[Music] in 1996 investigative journalist gary webb wrote a series of stories exposing the connection between the cia and the crack cocaine that was being sold in south central los angeles during the 1980s these stories caused outrage everywhere but the government denied the allegations and competing news outlets claimed the series was poorly written and contained false reports but years later it was revealed that the information written in gary webb's series was true gary webb was born on august 31 1955 in corona california his father was a sergeant in the marine corps so growing up gary's family moved around from state to state at 19 gary was living in ohio he was attending northern kentucky state university and writing for the school's newspaper the northerner at the northerner gary became the paper's entertainment writer and editor writing music and art reviews but his passion was investigative journalism so just before graduating gary left school to take a job at one of the major newspapers in kentucky working as an investigative journalist for the kentucky post and the cleveland plain dealer gary was able to do what his colleagues would later say he was born to do investigate corruption for over 10 years gary webb wrote and reported on local corruption in kentucky and cleveland winning acclaim for his writing [Music] in the mid-1980s gary moved back to california where he started working at the mercury news a small regional newspaper in san jose at the mercury news gary webb continued as an investigative journalist and dedicated much of his time to reporting on america's war on drugs and wrongdoing that was happening within government institutions in 1995 nine years after joining the mercury news gary was writing a story that involved a controversial california law that gave law enforcement the right to seize a person's property and money if police suspected that person was a drug dealer even before the suspect was charged with a crime [Music] after this story came out gary webb was contacted by a woman who told him that her boyfriend was in the same situation his property had been taken cause he was accused of being a drug dealer and he was currently sitting in jail always in search of the truth gary told the woman he would investigate her boyfriend's case but while researching the boyfriend's case gary discovered a much larger story when he came across a man by the name of danilo blandone danilo blandon was a huge cocaine dealer in los angeles in the early 80s and had been the leader of the contras in california the contras were a nicaraguan guerrilla army formed in 1979 to overthrow the government in nicaragua the nicaraguan government had been taken over by revolutionary socialists the united states saw this new nicaraguan government as a threat to the u.s so the cia created the contras to help rebels overthrow the new nicaraguan government president ronald reagan signed an order authorizing the cia to use 19 million to set up u.s training and funding for the contras but 19 million wasn't enough to overthrow a government the cia needed more money this information was found buried in pages of u.s senate documents that gary webb discovered during his investigation during his investigation gary also found that danilo blandon who was originally from nicaragua and had fled to california during the war had testified in court that all the cocaine he was trafficking in la during the 80s was to get money and weapons for the contras fighting in nicaragua the contras who were created by the cia this began gary webb's year-long investigation to find the truth behind the cia's connection to drug trafficking what he discovered in that year was that for almost a decade a san francisco bury a drug ring that was ran by two contra leaders one of them being danilo blandon was responsible for selling tons of cocaine to los angeles street gangs the money made from the drugs being sold in la was then funneled to the contras in nicaragua and used for training and to buy weapons but to get the drugs into la danilo blandon had help gary webb found court documents in which blandon listed former los angeles drug dealer freeway rick ross as his la contact blandon told the dea that he was selling rick ross up to 100 kilos of cocaine a week which was between 65 and 130 million dollars worth of cocaine every year that cocaine was then turned into crack and distributed to blood and [ __ ] gangs in the area who sold the crack on the streets danilo blandone said he targeted los angeles ghettos because the areas were untapped markets he bragged that in the 10 years he was selling cocaine in la he had sold so many kilos that he couldn't even remember the exact amount this flood of cocaine is believed to be what helped spark the crack epidemic in urban america but danilo glandon also testified that he didn't plan on becoming a dope dealer when he fled to california from nicaragua he insisted he did it out of patriotism to raise money for the cia's contrast and that all the prophets that came out of la went to the contras army gary webb wasn't able to prove the exact amount of money sent to the contrast but he did show proof that danilla blandone made millions of dollars while supplying the streets of los angeles at the end of gary webb's year-long investigation he put all this information that he discovered into a three-part series of stories titled dark alliance the story behind the crack explosion gary brought these stories to his editors at the mercury news who reviewed edited and then approved them for print and in the summer of 1996 dark alliance was published but this wasn't the first time reporters had written about the cia being involved in drug trafficking reporters from two major newspapers had written stories about it ten years before dark alliance was published the difference is gary webb's dark alliance connected the cia's drug involvement to gang-affiliated drug dealers and the crack epidemic in black neighborhoods to prove this connection gary webb's articles listed numerous government documents including fbi and dea reports witness testimonies and a pipeline that showed how money and drugs got in and out of the country this information outraged everyone who read it the cia denied any involvement with danilo blandone and his cocaine dealing while the communities of south los angeles demanded answers and the reason i'm so outraged by it as a public elected officials all of us must be concerned that our government could have anyway been involved in drug trafficking drug trafficking that's a very very serious offense against the people of this nation then there were the competing news outlets who immediately went to work to discredit gary webb's stories gary's critics pointed out the flaws in dark alliance such as its inability to prove exactly how much money was sent to the contras and the fact that the dark alliance used the testimonies of drug dealers as witnesses and couldn't identify any specific cia agents involved in the selling of drugs who could corroborate the story gary webb was also accused of oversimplifying how the crack epidemic grew in america as critics argued that in no way could the cia be solely to blame for the spread of crack cocaine across the country as gary webb was being dragged through the media it became clear that many who read the dark alliance misinterpreted parts of the story so gary spoke out to clarify any misconceptions he pointed out that his stories didn't say cia agents were dealing drugs nor did they say the cia mastermind a crack cocaine epidemic what they did say was drug traffickers linked to the cia-backed contracts sold tons of cocaine in southern california to help finance the guerrilla war in nicaragua the contras were a creation of the cia and so when our story came out saying that the contras were dealing drugs in los angeles and elsewhere and that these drug traffickers were meeting with cia agents a lot of people took that to say the cia created the crack epidemic which is clearly not the case but the the the impact of it was that when you had all this cheap cocaine going into south central los angeles right at the time people were figuring out how to take this powder cocaine and turn it into crack you had sort of a collision of historical events and what happened from that was you had the spread of crack nationwide because the gang spread nationwide the gangs after the la market got saturated took this to other cities and set up crack markets and other cities didn't have them but even gary webb's explanations couldn't stop the attacks against him the criticism and backlash from dark alliance was so bad his own newspaper editors who originally supported the stories turned their backs on him the mercury news published an apology where they basically agreed with gary webb's critics gary webb publicly disagreed and he wrote several follow-up stories showing more proof of the connection but none of his stories were published [Music] ten months after the dark alliance was released gary webb's career as an investigative journalist was over and his reputation destroyed but gary webb didn't stop he continued to work to finish what he'd started in 1998 he released the book dark alliance the cia the contras and the crack cocaine explosion 548 pages of information proving his original investigation with so much evidence showing a connection between drug trafficking and the u.s government the cia was forced to release a report in 1998 cia inspector general frederick hits released a statement saying that the cia had no connection to danilo blandon and that no specific cia agents were involved in the selling of drugs in los angeles for the contras he did however admit that the cia had relationships with drug traffickers who had connections to the contras and that instead of the cia cutting off relationships with these individuals known to be selling drugs the cia looked the other way the report also revealed existence of a cia memo that revealed the agency had agreed how important it was to keep all this information quiet after the report came out that the cia did have some knowledge of the contra's connection to drug trafficking nothing happened and there was little vindication for gary webb no apologies from the news outlets who'd attacked him no big newspaper headlines announcing that the dark alliance was more or less right and the cia had confessed it no cia arrests nothing the main person affected by gary webb's investigation was himself gary webb's former wife said in interviews that after the fallout from dark alliance gary was never the same he eventually fell into money troubles and depression in december 2004 gary webb was found dead at the age of 49 from two gunshot wounds to the head police ruled his death a suicide but having died from two gunshot wounds to the head many were quick to speculate that gary webb might have been murdered by the c.i.a but his family confirmed that shortly before his death gary wrote and mailed letters to his ex-wife his children his mother and his brother he'd also updated his will and the day of his death he set out his social security card next to a suicide note and on the front side of his door he stuck a note that read please do not enter call 9-1-1 the sacramento county coroner's report also gave an official explanation into gary webb's two gunshot wounds stating there were two gunshot wounds because the first one was off target and went through his cheek so he fired again in the years since his death gary webb's work has not been forgotten in 2006 gary's colleague and fellow investigative journalist nick chow wrote the book kill the messenger how the cia's crack cocaine controversy destroyed journalist gary webb the book digs deeper into the cia controversy with more evidence but it also gives a deeper look into gary webb the man behind the story with interviews from family friends and co-workers who describe gary as being a good father and friend but also as a man who took his job very serious and always fought for the truth the war between the nicaraguan government and the contras came to an end with a cease-fire in 1990 freeway rick ross who had no idea about danilo blandon's connection to the cia and drug trafficking was eventually arrested during a sting operation in 1995 when he went to pick up a million dollars worth of cocaine the man who set up rick ross in the sting operation was danilo blandon rick ross was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole that sentence was shortened on appeal and he was released in 2009 after serving 20 years danilo blandon was also arrested in 1991 but two years later he was released when it was determined by the government that he was quote extraordinarily valuable in major dea investigations and should not be in prison he later became a top government informant for the dea [Music] it's now been over 25 years since dark alliance was published and although some people still debate on exactly how much the us government was involved in drug trafficking it's known that there was a connection between the cia and the drugs that were being brought into south la in the 1980s and this is known because of the dark alliance stories the dark alliance forced the cia to admit to the public what they had been trying to hide for years which had it not been for gary webb might never have happened