K.G.B. CONNECTIONS

Document Type: 
Collection: 
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
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
February 28, 1983
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120067-7.pdf115.4 KB
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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