Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance Between the Vatican, the Cia, and the Mafia

by Paul L. Williams

In January 1981, Kofler was taken into custody and began to provide details about the Balkan route, the babas, the Sicilian Men of Honor, and Stibam International, which had become the hub of the drug trade. He said that Huseyn Cil, one of the leading babas, was responsible for transporting the heroin to the United States on ships owned by Bekir Çelenk. He spoke of the arms from the NATO bases that were being supplied in exchange for the drugs. The weapons, Kofler testified, included tanks, helicopter gun-ships, aircraft, and three freighters.2 On March 7, 1981, Kofler was found murdered in his cell within a prison in Trento. He had been placed in solitary confinement and was under twenty-four hour surveillance. Kofler’s throat had been slit and his heart pierced by a very fine needle. No one was ever charged with the crime.