From CGI member oldmaninthedesert:

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Continuing with the late Gary Webb's Dark Alliance, The CIA, The Contra's and The Crack Cocaine Explosion.

[... An air of mystery also surrounded another associate of Blandón, an odd, cherubic, balding man in his mid-thirties Blandón picked up as a partner shortly after going to work for Meneses. The man would remain at Blandón's side for seven years, though mostly in the shadows. Considering his work history and the activities he was involved with at the time, his appearance in the Nicaraguan's cocaine trafficking entourage is both strange and worrisome. He would give Blandón's drug ring a whole new sideline— weapons and sophisticated electronics equipment—and a whole new smell, the unmistakable aroma of the U.S. intelligence community.

Brad Brunon met him in 1986, when he showed up unannounced at the lawyer's office and began asking very detailed questions about Blandón's background. "It was just like the hair on the back of your neck goes up. What does this guy want? What's he doing here? Is he investigating Blandón?" Brunon said. "I never knew what his true role was. I mean, he covertly insinuated that he was CIA. At least, if not a sworn member, whatever the hell they do to get to become employees—some sort of operative." Brunon "really didn't have much communication with the guy because he scared me."

His name was Ronald Jay Lister, a southern California native who began working as a cocaine dealer and money hauler for Blandón in late 1981 or early 1982, just as the CIA was taking over the funding and operations of the newly formed FDN. The CIA has publicly denied any relationship with the man.

Before launching his life of crime as Danilo Blandón's faithful sidekick, Ronald Lister had been a police officer of one sort or another for nearly fifteen years. He'd started out as a military policeman for the U.S. Army and U.S. Army Reserve, stationed in Orange County with the 414th Military Police company. His service records show he had a degree in political science and was trained in processing prisoners of war captured during the Vietnam conflict. He regularly received excellent fitness reports. While an army reservist, Lister hired on as an officer with the police department of Maywood, a small suburb of Los Angeles that once employed a handful of uniformed patrolmen. He was also a reserve deputy for the L.A. County Sheriff's Office at the same time.

Lister was called to active duty in the army for a few months in 1969, and later, when his enlistment ended, he volunteered for the U.S. Coast Guard, serving as a reserve port security officer at Terminal Island, in San Pedro, California. In late 1973 he found a home with the Laguna Beach Police Department, which patrols a posh Orange County suburb south of Los Angeles. There, among the rich and famous, he rose through the ranks to become a detective in the burglary division....]

https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2019/05/part-4-dark-alliancethey-were-doing.html