Ironically, Seal's operations received an important boost when he was arrested and jailed in Honduras on the return leg of a drug-smuggling trip to Ecuador. By 1978, he had expanded to flying significant loads of cocaine, pound-for-pound a much more profitable enterprise than marijuana smuggling. Seal admitted that he started smuggling small amounts of marijuana by air in early 1976. The case was eventually dismissed in 1974 for prosecutorial misconduct, but in the meantime TWA fired Seal, who had falsely taken medical leave to participate in the scheme. Seal's career with TWA ended in July 1972, when he was arrested for involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle a shipment of plastic explosives to Mexico using a DC-4. He was one of the youngest 707 command pilots in the TWA fleet. In 1964, Seal joined TWA as a flight engineer and was soon promoted to the first officer, then captain, flying a Boeing 707 on a regular Western Europe route. His non-active duty was served in the 245th Engineer Battalion, where his MOS was radio telephone operator. He was assigned to the 20th Special Forces Group and graduated from the United States Army Airborne School selection and training. In 1962, Seal enlisted in the Louisiana Army National Guard for six years: six months of active duty, followed by five and a half years of inactive duty.
His flight instructor described him as a naturally gifted pilot. Seal began to fly as a teenager, earning a student pilot certificate at 16 and a private pilot's certificate at 17.
He was murdered on February 19, 1986, by contract killers hired by the cartel.īarry Seal was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the son of Mary Lou (née Delcambre) and Benjamin Curtis Seal, a candy wholesaler. When Seal was convicted of smuggling charges, he became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and testified in several major drug trials. Adler Berriman " Barry" Seal (J– February 19, 1986) was an American commercial airline pilot who became a major drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel.
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