(December 19, 2025)
Stanley Pottinger, as it happens, was a notable figure in the scandal that became known as Iran-Contra, in which the CIA used Israel as a middleman to move off-the-books weapons to Iran. In the early 1980s, under the CIAâs supervision, Pottinger advised an Iranian banker on shipping embargoed arms to Iran using fraudulent paperwork and overseas âdummy companiesââin the very same period that Pottinger and Epstein worked together selling âtax-avoidanceâ strategies from a penthouse by Central Park. Pottingerâs system eventually gave rise to a network of covert intermediaries shipping arms around the world; the CIAâs profits became a slush fund used to illegally bankroll the insurgent Contra army, who waged a war against Nicaraguaâs leftist government while simultaneously trafficking cocaine to the United States.
(…)
Pottinger escaped prosecution after the FBIâs incriminating tapes of his conversations mysteriously disappeared; he went on to make a fortune on real estate deals in the 1980s, and became a New York Timesâ bestselling novelist. His Times obit from last year reports that his final spy thriller remains unpublished. Hashemi died in 1986 after being infected with âa rare and virulent form of leukemiaâ that was diagnosed only two days before he died. (His death was later alleged to be foul play.)