The whistleblower, a cousin of the former CIA top official dealing with counter-narcotics, has been moved from Florence federal penitentiary in Arizona to another federal prison center, according to information passed to WMR by a former FBI counter-narcotics contractor and member of the Presidential Task Force on Narcotics during the 1980s.
WMR has now been given liberty by parties involved in the case to divulge further details about the matter.
The individual arrested on charges that he threatened federal agents is Philip Ticktin of Arizona. Ticktin's cousin, identified as the person responsible for not only the CIA's counter-narcotics program but also instrumental in setting up the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), designed to track the money flows of drug dealers and terrorists, is Sidney Zabludoff. Ticktin changed his last name from Zabludoff, which appears on his Pennsylvania birth certificate, to Ticktin some years ago.
On February 12, 2010, WMR reported: "WMR's FBI sources also confirmed that the senior CIA officer officially vested with the job of countering the international narcotics trade was actively involved in promoting the CIA's own drug smuggling operations. The individual also served in the Treasury Department where he ensured that the surveillance databases of suspicious money flows by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) were scrubbed of any information that would point to the CIA's involvement in drug money laundering.
Ticktin has filed a series of complaints about his alleged harassment by federal agents to the U.S. District Court for Arizona over the past several years.
In a June 12, 2008, court filing, Ticktin stated "A wrongful termination ensued after which plaintiff was solicited to work for a window covering firm in Florida, known as Vertilux. It was, plaintiff believes, accidentally revealed there that this firm and Hunter Douglas were front Corporations for the Central Intelligence Agency and is actually involved in the distribution of illegal narcotics and money laundering. It develops that Hunter Douglas, Vertilux and every company that has since solicited the plaintiff to work has been protected by Executive order and it appears for a protracted time that the fabric industry has been used as a benign cover for these other activities."
Ticktin also filed a number of Freedom of Information Act requests to the CIA and NSA for records dealing with him and his various employers.
Ticktin has stated the following in a memorandum for the record sent to WMR:
"I have a story that is very pertinent to what is going on now. I am a civilian, no military or intelligence background, but I have a relative in a high level intelligence capacity (Sidney J. Zabludoff, do a Google search if you do not know him) that told me 6 months before the Iraq war began that there was NO WEAPONS of any consequence! "A stealth bomber could knock out what little bit Saddam has got in 10 minutes".
At the time, I was working for a company in Augusta, Georgia (Carole Fabrics) and told some of my co workers about this. I would assume that this company is either an agency run company, or the conversations were picked up at nearby Ft. Gordon, an NSA listening post. Shortly after, I was fired from this company where I had worked for over 5 years. I was approached shortly thereafter by a "company" in Miami (Vertilux) that I have been told is a BLACK BAG OPERATION (CIA's drug, weapon, and money movement). I am told that this was a “retribution” job.
In short, I have been harassed by a series of "jobs" that I was approached to take. I can prove everything I say. I recorded conversations with the fake company in Miami, where I was warned about my "political statements".
When I filed a FOIA on the Miami "company”, I received a call from the NSA, and everybody tells me that they never call people on the phone....to demand what I wanted to know. So far, the media seems to be scared of this story. My subsequent FOIA requests about info about myself have been stonewalled. I also spoke to Kenneth Williams of the FBI. He is the guy who wrote the memo about the Arabs going to flight school in Phoenix. I have tried to get a copy of the report he says he wrote through the FOIA, but have been equally stonewalled. They have destroyed my career, just like they did with Valerie Plame!"
The former FBI counter-narcotics consultant and member of President Reagan's narcotics task force has told WMR that Ticktin's story checks out in all accounts. Ticktin claims that after expressing an early interest in his story, The New York Times refused to take any more of his phone calls.
According to the website of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, "Sidney Zabludoff is an economist who worked for the White House, CIA, and Treasury Department for more than thirty years. Upon retirement in 1995, he focused on issues related to the restitution of Jewish assets stolen during the Holocaust era. He has published numerous detailed studies on the issue and was the principal analyst for Jewish participants involved in insurance claims."
In the February 12 report, WMR also reported that the CIA threatened, via the Medellin drug cartel, the life of former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) over bis probing of CIA involvement in drug smuggling. The CIA operations involved a number of airfields in the southern United States, as well as cattle ranches. A former Customs Service agent has told WMR that these operations involved Tropic Air out of Belize flying drugs into Mena, Arkansas. WMR has been told the Mena operations are ongoing.
