SOME LATIN POLITICIANS CASHING IN ON COCAINE SMUGGLING PROFITS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302540017-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: April 29, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-R
MIAMI HERALD
29 April 1985
AR TI EARED
ON PAGE
DP90-00965R000302540017-3
Some Latin politicians cashing in
on cocaine smuggling profits
By FRANK GREVE
Herald Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON ? Profits from cocaine smuggling
are promoting intrigue and turmoil in Honduras.
Nicaragua and El Salvador, a wave of recent federal
indictments suggests.
Politicians of every stripe allegedly are involved
? leftist, rightist, in office, in exile, insurgent.
Millions of dollars from narcotics trafficking, the U.S.
indictments suggest, were intended to finance'
everything from arms purchases to an election
campaign and a coup. Top Reagan administration
officials say some of the money was intended to help
finance the government of Nicaragua.
"The sums are insignificant in terms of the global
narcotics trade, but they can have a huge impact in
the Central American political arena, whether it be in
elections, terrorism or insurgencies," warned Clyde
D. Taylor, deputy assistant secretary of state for ,
international narcotics matters. "A $10 million drug
deal can buy a lot of insurgency and political action
anywhere in Central America."
The region's growing significance to smugglers '
results, he said, from recent crackdowns in Colombia
and Mexico, plus im-
proved U.S. surveillance of Carib-
bean air routes and sea lanes. The
effect has been to channel more
traffic into Central America,
which smugglers had long consid-
ered too far off-course for runs to
South Florida and less desirable
than Mexico for refueling en route
- to other North American destina-
tions. .
Among the specific allegations,
contained in a variety of govern-
ment documents:
? Smugglers refueled at a mili-
tary airfield in Nicaragua and
sought to set up a cocaine process-
ing laboratory there. _
? Proceeds, from an alleged
$10.3 million' tocaine run-were to
finance an assassination plot
against Honduran President Ro-
berto Suazo Cordova.
.:. ? U.S. Customs agents nabbed
a leading Salvadoran ultra-rightist
and three companions with -an
unexplained $5.9 million in cash a
month before that country's elec-
tion. - All four showed up on
Customs' list of narcotics traffick-
ing suspects, according to a gov-
ernment affidavit filed in connec-
tion with the search of ,their
; chartered Sabreliner jet. _.- ???
? Two U.S. Army Green Berets
are charged with selling more than
a ton of stolen Army mines,
grenades, explosives and ammuni-
tion to federal agents they thought
were Nicaraguan rebels, or con-
tras. An affidavit filed in the case
alleged that the Green Berets were
to be paid in cash and cocaine.
That sale took place in Indian
River County, near Vero Beach.
For smuggling cases involving
both arms and narcotics, the
Reagan administration has coined
a new term: "narcoterrorism." In
the administration view ? not
persuasive to all drug experts ?
Nicaragua and Cuba have become
narcoterrorism's leading sponsors
in the Western Hemisphere.
Army Gen. Paul F. Gorman, for
example, recently retired com-
mander in chief of the U.S.
Southern Command based in Pana-
ma, asserted in congressional testi-
mony last month that Latin Ameri-
can drug traffickers "have reacted
to pressure from lawful authori-
ties in many countries by forming
common cause with Marxist-Le-
ninists, with anarchists and with
international terrorists."
Supporting Gorman's view is
the case of Federico Vaughan,
described by the U.S. Drug En-
forcement Administration as an
aide to Nicaragua's powerful inte-
rior minister. Tomas Borge. (A
Nicaraguan government spokes-
man denied last year that Vaughan
was an aid to Borge, saying he had
worked briefly for the Interior
Ministery in the "services area.")
According to an arrest warrant
filed in Miami last July 18,
Vaughan provided a military air-
strip near Managua for refueling
and shipment of 1,452 pounds of
cocaine headed from Colombia -to
the United .States.
The smuggling plane's pilot, a
camera-equipped DEA informant,
said Vaughan and reputed Colom-
bian trafficker Pablo Escobar Gav-
iria ultimately intended to set up a
new cocaine processing laboratory
in Nicaragua. They wanted to fly
cocaine base from Bolivia to
Nicaragua, the informant said,
then fly processed cocaine from
Nicaragua to the United States and
Europe.
In congressional testimony last
week, Customs Commissioner
William von Raab alleged that
fugitive financier Robert Vesco.
now believed to be living in Cuba,
had financed the plot, for which
Vaughan was to be paid $1.5
million.
Vaughan. indicted in Miami on
cocaine smuggling charges last
January, is considered a fugitive.
A drug-smuggling case with
contrasting anti-Communist over-
tones involves prominent support-
ers of Gen. Gustavo Alvarez,
Honduras' pro-American armed
forces commander exiled in March
1984 and now living in Miami.
Defendants include Gerard
Latchinian, a Miami arms mer-
chant who had won major con-
tracts under Alvarez; Gen. Jose A.
Bueso-Rosa, Alvarez's exiled for-
mer chief of staff, and Faiz J.
Sikaffy, a Honduran importer-ex-
porter and prominent Alvarez
backer.
They sought drug money to pay
off the triggerman in a scheme to
assassinate President Suazo Cor-
doba "and replace him with a
former general in the Honduran
military services," according to
affidavits filed with their indict-
ments in Miami last November.
Alvarez was not indicted, or
identified as involved in the
scheme, in any public documents.
The indictments charge Latchi-
nian, Sikaffy. Bueso-Rosa. and five
other defendants with conspiracy
to commit murder for hire and
smuggle into the United States
$10.3 million in cocaine to finance
the plot.
Gen. Alvarez's nephew, Lt. Os-
car Alvarez, is mentioned in the
Green Beret munitions case. Sgts.
Byron Carlisle and Keith Ander-
son, both stationed at Fort Bragg.
iiialineed
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302540017-3
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302540017-3
N.C., were indicted last October
and charged with selling stolen
explosives, Claymore mines and
grenades to undercover agents of
the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol. Tobac-
co and Firearms. Lt. Alvarez was
never criminally implicated or
indicted in the case.
An affidavit filed in the case
states that an undercover AIT
agent and his informant persuaded
Carlisle to introduce them to Lt.
Alvarez, then assigned to Port
Bragg for training. Carlisle, a
weapons and intelligence special-
st. had met Lt. Alvarez in
Honduras in 1982-83 when both
were assigned to an elite counter-
terrorist unit created under ben.
Alvarez and trained, according to
published reports. by U.S. Army
and?CIA personnel.
Carlisle and Lt. Alvarez were
friends and partners in a Hondu-
ran mahogany importing business,
according to both men. The im-
porting was done in the name of
C-MAG. incorporated by Carlisle
and Anderson in 1.981. Operating
as C-MAG. Carlisle and Anderson
also rented .a warehouse .in Sep-
tember 1984. A government
search. warrant application
charged that the warehouse was
used to store stolen U.S. Army
munitions.
Sgt. Anderson's lawyer, Stephen
H: Broudy of Fort Lauderdale,
contends his client was entrapped
by the undercover ATF agents and
believed that they were aiding
contra rebels.
While not addressing the entrap-
ment accusation, Indian River
County Sheriff Tim Dobeck says
the ATF agent told him he was
posing as an arms buyer for the
contras. Detective Perry Pisani,
who worked with the ATF agent
for several days before the Octo-
ber arrest in rural Indian River
County. gives the same account.
Broudy seeks to question 44
Army personnel, tour (AA empioz-
ees and one FBI akent in his
client's defense, according to court
records.
Law enforcement sources ac-
knowledge that figures of impor-
tance to the United States for
diplomatic. military or intelligence
reasons sometimes are allowed, in
an informal way, to escape prose-
cution. "So many times, when you
pick up on political figures in an
investigation. the SAC I special
agent in charge l gets scared to
death," explained one Miami-
based federal agent who asked not
to be identified. "The SAC goes to
headquarters and all of a sudden
you've got a bunch of administra-
tors on the case with their
mentality and they back off on the
investigation."
That may be one reason why
Francisco Guirola, a Salvadoran
businessman detained last Febru-
ary at an airfield near Corpus
Christi, Texas, flashed a diplomat-
ic passport and warned Customs
agents that searching suitcases
aboard his chartered Sabreliner
would "cause trouble."
In the eight three-suiter canvas
suitcases, Customs agents found
550 pounds of unmarked $100 and
$20 bills totaling $5.9 million.
Guirola's name, the names of
three companions, and the tail
numbers of their aircraft all
turned up on the Customs comput-
er index of suspected narcotics
traffickers, according to _a federal
affidavit. "Guirola in March 1984
was reportedly involved in cocaine
and arms smuggling in El Salvador
and Guatemala," said the Customs
search warrant application.
. Guirola also served as an active
fund-raiser for Roberto D'Aubuis-
son, the leader of El Salvador's
far-right ARENA?partY and. a
reputed organizer of that coun-
try's death squad activities, ac-
cording to a New Republic article.
Authors Craig Pyes and Laurie
Becklund reported that Guirola
carried, at the time of his arrest,
Salvadoran official credentials.
They were signed by D'Aubuisson
and identified Guirola as a "special
adviser to the Constituent Assem-
bly."
,
Guirola and his aircraft carried
no narcotics, and he faces no
smuggling charges.
???..
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302540017-3