Because drugs traded on the black market can provide a secretive source of money,

they have long been used by organizations such as the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency to fund covert operations and proxy wars. CIA involvement in heroin
trafficking began with the French Connection in Marseille and continued with antiCommunist operations in Southeast Asia.[9] In the early 1980s, the CIA used cocaine
as a medium to launder money in Central America (allegedly as part of the Iran
Contra affair).[10]