CUBA/DRUG SMUGGLING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000706850013-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: April 30, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000706850013-3
CBS E 'ING NEWS
30 April 1984
CUBA/DRUG RATHER: Nicaragua is often cited as a case in point of
SMUGGLING Cuba's self-appointed mission to export revolution. It's
also alleged that Cuba is increasingly the middle man in
exporting hard-drugs for hard cash. Now new allegations
that the drug running and gun running fuel each other, and
both are getting outside help, help from a well-known
American fugitive from justice. Rita Braver has been
investigating this.
BRAVER: Federal investigators say that fugitive financier
Robert Vesco and Cuban Premier Fidel Castro are partners,
partners in an international drug smuggling operation now
being probed in a series of federal cases. A grand jury
in Tallahassee, Fla., has been investigating the
Castro-Vesco link, and other investigations are underway
in Brownsville, Texas, and New Orleans. Government
sources believe that Vesco is now under Castro's
protection in Cuba and is the master mind of system in
which Colombia drug dealers use Cuban ports as safe harbor
and get protection from Cuba in international waters in
exchange for a cart of cocaine profits. Vesco is also
alleged to be helping the Cubans spend their drug profits
on illegal shipments from the U.S., some of the money
going for high technology equipment to improve both Cuba's
industrial production and intelligence gathering ability,
other funds reportedly spent on arms shipments for
left-wing guerrillas in Latin America. The government has
long been-aware of a U.S.-Cuban link. Cases in Florida
and New York in the past few years have established the
connection. Last year customs agents in Texas and Chicago
seized sugar refining equipment Vesco was allegedly having
smuggled out of the U.S. into Cuba. Federal investigators
are uncertain of the extent of the Vesco-Cuban-U.S.
connection, but a key Justice Department source has told
CBS News that the government is now investigating Vesco's
son, Daniel, who's believed to be in the United States,
for allegedly laundering drug money through Panama. Rita
Braver, CBS News, Washington.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000706850013-3