CUBA SKIMS MILLIONS FROM U.S. DRUG

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303490002-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 9, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303490002-2
ARfiICLE APPEARED
ON PACE A-1
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
9 AUGUST 1982
-Cuba skims million
from U.S. drug 1
By Arnaud De Borchgrave
and Robert Moss
- SPECIAL TO THE NNSHINGTON TIMES
(First of five articles)
(Arnaud De Borchgrave, forl7years
Newsweek's chief foreign correspond-
ent, and Robert Moss, columnist for
the London Daily Telegraph, teamed to
write an exclusive series of articles on
Cuban drug-running and subversion.
They spent 12 months researching their
subject. The resulting five-installment
series originally was written for the New
York Post.)
Cuba is an active partner in the drug
traffic in the U.S. and skims the profits
to the tune of tens of millions of dollars
a year.
Fidel Castro's secret service, the DGI,
orchestrates a drugs-for-arms barter
trade between Marxist guerrillas and
cocaine lords of Miami, Fla., and
Medellin,_Colombia.
It exacts 'tolls' from dopers who make
stopovers in Cuba en route- from't
Colombia to South Florida, anuses
the?Teceipts to finance undercover
operations and to buy from dealers in
the U.S. and West Europe weapons that
are shipped clandestinely to guerrillas
in Central America.
The most devastating evidence of the
Cuban drug connection has resulted',
from an exhaustive investigation of
Jaime Guillot Lara, a leading doper
from Barranquilla, Colombia, who
confessed to numerous contacts with
DGI officers after his arrest in Mexico
City on Nov 25, 1981.
Under a deal negotiated with Colom-'
bia's President Julio Cesar Torbay
Ayala, Guillot has promised to tell all
in return for a reduced jail sentence of
18 months, to be served in his old
stomping ground of Barranquilla.
Whether he will be able to keep that
promise has yet to be seen; powerful
interests - including well-connected
drug magnates, the DGI and the M-19
(April 19th Movement) guerrilla organ-
ization - wish to ensure his silence.
However, we have been able to piece
together the full story from police and
counter-intelligence sources in South
Florida, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela
and Bolivia.
The story begins in Panama in the
'f'all of 1980, when another Colombian
underworld figure called Juan Lazaro
`Crump Perez - better known as
Johnny' Crump - arranged a meeting
between= Guillot and high' :ranking
'Cuban officials.
For. several years, Crump had been
on friendly terms with Fernando Ravelo,
the Cuban ambassador in Bogota, and
Gonzalo Bassols Suarez, 'the station
ctu flf the Americas department of
n
bit;= ---- --
The Americas Department, h:jaded
by Manuel Pineiro Losada, the former
chief of the DGI, specializes in the
Western hemisphere.
As early as 1975, the three men had
spent several days together at the Prado
Hotel in Barranquilla.
When Guillot made his first contact
with the Cubans, he was a personable
33-year-old whose interests, financed
by the drug traffic extended from a
big real estate development at Barran-
quilla to a '$2511,000 home on Sunset
Drive in Miami.
He was also politically ambitious, and
saw a glittering future for himself in
the revolutionary overthrow' the
Colombian government.
He had been a friend since childhood
of Jaime Bateman, the founder of the
M-19 guerrillas, who came from the
same village of Santa Marta.
At their meetings in Panama - one
,of which took place at the home of Jose
Luis Ojalvo, the local Americas
Department chief, operating under
cover at the Cuban Embassy:- the'
Cubans flattered Guillot with the idea
that they could not only help him to
make a fortune, but saw him as a polit-
ical president of Colombia.
At one early meeting, in November
1980, Bassols asked Guillot and his
friend Johnny Crump to arrange trans-
portation for a force of 300 guerrillas
who were to be infiltrated into Chile.
Guillot also was instructed to pur-
chase combat fatigues in the U.S. He
was told that weapons would be sup-
plied in Nicaragua, but he would have
to arrange payment.
million in cash to finance arms pur-
chases from dealers in South Florida.
In October 1981 (at a meeting in
Mexico City) the Cuban spy chief gave
Guillot another $700,000 in cash, spec-
ifying that he should use it to buy
American-made weapons that should
be warehoused in the Miami area until
they could be safely transported to
Colombia's Guajira peninsula either by
small planes from Fort Lauderdale, or
by one of the Colombian's fleet of drug
boats.
These included the Kanina, which
eventually was sunk by the Colombian
navy on Nov. 14, 1981, with a cargo of
200 tons of weapons and ammunition
aboard, and a 62-foot shrimp boat called
the Monarca.
Though the Cubans supplied seed
money, the basic plan was that the arms
purchases should be self-financing.
The M-19 guerrillas would help
Guillot to smuggle marijuana, Qua-
aludes-and cocaine.out of Colombia;
the Cubans would provide a safe
anchorage, fuel and repairs for the drug
boats, and Castro's secret service would
recoup its initial expenditures - and
reap a healthy profit - by charging
Guillota percentageof the valueof his
cargoes for services rendered.
The Cubans "taxed the Colombian
between $500,000 and $700,000 for each
stopover that his drug boats made in
Cuba. At the time of his arrest. he owed
the Cubans $8 million in unpaid dues.
Guillot was personally involved in a
dramatic exchange that took place at a
secret airstrip in the Guajira peninsula
- Colombia's prime marijuana-
producing region (in October 1981).
On Oct. 16, 1991, his boat Zar de
Honduras offloaded 55 large crates and
90 smaller boxes at the small port of
Dibulla. Each of the large crates con-
tained 10 Belgian-made FN-Ful rifles;
the small boxes each concealed 1000
rounds of 7.62 ammunition. Guillot
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303490002-2