U.S. MERCENARIES ESCAPE BRAZIL TO TELL OF THEIR EFFORT TOWARD AFRICAN COUP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302430024-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: December 27, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302430024-5
U.S. Mercenaries Escape Brazil to Tell
of Their Effo
rt Toward African Coup
A AA 10 A&*&-
t
weapons. They say they were head
for the West African country to join in
coup attempt aimed at the milita
Government of Lieut. Jerry Rawlings.
Mr. Carmody and Mr. Hedrick sal
in interviews today that they believe
they were participating in a plan san
mericans arrested 10 months ago off
razil, with a ship bearing six tons
The two men, Timothy M. Carmody i
San Francisco and Steven W. Hed-I
Ia foiled effort to overthrow the Gov-
ment of Ghana.
By KATHERINE BISHOP
Special to The New York Time.
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 26 - Two
merican mercenaries have escaped
were working covertly for the Central
Intelligence Agency.
Effort L0 Avo x
ra Coffee Deal In Exchange
Though their conviction on arms Mr. Bishop said his fee for the deal
smuggling charges was overturned by was an agreement that he would be the
a Brazilian four of the exclusive broker for coffee and other
eight Americans appeals
escaped court, from a prison products from Ghana should Mr. Osei
extradited to Dec. 15, before Argentina, they could
where re the be successfully take over the Govern-
arms arms had been purchased and where ment.
Members of Mr. Osei's family an-
they faced charges of illegally export- swering the phone at his apartment in
ing military along maa with Sheldon W. Queens have, over the past several
and Mr.
Ainsworth th of of Omaha, arrived in n the e weeks, said he was not there and it was
Omaha,
United States Thursday. Frederick T. not known when he might return. When
Verduin of Santa Rosa, Calif., sepa- the same telephone number was called
ated from the others shortly after the today, an unidentified voice said
scape and did not accompany them "wrong number" and hung up.
ome. Daniel C.K. Gyabaah, counselor at
Those who remain imprisoned in the Embassy of Ghana in Washington,
rasilia are John Early of Albuquer- said today that his Government was
ue, Robert E. Foti of New York City, aware that the three mercenaries had
nd Julio Rodriguez Larrazabal and returned to the United States. But he
teven Villa Sosa, both of Fayetteville, said he knew of no plans by his Govern-
ha-
naian dissident and expatriate living in
the New York City borough of Queens.
Mr. Osei led a failed coup attempt in
1983.
Mr. Carmody, a Vietnam veteran
and a co-founder of the Rhodesia Vet-
erans Association, a group of Amer-
icans who worked as private soldiers in
Rhodesia in the late 1970's, said that
once in Ghana, they were to meet with
supporters of Mr. Osei who would at-
tack the capital city of Accra while the
Americans attempted to free Ghanaian
nationals jailed on charges that they
ment and led by Godfrey Osei, a G
According to Mr. Carmody, who was
C.I.A. Says It's 'Ridiculous'
The same story is told by Mr. Hed-
rick, who said that "sources" he would
not name had sent him coded messages I
in jail that reasssured him that the job i
had the sanction of the American Gov-
ernment. "I thought I had the blessing
of my country," Mr. Hedrick said of the
ork he signed on to do in Ghana. He
aid he felt "abandoned" by the Gov-
rnment in his 10 months in various
ails in Brazil.
But George Lauder. a C.I.A. spokes-
Tian. today den
M the agency had
a
over-
throw the Gov rnnt of Ghana, with
whic a J strained
-
lous -he
said of the
t y.
Pete Martinez, a State Department
spokesman, said today that he had "no
information at all" on the men and was
not aware of their whereabouts.
Mr. Hedrick and Mr. Carmody said
they were determined to locate Mr.
Osei and to speak to a Texas commodi.
ties broker who arranged for the sale of
arms to the group, in an effort to sort
out the information they were given.
a graduate student in international
relations at San Francisco State Uni-
versity, he was recruited for the mis-
sion by Mr. Early and Mr. Foti, fellow
Vietnam veterans who also worked as
private soldiers in Rhodesia.
Mr. Early is particularly well known
in the shadowy fraternity of adventur-
ers, mercenaries and arms dealers op-
erating out of this country. Several peo-
ple who know him say he has been in-
volved in clandestine activities in Laos
in the 1960's and more recently in El
Salvador.
Lawyer Claimed C.I.A. Tie
Mr. Early was also convicted in Fed-
eral District Court in San Diego in 1981
of conspiracy to smuggle marijuana
for his role in a large drug-smuggling
operation. According to Mr. Early's de-
fense attorney, quoted in an article in
The San Diego Union at the time, the
Central Intelligence Agency inter-
vened in the case to insure ate
Early's connections to the C.I.A. were
not mentioned during his trial.
It was Mr. Early who was to lead the
group of eight in the mission to over-
throw the military Government of
Ghana and install Mr. Osei as Presi-
dent.
According to Mr. Hedrick, the eight
recruits assembled in the Miami air-
port on Feb. 13 and flew to Buenos
Aires where they were met by Ted
Bishop, a commodities broker from
Texas. He said Mr. Bishop, who ar-
ranged for the purchase of weaponsi
from Argentine Government factories,,
introduced the men to Mr. OseL
Reached at his office in Farmers-
ville, Tex., Mr. Bishop acknowledged
arranging the purchase of arms on be-
half of Mr. Osei, whom he said he had
known for about two years. He said he
believed that Mr. Osei had proper docu-
mentation for the legal purchase of the
weapons.
ment in response to the escape.
Mr. Hedrick says that Mr. Osei told
them that a New York City business-
man named "Solomon" had helped Mr. I
Bishop raise $500,000 to finance the
weapons purchase, and that Mr. Bishop
and Mr. Oset, when in Argentina to buy
the weapons, had called "Solomon" in
New York.
A New York City commodities
broker who has had business dealings
with Mr. Bishop, Solomon Schwartz, is
currently charged in an unrelated 14-
count Federal racketeering indictment
involving the illegal export of weapons.
Says He Didn't Know Them
But Mr. Schwartz, in a recent inter-
view, said he had no involvement with
the Ghana plot and did not know the
men arrested in Brazil.
He acknowledged that he had a busi-
ness relationship with Ted Bishop,
whom he said had asked him about two
years ago to try to work out some com-
modities trading deals on produce
from Mexico. He said that he met Mr.
Bishop in New York City on one occa-
sion and that Mr. Bishop called him
from Argentina attempting to organize
the sale of coffee, a deal that was never
finalized.
"This fellow, Ted Bishop, as I under-
stand it, knew those people," Mr.
Schwartz said of the mercenaries con-
victed in Brazil. "But I had no connec-
tion with any of those people."
Mr. Schwartz and the three other de-
fendants in the racketeering case have
pleaded not guilty in Federal District
Court in Brooklyn. They also filed a
motion asking that they be permitted
to argue at their trial that their actions
CO46 W
27 December 1986
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A
were authorized by the Government.
In a ruling in September, Judge
Thomas C. Platt Jr. wrote that Mr.
Schwartz "had a relationship with cer-
tain agencies of the United States Gov-
ernment." but he denied the defense re-
quest, based on Government offcials'
testimony in a closed hearing.
Sale of Night-Vision Equipment
Among the charges against the de-
fendants are that they agreed to ille-
gally ship sophisticated night-vision
equipment to the Soviet Union and that
Mr. Schwartz illegally exported night-
vision equipment made by Litton In-
dustries to the Government of Argen-
tina during the 1982 Falkland Islands
war with Britain.
A businessman who distributes Lit-
ton night-vision equipment on the East
Coast, Wally Grasheim, once employed
two of the mercenaries arrested in
Brazil, Steven Villa Sosa and Julio Ro-
driguez Larrazabal, to demonstrate
such equipment in El Salvador, accord-
ing to Betty Sosa, Mr. Sosa's wife.
Mr. Carmody, Mr. Hedrick and Mrs.
Sosa all say that while the men were
jailed in Brazil, Mr. Grasheim traveled
there to attempt to intercede in their
behalf.
At Mr. Grasheim's office in Manhat-
tan, an associate, Carmine Pelosi, said
Mr. Grasheim was out of town and
could not be reached. But he said he
knew all of Mr. Grasheim's associates
and that he had never heard of Mr.
Sosa or Mr. Rodriguez.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302430024-5