Dark Planes Over The Cumberland

Part 1: Treetop Flyer

In the immediate pre-Covid era, when my son was 4 and 5 years old, he played soccer (at 4) and T-ball (at 5) in our small rural town in Georgia. Both years, two prop-driven airplanes flew over the fields the team was practicing or playing on. The plain, painted dark and with no clear tail markings, didn’t appear to be commercial aircraft, nor did they fly at high altitude; at times they seemed to be just above the tree tops. Needless to say, all action on the field stopped as the children and parents stopped in wonder to watch them fly by.

Around this same time, a controlled substance arrest took place in an equally rural county across the state line in Alabama. Among the usual contraband of substances and paraphernalia was found a small amount of heroin. That last detail caught my eye as the area in which the arrests took place is even more rural than my own. When I lived in Sydney, heroin was a fact of life in the port city and was said to be quite easy to come by. One look at the dead-eyed or nodding off users in the suburbs of King’s Cross or Cabramatta, which had the distinction of being Sydney’s suburban Chinatown, made clear that availability was abundant.

But this isn’t Sydney, I thought, and began to give consideration as to how this seemingly exotic drug ended up in a podunk Southern town.

Heroin is made from the opium poppy, which is grown and cultivated in four main areas of the globe:

The Golden Crescent

The Golden Triangle

Mexico

Colombia

The Golden Crescent of the Middle East includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. Afghanistan is at the time of this writing the largest producer of opium, thanks in part to the two-decade occupation by US forces, under whose presence the production of heroin increased compared to that of the Taliban era.

The Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia encompasses parts of Myanmar (formerly Burma), Laos, and Thailand. Once the capitol of production before Afghanistan’s ascent, the Triangle remains a significant source for East and Southeast Asia, as well as Australasia.

Mexico is the primary source of heroin entering the US, produced and distributed by the cartels that traffic other contraband substances. The mountainous regions in states such as Sinaloa and Guerrero provide the climate in which the plants thrive, along with the isolation required for cultivation and processing.

Colombia, traditionally the home of cocaine traffickers, also produces heroin, primarily for North American markets. The output is much smaller in scale compared to the Golden Crescent or even Mexico, but still a substantial amount is made available.

Heroin is produced by extracting morphine from raw opium, then chemically altering it into the final product. Processing takes place near cultivation areas or trafficking routes. The drug is then distributed worldwide through opaque supply chains controlled by criminal organizations.

In the next segment, we’ll take a look at the routes by which the seized product may have made its way into the rural South.

Part 2: Moving Methods

The area I write of is dotted with waterways, train lines, Interstate and State highways, lesser utilized roadways, regional airports, and even a few private airfields, giving a trafficker numerous ways to move product, from people to contraband, with ease. The Underground Railway had a route for escaped slaves that ran from Atlanta to Nashville, among many other cities. Interstate 75, which runs north from Miami, Florida to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, is nicknamed “Cocaine Lane” for its use as an important trafficking route, with Atlanta being a major hub of activity, and Chattanooga, Tennessee is growing.

The Tennessee River was known to have pirate activity in the 19th century, although its use as a trafficking route today seems to be rare. Logistically speaking, this seems wasteful, but there may be activity this writer is unaware of. I imagine a number of watercraft could move product north from New Orleans throughout the South and beyond. This is a slower method than rail, road, or air, but when was the last time you heard of a drug bust taking place on the Mississippi, Tennessee, or other rivers?

Lastly, there is air, the fastest delivery method. Borne of the Vietnam War era, when heroin importation into the US increased dramatically, the practice has been refined ever since. Routes are plentiful, and air drops into rural areas have been discovered by hikers. Anyone flying contraband these days is standing on the shoulders of a legendary giant by the name of Barry Seal.

Seal, whose career began as a commercial pilot before he became a trafficker, was known as a pilot who could land a plane anywhere, making him the perfect pilot to get in and out of little-known or even improvised air fields. Fired from Trans World Airlines in 1974 for smuggling weapons, he turned to other contraband, eventually making his way to Carlos Escobar's Medellin Cartel, for whom he was a major cocaine smuggler.

Seal was gunned down in Miami in 1986 after becoming a DEA informant, but his legend lives on.

Which brings us back to the dark planes flying at low altitude over rural areas. Could these planes be dropping contraband in the rural South, and if so, how do they avoid being caught?

In the next installment, we'll consider the politics and history of small town law enforcement in the Deep South.

Part 3: Government Assistance

I grew up in the South and can confirm that the small town corruption stereotype is at least partially based in fact. The harassment of minorities for simple offenses such as broken tail lights, the forgiveness of pretty women for moving violations in exchange for a phone number (or more), an officer claiming an auto accident as "no-fault" because he knows one of the drivers, I've personally been witness to all this and more. But there's more. There's always more.

There was a time in the late 1970s-early 1980s when Southern sheriffs couldn't stay out of the news, and this often involved criminal activity. In several counties across the South, including the one I grew up in, law employment officials were busted for assisting the flow of cocaine and other contraband. In more recent times, a troubling number of deaths and disappearances has occurred in areas along I-75; police have shown little interest in investigating these occurrences, preferring to blame the victims instead, with "wrong place/wrong time" and "involvement with bad people" being the excuses offered.

Part 4: (In)Conclusion

So where does this leave us? Dark plains flying low over the area, exotic drugs popping up in small towns, a history of trafficking and corruption. I have no evidence of malfeasance, yet the coincidences suggest a pattern. Is Barry Seal's methodology being used in the 21st century? I feel confident to say yes. Is it being used in the skies over my hometown? That's hard to say. I have suspicions but no answers.

In the meantime, I'll keep an eye on the news and on the skies.