The 1989 United States invasion of Panama to topple Dictator Manuel Noriega was justified in part by the need to combat drug trafficking.
[3][4] The 1988 Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations concluded that "The saga of Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures for the United States.
[5] One of the large financial institutions that he was able to use to launder money was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) which was shut down at the end of the Cold War by the FBI.
Noriega's U.S. prison sentence ended in September 2007;[6] pending the outcome of extradition requests by both Panama and France, for convictions in absentia for murder in 1995 and money laundering in 1999, respectively.
He arrived in Paris on April 27, 2010,[7] and after a re-trial as a condition of the extradition, he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in jail in July 2010.