shout this down (ragamuffin)

(continues)

WOLFF: Well, I- I don't question the people who made the loan. I don't question the government of Colombia for the purposes for which the loan is- is being put. But it's quite obvious that there was something that took place outside of the loan agreement that was part of the trafficking situation.

SAFER: Are you saying that there was a- a secret protocol written with members of the Colombian government which had to do not with the- the world of finance but with the world of cocaine?

WOLFF: Much of what is done in illicit trafficking is not done with a signature to a piece of paper. They're done with a handshake. And our sources- and this is not in the nature of some wild-eyed charge being made by some individual or- or group, but this has come to us from a variety of sources, respected investigatory sources and intelligence sources, within our government.

SAFER: FBI?

WOLFF: Yes.

SAFER: CIA?

WOLFF: Well, what I'm saying to you is the fact that the intelligence community has been able to filter some of this information into- well, we have- we have been made privy to information that has been filtered in by the intelligence community.

SAFER: Now, your sources - I want to get this perfectly clear - say Castro, not Cuba, vaguely-

WOLFF: No.

SAFER: -that Cuba is up to some trick somewhere?

WOLFF: That's correct.

SAFER: Fidel Castro?

WOLFF: That's correct.

SAFER: Surely it's crossed your mind that- that this could be a massive campaign of disinformation, dirty tricks, against Castro for whatever purpose - to destroy the possibility of good relations with Cuba, to discredit Castro not only in the United States but around the world. Is that a possibility?

WOLFF: That could be a possibility, but because of the information coming to us and having been checked and rechecked by our committee investigators through the various agencies that have been involved in- in providing this information, it would be hard- we would be hard put to label it as an attempt such as that - because the- the confirmation has come from a variety of sources, not from just one source.

SAFER: These documents you have here, who else has them? Who knows about this?

Let me- let go through a checklist with you.

WOLFF: Right.

SAFER: Does the White House know?

WOLFF: The White House, I- I believe, should be informed of this, if they have not been, because our documents, as well as the documents from which this material came, have been in possession of the executive agencies.

SAFER: The CIA?

WOLFF: Yes.

SAFER: The FBI?

WOLFF: Yes.

SAFER: Justice Department?

WOLFF: Yes.

SAFER: The Drug Enforcement Administration?

WOLFF: Yes.

SAFER: The State Department?

WOLFF: Yes.

SAFER: I've got to get back to- to the Castro story.

WOLFF: All I'm telling you is the fact that from several very reliable sources we have been able to confirm the fact that he was in the start-up of the operation, and has had continuing contacts through operatives who come back and forth to the United States.

SAFER: Between Havana and Florida?

WOLFF: Uh-hmm.

SAFER: Are there links with organized crime?

WOLFF: Yes, they are.

SAFER: Congressman Wolff, I- I've got to be perfectly honest with you. We were on to much of this story. We'd heard the reports; we'd heard rumors; we checked them, we double-checked them, we triple-checked some of these things in some cases before we came to you. But quite honestly, we probably would not have gone on the air with this story unless we were able to have it - at least the accusations - confirmed by a living, breathing person of authority like yourself. Why have you agreed to this? Why have you agreed to confirm what we have found out?

WOLFF: I have agreed to confirm it because I feel that we have to reach into the heart of the illicit narcotics traffic in order to do something about this, and I do believe that this situation, when it is fully developed, will break the back of the cocaine connection into the United States.

SAFER: There's yet another allegation about Castro and WFC, and that is that beyond cocaine there is a connection with traffic in weapons - weapons, our source tell us, were for terrorist purposes. And Congressman Wolff confirms that this, too, is part of his committee's investigation.

If all these allegations are true, why would Castro do it? As a way of harassing the united States? Possible, but unlikely. As a means of financing Cuba's growing and costly foreign adventures, including its overseas intelligence operations? Possible. All of them puzzling possibilities, but the most puzzling question of all is that if Castro is indeed a major factor in the cocaine connection, why would he choose as a partner a man with such a strong and clear reputation for fighting against Castro? We tried, unsuccessfully, to reach Mr. Cartaya. But in the course of our inquires in south Florida, we learned that it is not impossible that Cubans with links to the CIA also have links to the cocaine trade and, at the same time, have links with Castro's Cuba.

It all has an "Alice in Wonderland" quality to it, and as Alice said, "It just gets curioser and curioser."


http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/drugs/60-minutes.htm

The Miami Herald
24 January 1982, page 1
Miami drug smuggler ran guns for Castro to guerrillas, agents say

By Edna Buchanan
Herald Staff Writer

A Miami drug trafficker has smuggled arms to leftist guerrillas in Colombia and received assistance from the Castro government in Cuba, according to federal agents and Dade police.

If their information is accurate, the case could establish for the first time a Cuban link between drug smuggling into the United States and revolution in South America.

U.S. Attorney Atlee Wampler III said Saturday, "This is the first time that I can remember that material like that would come out in open judicial proceedings--and it will."

Castro's brother, Raul, met secretly with the drug trafficker last year, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sources, and a deal was struck:

The smuggler's narcotics ships would have access to Cuban ports for refueling, repairing and evading the U.S. Coast Guard. In exchange, he would run weapons and munitions to the leftist guerrilla M-19 movement in Colombia.

The DEA identified the smuggler as Jaime Guillot Lara, 35, a "major drug trafficker." Investigators say he wanted to be the next prime minister of Colombia.

Last month Guillot was jailed in Mexico City. This month he was indicted on marijuana conspiracy charges by a federal grand jury in Miami. Two weeks ago he tried to kill himself, slashing his wrists in his jail cell. Mexican officials say he is recovering.

The CIA questioned Guillot in Mexico recently. The agency was said to be particularly interested in reports of Guillot's ties with Castro government and M-19 guerrillas.

Myles Frechette, director of the U.S. State Department's Cuban Affairs office, acknowledged Saturday that he heard rumors of a man in jail who was linked to drug traffic, Cuba and the M-19 guerrillas. But he had not seen any official reports, he said.

DEA officials say their narcotics investigation began routinely last year, without any political implications, and "suddenly it began to shock everyone."

"It's significant," said John McCutcheon, DEA supervisor for the Fort Lauderdale area. "This is the first time we have had a major supplier of drugs, now indicted, who is definitely involved with an outfit such as the M-19."

Guillot, who owns a walled $300,000 home in Miami on Sunset Drive, is a fugitive from Miami and his native Columbia, where he owns a development of 2,000 homes near Barranquilla.

Guillot was arrested on murder charges in Barranquilla in September 1976, police said, and in Mexico for fraud in 1978. The disposition of the charges was unknown.

Police said one of Guillot's marijuana ships, the Margot, was seized by the Colombian army in October 1977. The Colombians also seized 14 tons of marijuana in February 1979 from Guillot and 30 more tons 11 days later, they said.

In early 1981 Guillot was kidnapped in Miami by other drug dealers. He survived the ordeal. Metro-Dade police did not find out about it until Coral Gabes police discovered his baby blue Mercedes Benz 450 SL riddled by bullets and submerged in a canal.

The Cuban connection apparently developed about a year ago, investigators say, when a Colombian drug trafficker, Johnny Crump, introduced Guillot to a Cuban diplomat. The diplomat, Gonzalo Bezol, was accompanied by his "chauffeur," who is a former chief of demolition for Cuban forces in Angola, according to intelligence sources.

Custom agents assisted by the DEA arrested Crump at the Omni Hotel in Miami a week ago on narcotics trafficking charges.

His bond is set at $3 million. He was in possession of documents linking him to Cuban officials--including their home numbers in Cuba---police said.

Guillot, Bezol and the "chauffeur" went to Nicaragua last year, where they met with Raul Castro, Cuba's Armed Forces Minister, the DEA said.

Soon afterward a vessel owned by Guillot delivered 200 tons of weapons to the guerillas, federal agents said.

Two other of Guillot's ships, loaded with marijuana, were seized off the Virginia coast and in Tampa.

In November, one of Guillots's ships, the Monarcha, rendezvoused twice at sea with a weapons-laden ship called the Karina, taking on loads of guns and munitions, investigators say. A stolen Aeropesca airliner was used to transport one load of guns to an airstrip on a farm in the Colombian interior, they said.

The Colombian Navy caught and sank the Karina 10 miles off the coast. Members of the crew were captured or killed.

Colombian armed forces seized the Monarcha, and Guillot fled to Mexico City, investigators said.

He arranged to meet there with Bezol, they said, to receive a large amount of cash for his getaway. It is unknown if the money exchange ever took place, agents said. When police arrested him, he had only about $7,000, officials said.

The U.S. government has begun extradition proceedings. Columbia also wants to extradite him.

"I don't think he wants to go anywhere," said McCutcheon. "He'd like to crawl under a rock."

DEA agents say they had no interest in the guerrilla effort or in international politics, but were merely investigating a narcotics case.

"We proved that the M-19s are using narcotics to overthrow the government of Colombia, that Cubans are providing them with weapons, and that the man we indicted was to become prime minister," said DEA Agent Evelino Fernandez.

Federal agents, local police and U.S. attorneys have met for weeks trying to piece together the international intrigue surrounding Guillot and his associates.

The recent murder of six Colombians in a Southwest Dade townhouse is an example of the problem, according to Metro-Dade Homicide Lt. Raul Diaz.

Alfonso Jesus Arrubla, one of the dead in that still-unsolved murder, was an M-19 guerilla, police say.

"How," asked Homicide Commander Don Matthews, "can a local law enforcement agency deal with crimes the motives of which are 3,000 miles away?"


http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/drugs/smuggler.htm

The Miami Herald
January 29, 1999

Drug trafficking through Cuba on the rise, investigators say

TIM JOHNSON
Herald Staff Writer

HAVANA -- Cuba, once considered off-limits to drug trafficking, is confronting a
noticeable narcotics problem amid signs that the island has become a conduit for
multi-ton shipments of cocaine.

At first, police in Colombia thought it was an anomaly on Dec. 3 when they seized
a 7.2-ton load of cocaine packed in shipping containers and bound for Cuba.

But Colombian authorities are now certain that smugglers have utilized Cuba as a
major transshipment point for cocaine before.

``No one dares to send 7 tons at one blow unless they've tested the route,'' said a
Colombian law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said investigators looking into the Barranquilla, Colombia, shipping firm that
dispatched the drug-laden containers in December found that the same company
had shipped containers via Cuba on seven previous occasions in 1997 and 1998.

``How much cocaine was sent? We don't know,'' the source said.

In the past, a few senior Cuban military officials have been accused of helping to
facilitate the flow of drugs through Cuban waters or airspace, but this case is
bigger and the drugs involved were touching down on Cuban soil.

President Fidel Castro, admitting that the latest shipments may have passed
through Havana, recently demanded the death penalty for drug traffickers.

``The harm that this is causing us, that this is beginning to cause, isn't only a matter
of prestige but also the foothold that this mortal poison is gaining among our
youth,'' Castro said in a tough speech on crime Jan. 5.

Drug arrests increase

Reading from an Interior Ministry report, Castro said drug arrests and seizures had
almost doubled in 1998. Authorities seized 234 pounds of cocaine in 101 busts,
and 177 pounds of marijuana in 978 incidents in the first 10 months of 1998, he
said.

``For possession and trafficking, 1,216 people were arrested, which indicates the
rise in this criminal activity,'' he read from the report.

Given Cuba's vaunted system of state security, the sale of cocaine and marijuana
was growing surprisingly common in Havana discotheques until authorities flooded
streets with police early this month, residents say.
The presence of narcotics has risen alongside Cuba's booming tourism and the
opening of the economy to foreign investors.

Castro accused two Spanish investors of masterminding the 7.2-ton cocaine
shipment seized in Colombia, saying Jose Royo Llorca and Jose Anastasio
Herrera fled Cuba for Spain because Colombia did not notify his government
quickly enough.

The two men are in Valencia, Spain, and have been notified by a court in Madrid
that they have become part of a criminal inquiry, their lawyer, Salvador Guillem,
told The Herald.

Involvement denied

Guillem said neither Spaniard had anything to do with the cocaine and that Havana
may be seeking to confiscate some $550,000 in assets they invested in a small
factory that makes plastic souvenirs, ashtrays and lamps.

``Strains had developed with the Ministry (of Light Industry) and they were in the
process of negotiating the factory's closure. It's possible this (drug allegation) is
being used as an excuse by the Cuban government to seize my clients' assets,''
Guillem said.

The cocaine seized Dec. 3 was packed in compartments hidden in six shipping
containers, police said. The containers were routed to Havana via Kingston,
Jamaica. The Barranquilla shipping company, E.I. Caribe, had sent 20 containers
in 1997 and 1998 to Royo's Havana factory, Artesania Caribe Poliplast & Royo,
Colombian authorities said.

Still unclear is any role Cubans may have had in facilitating the drug shipments.

In his speech, Castro maintained that Cubans were not involved: ``No signs have
occurred that implicate Cubans in international narcotics trafficking, although a few
(Cubans) have not followed norms and established procedures, thus allowing the
activity to occur.''

Castro said the two Spaniards rented 14 cabanas at Rio Cristal, a palm-fringed
resort near Havana's airport, for months at a time, and sometimes hosted
expensive and unruly parties.

He also said they had set up a financing office in Panama, GFA Financial Group,
that was offering $12 million in credit lines to Cuban state companies in an
apparent money-laundering scheme.

Not well known

The Spaniards kept a low profile in Havana's small business circles.

A French motorcycle vendor who visits Cuba often and is friends with Royo and
Herrera voiced shock at Castro's allegations.

``They are not guilty. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I am 99 percent sure,'' Jean
Louis Honteberi said in a telephone interview from Biarritz, France. Of Royo, he
added: ``He doesn't have much money. When I heard what Fidel Castro said
about him, I thought, `This isn't true.' ''

The drug seizure in Colombia was the second-largest in that country last year,
slightly surpassed by a bust four months earlier of drugs bound for Mexico, police
said.

Concern about the use of Cuba as a transshipment point led Cuba and Colombia
to sign a drug cooperation accord during a visit to Havana by Colombian
President Andres Pastrana this month. Colombia's national police chief, Rosso
Jose Serrano, told The Herald later that cooperation between the two countries
``is going well.''

Charges of complicity in drug trafficking by Cuban officials have surfaced
occasionally. U.S. officials say they believe drug-laden airplanes from Colombia
have dropped cocaine packets in Cuban territorial waters.

In November 1982, a federal grand jury in Miami indicted four Cuban government
officials, including a vice-admiral of the navy, for allegedly permitting smugglers to
use the island as a transshipment point for Quaaludes, marijuana and cocaine. The
accused were never arrested.

In 1989, Cuban authorities ordered the firing squad executions of army Gen.
Arnaldo Ochoa and Interior Ministry Col. Antonio de la Guardia for drug
trafficking and treason.


And just two days before Castro addressed police, in early January, de la
Guardia's 34-year-old daughter, Ileana, filed suit in Paris, where she is living in
exile, charging that Castro knew of cocaine shipments through Cuba by the
Medellin Cartel in the late 1980s.


http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/drugs/rise.htm

20 Years After the Arrest of General Ochoa
at 10:35 AM Sunday, June 14, 2009

Twenty years ago -- on June 12th, 1989 -- the Castro regime arrested one of its most distinguished military commanders, General Arnaldo Ochoa, and eight other high-level officials on charges of drug trafficking and corruption.

The arrests came at a time when U.S. law enforcement agencies began detecting a dramatic surge in drug-smuggling flights over Cuban territory, suggesting that the country had become a major transshipment point for cocaine traffic into the United States.

Worried that U.S. intelligence had irrefutable evidence of the Cuban regime's links to Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel in Colombia, and that the evidence might result in an indictment of the Castro brothers -- ultimately placing their existence in a precarious situation, similar to that of Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega -- the Castros' quickly used one of the island's most respected and charismatic generals as a scapegoat, while simultaneously removing a competitive threat to their leadership.

Shortly after a nationally televised military show-trial (see clip below), General Ochoa would be executed by a firing squad. Twenty years later, the Castro brothers continue to purge with the same impunity, as was the case in March of this year with Cuba's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Felipe Perez Roque, and Economic Czar, Carlos Lage.

Pa' que se desayunen!



Wake up! Stop buying pipe dreams...

i stand corrected on the matter of crack. i meant heroin. you cannot argue the fact that heroin was prevalent on street corners in Harlem in the late 60s. also, you cannot argue the fact that prison inmates in the DC system were testing positive for illegal drugs in the late 60s. that is a matter of public record. so, given that FACT, how do you stand by your assertion that CUBA started the drug trade in the LATE 70s?

so, Guarocuya, you state, unequivocally, that Cuba started the drug trade, when it flooded the streets of South Florida with cocaine and quaaludes in the late 1970s. i will defer to you, since you appear to be the resident authority on all matters pertaining to recreational drug use, or abuse. a simple task for you ; kindly explain the discrepancy between your timeline and this matter of historical record

Quaaludes became increasingly popular as a recreational drug in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The drug was used during sexual activity because of heightened sensitivity and lowered inhibition coupled with relaxation and euphoria.[citation needed]
The drug was often used by people who went dancing at glam rock clubs in the early 1970s and at discos in the late 1970s..

please focus, if you will, on the portion which refers to the LATE 60s.

No, I defer to you for being the foreign agent provocateur, the coadjutor for who knows who? Advocating unrest and always pontificating about Fabian ideology or causes in a land that is not his country; as if it were a popular destination for immigrants like the United States? It's instead a part of an island that is teetering on the edge of massive upheavals -while this self appointed professor of trivia is so wise to point out all the faults in this fragile system. No, excuse me I got no time for anymore back and forth with a person who is a non entity in my opinion of anything having to do with my native country. Instead he is here to defy legitimate posters, challenge into verbal Olympics, and distract with futile and irrelevant chit chat. Basta, ya!

Go on!

i take that to mean you have no logical answer. thanks for at least giving it a shot. it´s the thought that counts.