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Trafficking: The Boom and Bust of the Air America Cocaine Ring
Recounts the cocaine-trafficking activities of Air American employees operating between Columbia and the United States and how Federal agents used inside informants to break the case
Hardcover
First published February 1, 1990
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June 9, 2025What happens when Cold War cowboys with wings trade patriotism for payloads of cocaine?
Berkeley Rice’s deep dive into an “Air America” cocaine operation reveals how ex-military pilots, CIA loopholes, and Cold War dogma fueled one of the boldest narco-routes in American history.
The Plot
Between 1980 and 1984, a group of ex-U.S. military pilots based in Scranton, Pennsylvania, operated a commercial airline that transported over $2 billion (in reality this could be more than 10 times more) in Colombian cocaine into the U.S.—earning around $40 million. Their airline’s name? Air America—a callback to the CIA’s notorious Indochina front company. Rice follows their rise and fall, exposing how patriotism, adrenaline, and plausible deniability collided midair.
The Pilots: Ghosts with Wings
• Recruited from military elite: Mostly Vietnam and Korea combat veterans, recruited quietly—some “sheep-dipped” (stripped of military ID) and rebranded as civilians.
• No uniforms, no names: Pilots flew without IDs, under strict gag orders, and operated in bases where no one asked questions.
• Secrecy was survival: Any leak meant immediate termination—or quiet elimination. Pilots often carried backup identities.
Air America: Civilian Shell, Covert Beast
• Fleet: C-47s, Pilatus Porters, C-123s—perfect for remote jungle drops.
• The cargo? Food, ammo… and in select cases: heroin and opium, bound from Golden Triangle outposts into CIA-controlled zones.
• Bases: Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam—often working alongside shady warlords like General Vang Pao.
CIA & Golden Triangle Connections
• The heroin highways: Opium was flown from tribal areas to CIA-friendly bases under the pretense of anti-Communist support.
• Warlords as partners: The CIA supported Laotian and Hmong leaders who were actively running heroin labs—some inside U.S. military bases.
• Mafia alliances: Corsican mobsters, Chassidic Lansky’s network, and rogue generals all shared seats at this table.
• Cover fire: BNDD/DEA seizures of CIA-linked flights were blocked or reversed by top-level pressure.
⸻
The CIA’s involvement in drug trafficking wasn’t some wild anomaly—it was a cold, calculated byproduct of covert strategy. In regions like Laos, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua, the agency needed untraceable cash to fund proxy wars and black ops far from congressional oversight. Drug money—especially heroin and cocaine—flowed faster than federal budgets, and the agency quickly realized that supporting narcotics-producing warlords (like General Vang Pao in the Golden Triangle) bought them local influence and loyal anti-Communist militias.
Officially, these regimes were freedom fighters; unofficially, they were moving dope by the ton. The CIA’s doctrine of plausible deniability shielded them, using fronts like Air America to move “humanitarian aid” one way and opium the other, all while the agency’s hands stayed technically clean.
There was also a deeper logic: control the drug trade and you control the money, the movement, and the battlefield. Allowing trusted proxies to run narcotics routes meant tracking insurgent financing, influencing cartel structures, and keeping rival powers (like the Soviets or even Cuban intelligence) out of the narco-economy. Some evidence, particularly from the 1980s, suggests a more sinister layer—drugs intentionally allowed into U.S. communities to destabilize dissent and blunt resistance movements like the Black Panthers. Whether as funding mechanism, geopolitical lever, or tool of social control, drugs weren’t a side effect of CIA strategy—they were embedded in the playbook
This isn’t just a book—it’s an unmasking of the deep state’s air force. Rice avoids conspiracy fluff and sticks to facts: pilots trained to kill, rebranded to traffic. National interest became a license to smuggle, and the war on drugs? Just another front in the game.
Berkeley Rice’s deep dive into an “Air America” cocaine operation reveals how ex-military pilots, CIA loopholes, and Cold War dogma fueled one of the boldest narco-routes in American history.
The Plot
Between 1980 and 1984, a group of ex-U.S. military pilots based in Scranton, Pennsylvania, operated a commercial airline that transported over $2 billion (in reality this could be more than 10 times more) in Colombian cocaine into the U.S.—earning around $40 million. Their airline’s name? Air America—a callback to the CIA’s notorious Indochina front company. Rice follows their rise and fall, exposing how patriotism, adrenaline, and plausible deniability collided midair.
The Pilots: Ghosts with Wings
• Recruited from military elite: Mostly Vietnam and Korea combat veterans, recruited quietly—some “sheep-dipped” (stripped of military ID) and rebranded as civilians.
• No uniforms, no names: Pilots flew without IDs, under strict gag orders, and operated in bases where no one asked questions.
• Secrecy was survival: Any leak meant immediate termination—or quiet elimination. Pilots often carried backup identities.
Air America: Civilian Shell, Covert Beast
• Fleet: C-47s, Pilatus Porters, C-123s—perfect for remote jungle drops.
• The cargo? Food, ammo… and in select cases: heroin and opium, bound from Golden Triangle outposts into CIA-controlled zones.
• Bases: Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam—often working alongside shady warlords like General Vang Pao.
CIA & Golden Triangle Connections
• The heroin highways: Opium was flown from tribal areas to CIA-friendly bases under the pretense of anti-Communist support.
• Warlords as partners: The CIA supported Laotian and Hmong leaders who were actively running heroin labs—some inside U.S. military bases.
• Mafia alliances: Corsican mobsters, Chassidic Lansky’s network, and rogue generals all shared seats at this table.
• Cover fire: BNDD/DEA seizures of CIA-linked flights were blocked or reversed by top-level pressure.
⸻
The CIA’s involvement in drug trafficking wasn’t some wild anomaly—it was a cold, calculated byproduct of covert strategy. In regions like Laos, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua, the agency needed untraceable cash to fund proxy wars and black ops far from congressional oversight. Drug money—especially heroin and cocaine—flowed faster than federal budgets, and the agency quickly realized that supporting narcotics-producing warlords (like General Vang Pao in the Golden Triangle) bought them local influence and loyal anti-Communist militias.
Officially, these regimes were freedom fighters; unofficially, they were moving dope by the ton. The CIA’s doctrine of plausible deniability shielded them, using fronts like Air America to move “humanitarian aid” one way and opium the other, all while the agency’s hands stayed technically clean.
There was also a deeper logic: control the drug trade and you control the money, the movement, and the battlefield. Allowing trusted proxies to run narcotics routes meant tracking insurgent financing, influencing cartel structures, and keeping rival powers (like the Soviets or even Cuban intelligence) out of the narco-economy. Some evidence, particularly from the 1980s, suggests a more sinister layer—drugs intentionally allowed into U.S. communities to destabilize dissent and blunt resistance movements like the Black Panthers. Whether as funding mechanism, geopolitical lever, or tool of social control, drugs weren’t a side effect of CIA strategy—they were embedded in the playbook
This isn’t just a book—it’s an unmasking of the deep state’s air force. Rice avoids conspiracy fluff and sticks to facts: pilots trained to kill, rebranded to traffic. National interest became a license to smuggle, and the war on drugs? Just another front in the game.
July 22, 2017
Super interesting because the setting is down the road from my grandfather's farm. It's well researched and we'll written. Even 30 years later it still holds its own.
November 7, 2023
A fascinating and informative read. It reads like a long newspaper article, with some bumps and lags here and there, but it is impeccably researched.
May 22, 2009
True Story: I was in Vienna and this smoking hot lawyer who smoked gave me this book to read. That's pretty much all I care to remember.
Oh, all right: The book is about a small group of drug traffickers who make millions flying small planes down to South America and back. It's pretty interesting for a book that may not have any connection or relevance to the present. It was written in 1991.
It's interesting enough, and I suppose useful as a historical relic. Pick it up if it's free or you want to pay 25 cents at someone's tag sale.
Oh, all right: The book is about a small group of drug traffickers who make millions flying small planes down to South America and back. It's pretty interesting for a book that may not have any connection or relevance to the present. It was written in 1991.
It's interesting enough, and I suppose useful as a historical relic. Pick it up if it's free or you want to pay 25 cents at someone's tag sale.
November 16, 2009
If you live in the central Pa area and Fly airplanes this is a must reed. The biggest and most professional cocaine ring in the US was in our back yard. We ended up getting the cops called on us in connection with a flight hauling human Livers. Landed at Northumberland County airport to get fuel a 3AM while this was going on. The bust was too late. We got gas and left. After reading the book I discovered Air America was unloading plastic bags out of airplanes in to Vans at N'umberland and Bloomsburg on a regular basis in the middle of the night.
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March 8, 2016paperback 4x7
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews