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These amateur sleuths think they've found CIA black-site clues at a North Carolina airport

Two women in North Carolina say they discovered a CIA contractor called Aero, operating out of their local county airport, and handling some 80 percent of the country's rendition flights between 2001 and 2004.

The federal government has done its best to keep the details of the CIA's so-called "black sites" a secret. But two regular citizens in North Carolina think they’ve found some answers in their own backyard.

In the years since 9/11, there have been dozens of investigations into the detention and torture program run by the Central Intelligence Agency in its effort to prosecute the global war on terror.

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But to this day, much about the program remains unknown, including specific details about each of the people who were detained, and what exactly happened to them after they were dropped off at prisons across the world. The most significant investigation so far, released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2014, remains largely classified.

But while official inquiries may be dormant, in one state, a group of amateur investigators are hot on the case. Citizen members of North Carolina Stop Torture Now have spent more than a decade investigating the role their state — and one company in particular — based at Johnston County Regional Airport outside Raleigh, played in the program.

They've learned that in the years between 2001 and 2004, that company, Aero Contractors, transported 80 percent of the terror detainees moved around the globe by the CIA as part of a program called extraordinary rendition.

Now, the citizen sleuths want their county board of commissioners, in a staunchly conservative district, to order an official investigation in what exactly took place. VICE News was there as they made their most recent plea to be taken seriously.

This segment originally aired May 8, 2018 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.