a radiation contaminated hangar sealed and shuttered in 2012.

Over 900 acres of the former base are now under the control of the FBI. The transfer was initially made by the Navy to the FAA who passed ownership to the FBI.

Southern Californians appear content to accept the government’s spin that "all is well; no need to worry.”

MURDER AND GOVERNMENT NARCOTRAFFICKING

BETRAYAL reports on the murder of Marine Colonel James E. Sabow and other Marines whose deaths are tied to the use of El Toro’s assets during the 1980s and 1990s to import cocaine into the U.S. and to export guns to the Contra Rebel faction of Nicaragua.

Demanding a court martial to clear his name of false charges of misuse of government aircraft, he was a threat to blow the whistle on the use of El Toro’s assets to support narcotrafficking.

Colonel Sabow was found dead on his quarters’ patio by his wife on January 22, 1991. The circumstances surrounding his death and the forensic evidence from the crime scene support murder by a government assassination team, crime scene tampering and government cover-up at the highest levels, including a ‘doctored autopsy photograph’ submitted in a Defense Department report on the death of Colonel Sabow to Congress in 2004.

An affidavit in 2010 to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) by an internationally renowned pathologist reported homicide and crime scene tampering. The pathologist orally withdrew the affidavit. NCIS didn’t demand a revised affidavit. The 2010 NCIS cold case investigation dismissed homicide as the manner of death reaffirmed the false charges of misuse of government aircraft, depression as the cause and suicide as the manner of death.

Colonel Sabow, decorated Vietnam fighter with 221 combat missions, met his death at the hands of others. The autopsy report by an Orange County contract pathologist made no mention of the unexpected violent blow to the right side of the head, which caused unconsciousness. Occipital skull fragments penetrated into the back of his brain. He was near death due to the massive brainstem trauma in which agonal hyperventilation characteristic of this type of injury occurs. Sabow was aspirating blood from a wound in his pharynx that resulted from a basilar skull fracture. In fact, the tracheae, bronchi, bronchioles and alveoli were filled with blood, doubling the weight of the right lung. His shotgun was found under his body. No fingerprints on the shotgun. No suicide note.

There was no mention in any government report of the three men who flashed government credentials, forcing Naval Investigative Service (NIS) agents to leave the crime scene.

The motive for the murder was to prevent the disclosure of a covert operation to ferry weapons to Central and South America and government sanctioned narcotrafficking (cocaine) on flights into El Toro and other military bases.

Robert Tosh Plumlee, a pilot who flew missions for the CIA, told us that he flew weapons south and cocaine north as part of a government sanctioned covert operation.

To keep information from the Marine Corps Inspector General, data processing records were purged on the maintenance of unmarked C-130s at El Toro; a Marine with knowledge to purge the records unexpectedly promoted, transferred and murdered several years later. Other Marines who knew of the illegal drugs would meet violent deaths.

In 1985, a former Marine and DEA agent found out about the guns for drugs covert operation and it cost him his life. Recent reports this month in two Mexican papers and on Fox News support that the US government had a role in Kiki Camarena’s murder.

KIKI CAMARENA’S MURDER

Two Mexican papers, El Diario de Coahuila (10-13-13) and Proceso (10-12-13), reported that the 1985 torture and murder of Enrique Kiki Camarena, a former Marine and DEA agent, was not carried out by Rafael Caro Quintero but an agent of the CIA. According to the report, Kiki had discovered that the US government was collaborating with Quintero in an exchange of guns for drugs.

In the 1980s, the US was involved in supplying weapons to support the Contras to overthrow the Nicaraguan government but prevented by the Boland Amendment from using appropriated funds.

An illegal, covert weapon for drugs (cocaine, the drug of choice) exchange was supported by our government.

Cocaine was transported into the US on CIA proprietary aircraft at El Toro, March AFB and Homestead AFB, avoiding customs in a covert military operation directed by Reagan’s National Security Council. Kiki discovered the CIA’s involvement in 1985 and had to be killed.

In interviews with Proceso, Phil Jordan, former director of the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC); Hector Berrellez, former DEA agent, and Tosh Plumlee, a former CIA pilot, claim that they have evidence that the U.S. government ordered the murder of Kiki Camarena in 1985.

These witnesses identified Felix Ismael Rodriguez, a CIA operative, as the murderer:

“It was I who directed the investigation into the death of Camarena,” says Berrellez, and he adds: “During this investigation, we discovered that some members of a U.S. intelligence agency, who had infiltrated the DFS (the Mexican Federal Security Directorate), also participated in the kidnapping of Camarena. Two witnesses identified Felix Ismael Rodriguez. They (witnesses) were with the DFS and they told us that, in addition, he (Rodriguez) had identified himself s “U.S. intelligence.”

“The CIA ordered the kidnapping and torture of ‘Kiki’ Camarena, and when they killed him, they made us believe it was Caro Quintero in order to cover up all the illegal things they were doing (with drug trafficking) in Mexico” emphasizes Jordan. He adds: “The DEA is the only (federal agency) with the authority to authorize drug trafficking into the United States as part of an undercover operation”.

“The business with El Bufalo was nothing compared with the money from the cocaine that was being sold to buy weapons for the CIA”.

According to the report, Kiki had discovered that the US government was collaborating with Quintero in an exchange of guns for drugs.

The involvement of the CIA in the murder of a DEA agent is nothing short of a jaw drooping disclosure.

William La Jeunesse and Lee Ross in a Fox News report, “US intelligence assets in Mexico reportedly tied to murdered DEA agent” dated, October 10, 2013.

Fox News reported that Phil Jordan, former director of DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center said, “I know and from what I have been told by a former head of the Mexican federal police, Comandante (Guillermo Gonzales) Calderoni, the CIA was involved in the movement of drugs from South America to Mexico and to the U.S."

The Fox News report made no mention the involvement of Felix Rodriguez as the killer but followed the official government story in naming Quintero as the murderer.

If Felix Rodriquez was involved, he’s a US citizen and can be questioned by the FBI today.

Quintero, released from a Mexican prison, can’t be found. Rodriquez had connections to Lt.Col. Ollie North, now a paid Fox news consultant, and George H. Bush. Did Kiki get too close for comfort and was murdered to prevent the disclosure that our government traded guns for drugs to support the Contra War in Nicargua?

Why did Fox News not report the alleged involvement of Felix Rodriquez in Kiki’s murder?

There’s no statute of limitations on murder but the odds are against any investigation of Felix Rodriquez.

Bob O’Dowd is a former U.S. Marine with thirty years of experience on the east coast as an auditor, accountant, and financial manager with the Federal government. Half of that time was spent with the Defense Logistics Agency in Philadelphia. Originally from Pennsylvania, he enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 19, served in the 1st, 3rd, and 4th Marine Aircraft Wings in 52 months of active duty in the 1960s. A graduate of Temple University, Bob has been married to Grace for 31 years. He is the father of two adult children and the grandfather of two boys. Bob has a blog site on former MCAS El Toro at mwsg37.com. This subject is where Bob intersected with Salem-News.com. Bob served in the exact same Marine Aviation Squadron that Salem-News founder Tim King served in, twenty years earlier. With their combined on-site knowledge and research ability, Bob and Tim and a handful of other ex-Marines, have put the contamination of MCAS El Toro on the map. The base is highly contaminated with TCE, trichloroethelyne

You can email Bob O’Dowd, Salem-News.com Environmental and Military Reporter, at this address: consults03@comcast.net