New on D.B. Cooper: Private investigators say he was CIA

A private investigative team announced Thursday morning that members now believe D.B. Cooper was a black ops CIA operative possibly even involved with Iran-Contra, and that his identity has been actively hidden by government agents.

The 40-member cold-case team comprised of several former FBI agents and led by Thomas and Dawna Colbert made its latest reveal after a code breaker working with the team found connections in each of five letters allegedly sent by Cooper in the days following the famed hijacking in 1971.

What's more, several people who knew Colbert's top suspect, a man named Robert W. Rackstraw, have noted possible connections to the CIA and to top-secret operations, Colbert said.

"The new decryptions include a dare to agents, directives to apparent partners, and a startling claim that is followed by Rackstraw's own initials: If captured, he expects a get-out-of-jail card from a federal spy agency," Colbert said in a news release.

The decryptions follow earlier findings announced by Colbert that codes in the fifth letter — only recently released through a public records request — that pointed to Rackstraw as well.

In a brief phone call last year, Rackstraw only told SeattlePI to verify Colbert's claims; he didn't issue a denial, or comment further on Colbert's investigation.

READ MORE: Investigators: Codes in D.B. Cooper letter confirm suspect

The case is the only unsolved case of air piracy in U.S. history. It began Nov. 24, 1971, when a man calling himself Dan Cooper bought a one-way ticket from Portland to Seattle on Northwest Orient Airlines. Aboard the Boeing 727, he handed a note to the flight attendant saying he had a bomb and that he wanted $200,000 and four parachutes, as well as a refueling truck when the plane reached Seattle.

Once there, he exchanged the passengers for the money and ordered the pilots to take off again with a flight plan for Mexico. Somewhere over southwest Washington state, the man lowered the rear stair door of the 727 and jumped out. He was never seen again.

The only verified evidence ever found was a small cache of $20 bills discovered along the Columbia River in 1980. They carried serial numbers that matched some of the money given to Cooper.

In 2016, the FBI announced it would stop actively investigating the case, but would take action on any physical evidence of the either the parachute or the money.

Colbert's team, now in its seventh year of following the trail, last year produced evidence from a dig site within Cooper's suspected jump area that they said was part of Cooper's parachute. They handed it over to the FBI, but to date, the FBI hasn't responded about the evidence publicly.

Late last year, Colbert's team obtained a fifth letter allegedly sent by Cooper that Colbert said supports a possible FBI cover-up, but also included random letters and numbers. A code breaker on Colbert's team was able to decode the letters and numbers and find they pointed to three Army units Rackstraw was connected to during his military service in Vietnam. The code was meant to serve as a signal to his co-conspirators that he was alive and well after the jump, Colbert said.

READ MORE: Investigators: D.B. Cooper letter confirms suspect, FBI cover-up

Now, Colbert's code breaker has noted letters in the other four, previously public letters that not only support Rackstraw as a suspect, but also as a CIA operative of some kind, Colbert's team reported.

The letters "SWS" appear in one letter, short for "Special Warfare School," where he learned to code, Colbert said. Another letter, in which Cooper claimed to be CIA openly, also had the letters "RWR" at the end — the initials of Robert W. Rackstraw, according to Colbert.

According to reports, interviews and other evidence compiled by Colbert, Rackstraw first conducted "off-the-books" CIA ground missions in Laos in 1969 and 1970, but appeared to be involved with CIA missions at least through the 1970s and possibly even into the 1980s, potentially linked to the Iran-Contra affair.

Colbert said Pentagon records he obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests detailed training Rackstraw received from Green Berets in 1968, including 400 hours of special forces operiations, psychological operations (PSYOPS) and other training.

Later, in Vietnam, one of Rackstraw's Army Captains told of him hanging around the officers club with a CIA guy, and even claimed that the two left one day in a stolen Jeep loaded with weapons and ammunition, Colbert said in his latest release.

Rackstraw also repeatedly told people he was a Green Beret and had won numerous medals, according to a news report Colbert dug up. Rackstraw wasn't ever part of Special Forces and the medals were fake.

Colbert included several other details that pointed to a link between Rackstraw and the CIA.

Rackstraw was considered in the late 1970s by the FBI as a possible suspect for the Cooper hijacking, but dismissed at the time.

Colbert said this proves more evidence of an effort by the FBI to quash the case and keep it unsolved.

After his first claim last year of an FBI cover-up, the agency didn't respond to the accusation, or make any statements about Colbert's case, but only repeated that it would consider any physical evidence.

Colbert was scheduled to announced the new findings Thursday morning in Washington D.C. in front of FBI headquarters.

Daniel DeMay covers Seattle culture, city hall, and transportation for seattlepi.com. He can be reached at 206-448-8362 or danieldemay@seattlepi.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Daniel_DeMay.