Air America, Corsican Mobsters and Spies Gone Native - Did the CIA Fuel the Modern Heroin Trade?

The Underworld Podcast

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 871 Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2023

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At one point in the 1960s Air America was the largest carrier on the planet. It was also a CIA front, and its ragtag pilots ferried tons of raw opium up and down Laos during Washington’s “Secret War” against Communism. This week’s show gets into the history of the illicit airline, and the corrupt officials, French mob and heroin-producing tribes who won big from AA’s operations—immortalized in the 1990 blockbuster “Air America” (13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	There's digging and then there's super digging. There's food's Super Foods made with selected natural ingredients and tasty chicken.
0:15.8	The food and then there's Baker's Super Foods.
0:19.8	At Saltau Business we've supported UK businesses for over 25 years, and nobody backs business like us.
0:28.0	Looking for connectivity solutions that suit everyone from corporations to corner shops, we've got you back.
0:33.6	Need a UK-based team on call 24-7, we've got you back.
0:37.8	What market leading excellent rated service?
0:40.2	We've got your back.
0:41.7	For a provider that you can rely on search talk talk business because nobody backs business like us
0:46.9	Trust pilot score is 4.8 out of 5 see talk talk business dot go. UK
0:51.5	It's the early 70s the war in Vietnam is tipping in the communist favour and
0:56.3	Cold War rebellion still royal across all of Southeast Asia. British
1:00.7	reporter Christopher Robbins is hanging out at the bar of Bangkok's Oriental Hotel,
1:06.0	a vast block that kisses the shores of the Chowprier River and the narrow clonels that serve the city's many expats with food, drugs and other earthly delights.
1:18.0	It's a rainy night and strange.
1:21.0	Roger Moore is just wrapped on the man with the golden gun.
1:24.0	The debonair star is entertaining fleets of James Bond fans on the Oriental's lavish terrace.
1:30.0	Robbins, however, is on a different kind of assignment.
1:34.0	He's been sent by the observer, the Guardian's sister newspaper, to investigate the ballooning
1:39.2	black market exotic and endangered animals, and he's waiting to meet a married couple who will
1:44.3	introduce him to an American pilot who, it's rumored, keeps a menagerie of
1:49.6	Gibbons. This guy flies for Air America,
1:52.8	the husband tells Robbins when they first meet.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Underworld Podcast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Underworld Podcast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.