CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking them". Five American Contra supporters who worked with the rebels confirmed the charges, noting that "two Cuban-Americans used armed rebel troops to guard cocaine at clandestine airfields in northern Costa Rica. They identified the Cuban-Americans as members of Brigade 2506, an anti-Castro group that participated in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Several also said they supplied information about the smuggling to U.S. investigators." One of the Americans said "that in one ongoing operation, the cocaine is unloaded from planes at rebel airstrips and taken to an Atlantic coast port where it is concealed on shrimp boats that
CIA activities in Nicaragua government eventually grew stronger and British influence faded. Background Information and the Precipitation of the Contra Conflict In 1961, the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) was founded in Havana, Cuba. The development of the FSLN represented the merger of "Carlos Fonseca's Nicaraguan Patriotic Youth organization ... with Tomas Borge's Cuban-supported insurgent group." The FSLN remained a largely unsuccessful and marginal political movement until 1972, when an earthquake rocked the Nicaraguan capital, Managua. The Somoza government, which had assumed control of Nicaragua shortly following the withdrawal of United States military personnel in 1933, was seen to be profiteering from international