K.G.B. CONNECTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120067-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 67
• Publication Date: February 28, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120067-7
Drugs, guns, and terrorists.
K.G.B. CONNECTIONS
THE 104 REPUBLIC
28 FEBRUARY 1983
9HE REVELATIONS about the possible complicity
of the Bulgarian secret police in the shooting of the
Pope have produced a grudging admission, even in
previously skeptical quarters, that the Soviet Union may
be involved in. international terrorism. Some patterns
have emerged in the past few years that tell us some-
thing about the extent to which the Kremlin may use
terrorism as an instrument of policy. A great deal of
information has lately come to light, some of it accurate,
some of it not. One of the most interesting developments
appears to be the emergence of a dose working relation-
ship between organized crime (especially drug smug-
glers and dealers) and some of the principal groups in
the terrorist network. This embrace can be found in at
least three countries: Turkey, Italy, and Cuba. In what
follows I have checked what seemed to be the most
suggestive information about the relationship: I have
confirmed the claims attributed to other journalists, and
information stated without attribution represents mate-
rial I gathered on my own.
"1-i recent years," said Marvin Kalb in the NBC
"W I-ite Paper" broadcast last September 21, using
weapons and propaganda "the Soviet Union has sought
to destabilize Turkey, a huge effort that cost more than
Si billion, supporting both right- and left-wing terror-
ism." The Turkish case is also the first to come to light in
which disciplined terrorist organizations worked closely
with drug smugglers on a large scale. This alliance was
forged by the early '70s in Turkey, and it provided the
network through which Mehmet Ali Agca-the Turk
who shot Pope John Paul H-fled Turkey for the com-
forts of the Hotel Vitosha in Sofia, Bulgaria. Here,
according to Kalb, he met a fellow Turk, Omer Mersan,
"a key figure in a huge drug smuggling and gun-running
operation controlled Mafia-style by yet another Turk,
Abuzer Ugurlu, known as 'The Godfather."' Kalb inter-
vie :ved Ugur Memcu, one of the leading Turkish experts
on Bulgaria's role in drug smuggling. Memcu told Kalb
that "the Turkish Mafia is responsible for the smuggling
originating in Bulgaria, and therefore it would be right to
claim that there is collusion between the Bulgarian
authorities and the members of the Turkish Mafia based
in Bulgaria." And as every authority on the K.G.B.-
from former Bulgarian intelligence officials to former
National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski-has
observed, it is inconceivable that activities on such a scale
could have taken place without Soviet approval.
The same pattern developed in Italy some years later.
For a long time an alliance between the Red Brigades
and organized criminals was unthinkable. The Briga.?
Mafia plays a conservative role in Italian politics. It is
intensely anti-Communist, and it remembers the help it
got from.the Americans during World War II; besides,
terrorism was bad for business, since it put more cops on
the street, which put a damper on more traditional forms
of criminal activity. With the kidnaping of Aldo Moro,
however, the Mafia quietly offered assistance to the
Italian government (an offer it refused, since the price-
guarantees of "spheres of free influence" for the Ma-
fia-was too high).
During the Moro affair or shortly thereafter, the Red
Brigades established links to organized crime. By the
time of the Dozier kidnapping last year, the connection
was well enough established that Italian investigators
hunted for the American general through two channels:
the terrorist organization and the drug pipeline. Accord-
ing to highly placed sources in the Italian government, it
was information from narcotics dealers that finally led
Italian police to Dozier's captors. Indeed, among the
positive results of the Dozier affair was the discovery of
a mammoth drug-running operation in northern Italy,
which is currently under investigation by Judge Carlo
Palermo. This month 41 people will go on trial in Trent,
accused of trafficking in drugs, arms, and money be-
tween Italy and the Middle East. According to articles in
such reliable Italian newspapers as La Starrpa,11 Giornale
N'uovo and Il Corriere della Sera a Bul