Castro’s links to drugs go back to the time when he was in the Sierra Maestra. When he survived the disastrous landing of the Granma in 1956, the first local protector he had was Crescencio Perez, a local peasant “capo” who controlled production and marketing of many crops, including marihuana. When some of the revolutionaries realized who their savior was and complained to Castro, he told them that for the time being they had to depend on him. Such issues would be dealt with afterwards. Later on, Crescencio became a peasant revolutionary hero.
Once in power, Castro was not, and still is not, averse to associate with drug or any illegal or unsavory activity as long as it helps him stay in power. There are four drug cases involving Cuban officials at the highest level which have resulted in U.S. grand jury indictments:
a. In 1982, four high ranking Cuban officials were indicted by the Guillot Lara Gran Jury for arranging a drug smuggling operation through which drugs were brought into the U.S. in exchange for smuggling weapons to the M-19 guerrilla movement in Colombia, which was being supported by Castro. The officers indicted included Admiral Aldo Santamaría, who was the Cuban Navy Chief and one of the closest Castro collaborators; Fernando Ravelo, Ambassador to Colombia and later to Nicaragua; René Rodríguez Cruz, President of the Cuban People’s Friendship Institute, a close Castro collaborator, since deceased; and, Gonzalo Bassols, a Cuban diplomat accredited to Colombia at the time. The most important of them in terms of relevance to the issue under discussion is Admiral Santamaría. He was a member of the Honor Tribunal condemning Gral. Arnaldo Ochoa!
b. One of the central events in the Noriega indictment and trial involved Castro’s mediation between Noriega and the drug cartel over the seizure of a cocaine laboratory in Panama which Noriega had allowed to operate there in exchange for a payment of $4 million dollars. According to the indictment, Noriega traveled to Cuba on June 27, 1984, at Castro’s request, on his way back from Paris. Castro offered his good offices to settle the disagreement between the drug cartel and General Noriega. A mediator role that requires good relations with the drug lords. Good relations that extend to the present.
c. In 1989, Robert Vesco was indicted by the Carlos Lehder Grand Jury in Jacksonville, Fla. for arranging safe passage for drug planes over Cuban air space. According to the indictment, Vesco obtained approval from Cuban authorities for this arrangement. Later on, in an interview over Radio Martí, former Cuban Air Force Deputy Chief, General Rafael del Pino, who defected in 1987, reported that all the planes flying over Cuba which veered off from the approved air corridors for commercial and private aircraft, had to be cleared with the office of Raúl Castro at MINFAR.
In a program broadcast over Cuban TV on the Ochoa trial, one can see an indignant Fidel Castro calling SOBs those who pointed out Raul’s involvement in drug traffic. But, his indignation does not explain away the truth: only Raúl Castro had overall command of the forces which allowed the smugglers to land in Cuba and provided them radar assistance and protection from U.S. Coast Guard cutters.
d. But the most worrisome of all the indictments for Castro was the one that ended in the conviction, on April 23, 1989, of Reinaldo Ruiz and his son Rubén. Reinaldo Ruiz was a cousin of Captain Miguel Ruiz Poo of Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior. The Ruizes were allowed by Cuban authorities to land their plane at the Varadero Beach airport for refueling after dropping their drug cargoes off the Cuban coast near the Bahamas. Drug smuggling motorboats (lancheros), would come from Florida to pick up the cargoes. Cuban Coast Guard radar monitored U.S. Coast Guard cutters and helped the Alancheros evade them.
These four indictments provide ample evidence, from US judicial sources, that the Castro regime, at the highest level, was involved in drug-running activities. It has been claimed that these activities may have been undertaken by rogue Cuban government officers on their own and without Castro’s knowledge or, much less, approval. Nobody who has the most limited inkling of how the Cuban regime works could give credit to this explanation. True, Castro wants the world to believe there is such a possibility because he is in utmost fear of meeting the Noriega fate.
As will be shown in the next section, a search for the ability to deny any potential Castro involvement in drug traffic was one of the reasons for the Ochoa trial. Although, in order to avoid falling into the trap of reductionism to a single cause, it is acknowledged that the need to dispose of an emerging highly popular rival also played a role. Ochoa’s actions reveal the intention to challenge Castro’s power monopoly in many directions, in Cuba’s relations with the Soviets, in directing military operations overseas and in managing the drug traffic.
The Ochoa Trial, Drugs and the Castro Brothers
The implications of the last US indictment, the Ruiz case, require some amplification because it is the central event leading to the Ochoa trial. It is precisely the use of Cuban air space and refueling facilities, as well as providing drug smugglers radar support to evade the US Coast Guard that was one of the central issues raised during the trial against Ochoa. This, despite the fact that, at no time during that period, was Ochoa in command of the forces involved in controlling Cuban air space, territorial waters and shores in the areas where these operations were taking place.
However, this does not exonerate Ochoa. He just did not realize the consequences of becoming entangled with Ministry of Interior operations fully approved by Fidel Castro and directed by his brother Raul. Once discovered, Ochoa, along with some other key operatives, were to be made sacrificial lambs to save Castro’s good name and the reputation of the revolution.
Radio Martí was able to interview Reinaldo Ruiz in prison shortly after he was sentenced in 1989. We were told we had to wait for the sentencing to avoid the implication that what he said was the result of some plea bargaining. In the interview with our reporter, Ruiz explained that he had been involved in a MININT people-smuggling operation through Panama and wanted to make use of it himself to get some of his relatives out of Cuba. It was while he was engaged in this effort that he claims he was approached by his cousin, Captain Ruiz Poo, to use his people-smuggling network for drug smuggling into the U.S.
At the time, Captain Miguel Ruiz Poo was working for the convertible currency (MC) operation of Cuba’s MININT, which was headed by Colonel Tony de la Guardia, another of the officers executed by Castro. Reinaldo Ruiz claims he agreed to do it after some hesitancy. His son flew as copilot of the planes landing at Varadero and he himself went into Cuba on various occasions, enjoying VIP treatment from Cuban authorities. Reinaldo Ruiz stated that, in some occasions, the Cubans even took him to Havana as a government guest. Mr. Ruiz claimed in the interview that he had no doubt that what he was doing had the approval of Castro. As an exile, he would have never taken the risk of going into Cuba had he had any doubt about who was behind those activities. A most plausible explanation.
But the Ruiz operation had been infiltrated by the DEA. The pilot of the plane was an undercover DEA agent and he recorded in videotape many of the conversations they had. The U.S. requested the extradition of Reinaldo Ruiz from Panama early in 1988. According to Reinaldo Ruiz, he was surprised when Panama granted the request. However, he was convinced all along that the Cubans would get him out somehow before his being convicted. According to the Norberto Fuentes report, Fidel Castro considered this setback was a consequence of Raul’s incompetence in handling the operation.
As far back as 1980, the Minister of Interior at the time, Ramiro Valdez, stopped marihuana smuggling operations ordered by Fidel when Castro refused to issue written orders to him to undertake them. In early 1983, the Minister of Interior ordered Tony de la Guardia to make a feasibility study for a drug money laundering center at Cayo Largo, south of Cuba, and de la Guardia is also asked by Fidel to establish contacts with Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug cartel head. Castro initially delayed a proposal from the Colombian M-19 movement to engage in an exchange of weapons for coca because the proposal had been addressed directly to him by Jaime Bateman. Evidently, after Bateman’s death in an airplane accident, a more discrete arrangement was made — leaving Castro out of the loop — that led to the above mentioned Guillot Lara Grand Jury.
In the Fall of 1983 Fidel told Abrantes, who was really acting as Minister of Interior, and two MININT officers, Jose Luis Padron and Tony de la Guardia, that he wanted to be shown the feasibility of undertaking drug operations while overcoming three obstacles: the requirements established by Ramiro Valdez of written orders, the clumsiness of the Chief of the Navy, Aldo Santamaria and other Raul collaborators, already indicted in the US, or the level of formal commitment expected by the Colombian M-19. In other words, as Fidel Castro was moving towards expanding his involvement in the drug traffic, he wanted to ensure deniability for himself.
When Reinaldo Ruiz was convicted on April 23, 1989, the contents of some of the videotapes recorded by the DEA undercover agent were given ample coverage by mass media, among them one in which Reinaldo Ruiz is seen saying that the money they were paying “went straight into Castro’s drawers.” He also alleged that, on one occasion, while they were waiting at the Varadero Airport tarmac, Raúl Castro was at the airport and one of his bodyguards approached them requesting marihuana.
One can imagine the panic this caused among Castro and his collaborators. Neglect of the fate of a low minion in the drug operation being run by Cuban intelligence all of the sudden had entangled directly the revolutionary leadership. And in an American court of all places. Plausible denial was no longer credible.
Castro’s drug-running links Part 2
