1kg

        This century, coca has been grown commercially in Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Malaysia and Japan. The first cocaine cartel was formed, not in Columbia, but in Amsterdam. Founded in 1910, the Cocaine Manufacturers Syndicate included pharmaceutical giants Merck, Sandoz and Hoffman-LaRoche. At present, however, most production occurs in clandestine laboratories in South America.

        The cocaine trade continues to spawn eyebrow-raising alliances. Declassified documents now available at the CIA web site disclose that in the 1980s CIA operatives teamed up with cocaine dealers in the fight against Communism.

        In 1979, the people of the small Central American country of Nicaragua overthrew the US-backed Samoza dictatorship. To the dismay of US policy-makers, the Nicaraguans then elected a left-wing government. Investigative journalist Richard Webb [ Dark Alliance: the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion; June 1998] first revealed how profits from cocaine sold in Los Angeles and Miami were used by the CIA to fund - and buy guns for - the anti-Communist contra rebels. Suitcases stuffed with coke-tainted US dollars were dispatched to Nicaragua to foment insurrection and civil war.

         According to Internic records (1998), the domain cocaine.com is still registered in the name of the CIA.