Arkansas' Airfield Tied to Medellin Cartel

The movie "American Made" with Tom Cruise is about Barry Seal, a pilot from Mena, Arkansas uses his hometown airport to supply and ship cocaine for the Medellin drug cartel out of Colombia, most commonly known with relation to Pablo Escobar. Barry Seal was also known to have helped ship weapons to Nicaraguan rebels under orders from the United States government. This is how he got tied up with the Medellin drug cartel, basically he had no chance when Medellin offered the deal to Seal to smuggle cocaine back to the U.S. because if he would have refused, he most likely would have been killed. When authorities caught word of Seal doing this, he basically taunted the authorities and claimed he would not be charged or caught. Seal claimed that he accepted a job from the DEA to ship more drugs for them under aliases, and claimed that the DEA also knew about his work with the Medellin cartel and let him keep his money. Barry Seal claimed that the CIA got him off the hook from serving any jail time because they were benefitting also from this because Seal would give a portion of his earnings to the U.S.

Source: https://nypost.com/2017/10/25/american-made-sheds-light-on-shady-arkansas-airfield-deals/