CUBAN-BACKED FRONTS EVADE U.S. EMBARGO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050010-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: May 23, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050010-4
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otolci WASHINGTON TIMES
23 lay 1986
Cuban-backed fronts
evade U.S. embargo
By Roger Fontaine
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
An international network of cok-
porations secretly owned by Cuba
routinely evades the U.S. embargo
and Rives the Castro regime access
t9 badly needed technolovy, medical
equipment land American-made
spare parts,- U.S. intelligence
sources say.
As many as 130 such fronts also
provide cover for Havana's covert
operations, including the purchase
and transportation of arms to Latin
American insurgents, the sources
told The Washington Times.
Much of the business conducted
by the Cuban companies is legiti-
mate, but their hidden ownership
gives them far more leeway than
Cuba's state trading corporation to
skirt a U.S. embargo on strategic
goods. Embargos were imposed by
the Eisenhower and Kennedy admin-
istrations in the early 1960s and sub-
sequently, in 1982, were tightened by
the Reagan administration.
The Cuban companies operate in
11 Latin American and three Afri-
can countries as well as in Canada,
Japan and much of Western Europe.
But the Cubans have concentrated
their greatest effort in Panama,
where more than 60 Cuban-backed
individuals and firms are operating,
according to the 11-easury Depart-
ment. The department's Office of
Foreign Assets Control says, how-
ever, that their recent list ? April 1,
1986 ? is not complete.
The 60 Cuban-related companies
. -
operating in Panama is, by far, in
excess of those in any other country,
according to the 11-easury Depart-
ment list. The next largest number,
five, are in Spain.
One front, CIMEX, has operated
for years in Panama. A CIMEX sub-
sidiary, Servinaves, is said to be 49
percent owned by the chief of Pana-
ma's armed forces, Gen. Manuel
Antonio Noriega. Servinaves has
used ports and airfields in Panama
fa- transshipments2L_EmIgi,atw. a
guerrillas, according to the intelli-
gence sources.
About 20 of the front companies
have been involved in arms pur-
chases on the so-called "gray mar-
ket," which provides Havana with a
variety of untraceable weapons that
are then handed over to Latin
America's many guerrilla groups.
Intelligence sources say $11 mil-
lion worth of arms are known to have
keen bought under Cuban auspices
sin this manner since 1979, and they
stress that this is a conservative es-
timate.
The purchases consist largely of
small arms and ammunition, but
equipment to manufacture weapons
also has been included.
Spain is a principal supplier of
gray market arms to Cuba, but
France and West Germany also have
dealt with Cuban front companies.
Smaller purchases have been made
in Belgium and other Western Euro-
pean countries.
Eanamanian-based companies
areheavily involved in the arms traf-
fic. U.S. intelligence sources suspect
,that M-79 grenade launcher ammu-
nition was purchased along with a
supply of submachine guns last year.
In late December, the Colombian
army captured more than 50 of these
9mm machine guns that apparently
were purchased from the Interna-
tional 'fransport Corp., whose head-
quarters is in Panama. The auto-
matic weapons were identical to 200
others that were confiscated by
Costa Rican authorities six months
earlier, sources say.
The Cuban-owned companies also.
provide cover for the foreign oper-
ations of Cuba's intelligence ser-
vices, especially the Americas De-
partment. which is under the direct
.control of the Cuban Communist
Party. The Americas Department is
Primarily responsible for covert op-
erations in the Western Hemisphere.
Besides arms, the front compan-
ies have placed a high priority on
obtaining Western computers and
badly needed communications tech-
nology.
Canada is a favorite place to pur-
chase U.S. equipment because of the
availability and variety of
American-made goods there. Re-
cent purchases included jamming
equipment that U.S. analysts believe
may be used against Radio Marti.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302050010-4