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Rangel calls for an investigation into the CANF - 7/13/98 Luis Posada Carriles and the CANF

The Murder of Senior DEA Agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena in 1985

Christmas note from President Bush to Felix Rodriguez, in his handwriting, 12/88

Powderburns; Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War by Celerino III Castillo

Félix Ismael Rodríguez: Mr Narco

Felix - Bush 

VP George Bush and Felix Rodriguez

Felix Ismael Fernando José Rodriguez Mendigutia, aka "Max Gomez," is a career CIA employee who was born in Cuba and educated by his uncle, José Antonio Mendigutia Silvera, a minister of public works and a close collaborator of Batista.  He fled to the US in 1960 and went through US Army officer training with Luis Posada Carriles, who he later recruited as his number 2 man for the the Contra resupply operation's major staging area at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador. This was a nerve center and transit point for the shipment of large quantities of cocaine to the US in return for weapons and supplies to the Contras, some of it through Holmstead AFB, other through former Flying Tiger bases such as Mena, Arkansas.

Felix Rodriguez had a long career with CIA, including acting as liaison officer with the Bolivian forces who captured Che Guevera in 1967.  Indications are Felix had a Bolivian soldier kill Che. From this he retains Che's Rolex watch and a transcript of his interrogation, which he likes to read on occasion to assembled friends at his home in Miami.

As Granma aptly put it, he learned his trade in Laos:

"In 1970, Bush stood as a Senate candidate. He failed to get elected. That same year, Félix Rodríguez joined Air America, another CIA front company, trafficking heroin from Laos to the U.S. drugs network of former Havana godfather Santos Traficante. The purpose of the smuggling was to influence the Laotian conflict by winning the support of isolated communities. The operation was led by Donald Gregg, who took his orders from Theodore Shackley. It was on this job that George’s buddy learnt the trade he was to practice years later in Central America." 
                             - George and Félix: the tale of two old friends, 7/24/02

After murdering Che, Felix went on to become one of the main operatives tasked with setting up the US government's narcotics trafficking network, from Colombia through Central America and Mexico. High ranking retired DEA officials have implicated him in the kidnapping and assassination of Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, a senior DEA agent with large busts in Mexico of CIA related traffickers to his credit. Kiki was tortured for 30 hours and CIA had the recordings.

Articles/Artículostop

Max Gomez
La CIA, Camarena y Caro Quintero: La historia secreta, 2014
Florida’s Republican Governor Awards Medal of Freedom to Che Guevara’s Assassin 10/6/2021 Covert Action Magazine: "On September 16, 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis awarded the Governor’s Medal of Freedom to Félix Rodríguez, the Cuban anti-communist counter-revolutionary who lives in Florida. As a contract agent for the CIA Rodríguez helped locate and assassinate Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967. Assassination is a political murder. The Governor’s medal allowed DeSantis to recognize Rodríguez as a “person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to the interests and citizens of the state, (and) its culture.”" [Inexplicably leaves out his narco career.]

Here's Where Félix Rodríguez From The Last Narc Is Now  7/31/2020 Bustle: "However, some retired federal agents are convinced that the CIA was responsible for Camarena's death. "The CIA ordered the kidnapping and torture of 'Kiki' Camarena, and when they killed him, they made us believe it was Caro Quintero in order to cover up all the illegal things they were doing [with drug trafficking] in Mexico," former director of the El Paso Intelligence Center Phil Jordan told Proceso in 2013. (Bustle has reached out to the CIA for comment but has not received a response.) In the same Proceso article, Berrellez explained that he was in charge of investigating Camarena's death as part of a case known as Operation Leyenda. "During this investigation, we discovered that some members of a U.S. intelligence agency, who had infiltrated the DFS (the Mexican Federal Security Directorate), also participated in the kidnapping of Camarena," the former DEA agent claimed to the publication. "Two witnesses identified Félix Ismael Rodríguez. [The witnesses] were with the DFS and they told us that, in addition, [Rodríguez] had identified himself [a]s 'U.S. intelligence.'""

US probing claims that CIA operative, DEA official betrayal led to murder of agent: report  2/28/2020 Fox News: "The U.S. Justice Department is investigating explosive new allegations that a Central Intelligence Agency operative and Drug Enforcement Administration official played a role in the 1985 abduction, torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a report claims. The renewed focus into the grisly killing of Camarena – who is featured in the Netflix series “Narcos: Mexico” – is based on recent statements witnesses provided to U.S. agents and prosecutors, according to USA Today. The Justice Department reportedly started re-examining the case in 2019, two years after a federal court tossed convictions against two suspects."

Killed by a cartel. Betrayed by his own? US reexamines murder of federal agent featured in ‘Narcos’  2/28/2020 USA Today: "Michael Malone, a longtime FBI agent and prolific expert witness, testified that hair samples taken from two suspects on trial in Camarena’s murder – Rene Verdugo and Juan Matta-Ballesteros – matched hair recovered from the guest house where Camarena was tortured; therefore, it was compelling evidence putting both men at the scene of the crime. FBI scientists made such claims for years in front of judges and juries."

Trump in Palm Beach: With Bay of Pigs veterans’ support, president scraps Obama Cuba policy  11/29/2019 Palm Beach Daily News: "Trump came to know the veterans’ stories firsthand and was visibly moved, said López de la Cruz and Felix Rodriguez, another veteran who later served the CIA in operations across the hemisphere, including one in Bolivia that captured and executed Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara. “He was very moved by the stories of brutality that he heard from inside Cuba. He heard firsthand from the people who suffered there,” Rodriguez said of Trump. “He had that information way back there and I think it did weigh on him strongly, and he still remembers.”"

CIA Covert Operator Barr as Trump’s Attorney General  12/12/2018 Yorbing News: "When George H.W. Bush became CIA Director in 1976, Barr joined the CIA’s “legal office” and Bush’s inner circle, and worked alongside Bush’s longtime CIA enforcers Theodore “Ted” Shackley, Felix Rodriguez, Thomas Clines, and others, several of whom were likely involved with the Bay of Pigs/John F. Kennedy assassination, and numerous southeast Asian operations, from the Phoenix Program to Golden Triangle narco-trafficking."

CIA agents in Bolivia: From Miami to Vallegrande  10/8/2018 Granma: "It was precisely CIA agent Félix Rodríguez who at 10:00am on October 9, 1967, received the encrypted message from his superiors with the order to assassinate Che. He carried out the order past 1:00pm that same day, after attempting to interrogate Che, beating him and telling him that he was going to kill him. This cowardly attitude was repudiated even by the Bolivian soldiers present. Researchers note that “The CIA agent also fired at Che’s body.” Having earned his stripes as a murderer, Rodríguez was rewarded with U.S. citizenship. The CIA sent him to Peru in 1968, to teach intelligence and patrol classes to a paratrooper unit; and he was later sent to South Vietnam to torture and interrogate prisoners. The Agency awarded him the “Star for Valor.”"

7 Reasons for Describing Venezuela as a ‘Mafia State’  5/16/2018 Insight Crime: [Replete with the usual demonization, has some interesting data. Insight Crime never discusses how the US government implemented large scale cocaine trafficking from Colombia through Central America and Mexico. Felix Rodriguez, Che's murderer, was a key figure in this process.+

CIA Connection to DEA Agent's Murder Too Hot for FOX News?  12/13/2017 Salem News: "William La Jeunesse and Lee Ross, the two correspondents for FOX News.com, reported in an October 10th news story posted on the internet, “US intelligence assets in Mexico reportedly tied to murdered DEA agent” that Phil Jordan, former director of DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center said, "In [Camarena’s] interrogation room, I was told by Mexican authorities, that CIA operatives were in there. Actually conducting the interrogation. Actually taping Kiki." The tapes of Kiki’s torture and murder were obtained by the DEA from the CIA, according to Hector Berrellez, his DEA supervisor who headed up the DEA’s investigation of the murder. Berrellez said, "Obviously, they [the CIA] were there. Or at least some of their contract workers were there.""

Cuba’s Coming Out Party at the Summit of the Americas  4/13/2015 Counterpunch: by Medea Benjamin - "“Half our delegation got here only to find that they couldn’t get the credentials they were promised, and were shut out of the meetings,” said Gretchen Gomez Gonzalez of the Cuban Federation of University Students, “while dissident Cubans who don’t represent anyone but themselves were given credentials to represent Cuban civil society.” Pro-government Cubans confronted the dissidents in the streets and at the meetings, calling them mercenaries for taking US money and carrying photos showing some of them embracing convicted terrorist Jose Posada Carriles. They also say that former CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, blamed for killing revolutionary hero Che Guevara, was at the Summit working with the dissidents."

“El Gato” Rodríguez, el agente CIA que mató al CHE  4/10/2015 Granma: "En 1988, una comisión del Senado, dirigida por el senador John Kerry, investiga la escandalosa operación de tráfico de drogas y de armas involucrando a Oliver North, Donald Gregg, John Poindexter, Elliott Abrams, Otto Reich, Richard Armitage, John Negroponte, Mitch Daniels y Félix Rodríguez. Félix Rodríguez, entretanto, anda por Miami, mafiando con su red de ex agentes, matones, conspiradores… Así viven los asesinos, esbirros, torturadores y criminales de cualquier calaña en su santuario estadounidense de South Florida."

La CIA apuntaló consolidación del narcotráfico en México, asegura autor  9/21/2014 La Vanguardia: "Según la investigación del agente Héctor Berreyez, el 6 de febrero de 1985 Camarena fue secuestrado por un grupo de policías que estaban al servicio de los narcos y fue llevado a una casa propiedad del cuñado del expresidente Luis Echeverría, Rubén Zuno Arce, donde fue torturado y asesinado. Los testigos afirman que en esa casa se encontraban entre otros el exsecretario de Gobernación Manuel Bartlett, actual senador de un partido de izquierda; el exsecretario de Defensa Juan Arévalo Gardoqui, fallecido en 2000, y un operador de la CIA en México, el cubano Félix Ismael Rodríguez, quien interrogó a Camarena antes de que éste fuera asesinado. Rodríguez, alias "el Gato" o "Max Gómez", había participado en diversas operaciones de la CIA, entre otras la invasión a Bahía de Cochinos, Cuba, en 1961, y la captura y asesinato del Ernesto "Ché" Guevara en Bolivia."

El agente de la DEA asesinado, Kiki Camarena, cayó en una operación de la CIA que salió mal, según fuentes de seguridad  10/27/2013 Narco News: "Berrellez también hizo otra revelación que considera parte clave del rompecabezas en el asesinato de Camarena. Como parte de la investigación de la muerte del agente de la DEA, Berrellez dice que su equipo rastreó a todos los que aparecían en su lista de llamados. Uno de esos números, dice Berrellez, pertenecía al periodista mexicano Buendía, lo que significa que Camarena estuvo en contacto con el periodista antes del asesinato de Buendía en 1984. “Buendía podía identificar a los tipos de la CIA [en la operación encubierta de armas por drogas de la Contra] por nombre. ¿Qué información le proporcionó a Kiki [Camarena]? se pregunta Berrellez. “Creo que Kiki habló con Buendía antes de su asesinato, y creo que Kiki entrevistó a Plumlee luego de eso y habló sobre lo que supo de Buendía, y luego Plumlee lo informó [a sus superiores de la CIA] lo que finalmente llevó a que Kiki fuera levantado [para interrogarlo], y luego se excedieron, y ahora está muerto.” Berrellez sólo puede especular en ese frente, pero es una opinión que tanto Plumlee como Jordan comparten. De hecho, el ex miembro del personal del senador Hart, Holen, comparte una preocupación similar. Holden afirma que la naturaleza de la información que Plumlee reportó a sus superiores de la CIA luego de reunirse con Camarena, “plantea algunas preguntas de a quién culpar por el secuestro, tortura y muerte [de Camarena].”"

The CIA agent, Felix Rodriguez, police executed DEA in Mexico. Oct 18  10/18/2013 NYC Havana Blog: [Looks like a Google translation] - "The story describes the three exagentes begins with the claim thatEl Gato Rodriguez, besides being infiltrated the DFS took a Honduran Mexico named Juan Matta Ballesteros, a figure known by Colombian drug traffickers. In Mexico, according to interviewees, Matta’s mission was to get drugs in Colombia for the Guadalajara Cartel, led by Caro Quintero in the eighties. Mexican drug trafficker gave the U.S. government facilities for selling cocaine, marijuana and other drugs where I wanted. Washington is suited because of the profits involved."

Cuban Felix ‘El Gato’ Rodriguez murdered Kiki Camarena, say U.S. agents  10/16/2013 Progreso Weekly: "Three former U.S. federal agents decided to end a 28-year silence and simultaneously entrusted this journal and the U.S. Fox news services with an information “bomb”: Enrique Kiki Camarena was not murdered by Rafael Caro Quintero — the capo that served a sentence for that crime — but by an agent of the CIA. The reason: the DEA agent discovered that his own government was collaborating with the Mexican narco in his illegal business."

“The CIA helped kill DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena,” say witnesses  10/15/2013 El Pais: "But new revelations suggest that Caro Quintero may have not been the only one responsible for the gruesome murder. Another figure has surfaced in the case, Félix Ismael “El Gato” Rodríguez, a Cuban exile who participated in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. El Gato has also been linked to the 1967 ambush of Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Bolivia. These CIA-connection claims are now being brought to light by Phil Jordan, the former director of DEA’s powerful El Paso Intelligence Center in Texas; former DEA agent Héctor Berrellez; and Tosh Plumlee, who maintained he was hired to fly covert missions on behalf of US intelligence. The three men spoke to Fox News in exclusive interviews broadcast last Thursday… In its own investigation this week, the Mexican news magazine Proceso delved even further by reporting that El Gato introduced a Honduran, Juan Matta, to the Guadalajara cartel. Matta served as a middle-man between Colombian traffickers and Caro Quintero, who was the “head of all the heads” in the Mexican cartel."

“Camarena fue asesinado por la CIA”  10/14/2013 El Pais: "Hasta ahora se pensaba que Camarena había sido asesinado por orden de los fundadores del cartel de Guadalajara, entre ellos El Príncipe Caro Quintero. El funcionario estadounidense había desmantelado con sus investigaciones una gigantesca plantación de marihuana de un rancho llamado El Búfalo y en represalia los capos habían ordenado su secuestro y asesinato. Se han escrito ríos de tinta sobre estos hechos, narrados exactamente de esta manera. Estas nuevas revelaciones apuntan, en cambio, a que trabajadores vinculados con el Gobierno de EE UU encargaron el asesinato de Camarena a un personaje novelesco, Félix Ismael Rodríguez, alias El Gato, un cubano que participó en la frustrada invasión de Bahía de Cochinos y en la muerte de Ernesto Che Guevara en Bolivia en 1967. El giro a la historia corre a cargo de Phil Jordan, exdirector del Centro de Inteligencia de El Paso (EPIC); Héctor Berrellez, exagente de la DEA; y Tosh Plumlee, expiloto que en ocasiones realizó trabajó para las agencias federales. Los tres detallaron a la cadena Fox News que policías mexicanos y particulares estadounidenses relacionados con la CIA participaron en las torturas a Camarena en 1985 y que incluso las grabaron en video. Un portavoz de la CIA lo negó rotundamente: “Es ridículo”."

The Anti-Che  8/7/2013 National Review: "The 60 Minutes piece done on him in 1989 is an exercise in soft-Left condescension. It portrays anti-Communism as some kind of mental disorder, or at least a sign of immaturity. Of Rodriguez, Mike Wallace says, “He has never lost his love of war nor his anti-Communist ideals.” Rodriguez doesn’t love war: But he is willing to fight in order to keep or gain freedom and peace. At the end of the segment, Wallace wonders, “What does the future hold for this 48-year-old foot soldier in a fading Cold War?” Arthur Liman, who was chief counsel to the Iran-Contra Committee, says, “I think that Felix Rodriguez will probably end up — and I hate to say this — in an unmarked grave in some faraway place, fighting the remnants of Communism.” Wallace responds, “A little bit like Che Guevara.”"

Honduras: el proveedor de gases israelíes, un viejo socio de la conexión Bush-Posada  9/26/2009 Cubadebate: "Yehuda Leitner radicado en Honduras, denunciado como proveedor de armas y gases tóxicos a la dictadura hondureña de Roberto Micheletti, es un ex oficial del ejercito israelí quién perteneció en los años 80 a la red de contrabando del multimillonario Gerard Latchinian, que abastecía en armas a los cubanoamericanos Felix Rodriguez y Luis Posada Carriles en sus operaciones luego conocidas cómo escandalo Iran-Contra. Rodriguez y Posada manejaban entonces la escandalosa operación de venta de droga contra armas, encubierta por Bush George padre, vicepresidente de la administración ultraderechista de Ronald Reagan. La Canciller del gobierno constitucional de Honduras Patricia Rodas, denunció este viernes 25 de septiembre en Wastington como “fuentes de la inteligencia militar leales a Zelaya” informaron que “los químicos y armas del asedio (de Brasil en Tegucigalpa) han sido proporcionadas por las empresas Alfacom e Intercom”, propiedad del ciudadano israelí Yehuda Leitner, que “sirvió de intermediario con Israel”."

Venezuelan Ambassador visiting Bay Area  5/1/2007 SF Bay View: by Willie Thompson - "The Venezuelan pledge of support for Katrina victims, social developments in Venezuela and the circumstances of the Afro- and other marginalized Venezuelans are among the specific issues Ambassador Alvarez plans to discuss. In addition, the Ambassador will give an update on the Bolivarian Revolution, thank U.S. supporters and visitors for their solidarity with Venezuela, and encourage them to increase their influence through writing, visiting and speaking to their elected representatives. Venezuela is also looking for opportunities to help the people of the U.S. in areas where they are faced with adverse conditions, such as natural disasters and fuel cost increases, according to Peter Cohn. Immediately after the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane and flood devastated New Orleans, CITGO, the Venezuelan oil retailer in the U.S., offered a million dollars for the mostly Black and poor survivors. Felix Rodriguez, CITGO president and CEO, also offered two mobile hospital units, 120 specialists in rescue operations, 10 water purifying plants, 18 electricity generators, 20 tons of bottled water and 50 tons of canned food. The Washington Post now reports what Katrina survivors have known since 2005, that the U.S. government declined the Venezuelan offer along with 95 percent of the $850 million and valuable supplies and services offered by other allies. The fact that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had said that no offer would be refused suggests that her influence, authority and responsibility as head of the U.S. State Department is diminished."

Celerino Castillo on Luis Posada Carriles  11/11/2005 From the Wilderness: published 5/17/05, by Celerino "Cele" Castillo, 3rd, the ex-DEA Agent who exposed Felix Rodriguez, the man who killed Che, as a major narcoterrorist.

American Helicopter Crashes in Afghanistan  6/29/2005 Washington Post: "A large U.S. military helicopter crashed Tuesday afternoon while carrying at least 16 American troops to reinforce a counterterrorism mission in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. officials confirmed. The fate of those on board was not immediately known, and the area of the crash was rugged and hilly. Afghan officials said the CH-47 Chinook helicopter was hit by a rocket while flying over Konar province, near the Pakistani border. A purported spokesman for the Taliban Islamic militia asserted responsibility for the attack. A U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter lands in the Shah-e-Kot mountains, 25 kilometers (15 miles) southeast of Gardez, Afghanistan in this March 15, 2002 file photo. A U.S. CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter crashed Tuesday June 28, 2005 while flying troops into eastern Afghanistan, and the fate of those on board was not immediately known, the military said. Military officers in the United States said initial indications were that the helicopter had been brought down by enemy fire. "There's certainly potential for some casualties," one senior officer acknowledged." Konar province has served as a refuge for several armed groups that have mounted sporadic attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces during the past several years. Loyalists of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan minister who is now a fugitive opponent of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, are reportedly operating in the territory." [Too blatant to be listed as an accident? Hekmatyar was formerly the CIA's golden boy against the Russians and headed a large narcotics trafficking network, much like Posada Carriles and Felix Rodriguez.]

Cuban militant worked for US in Contra supply network  5/30/2005 Tallahassee Democrat: "Using the "Ramon Medina" alias, Posada worked closely with another militant Cuban exile known as "Max Gomez" at the major Contra staging area at Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador. "Max Gomez" was actually Felix Rodriguez, a longtime CIA operative who took part in a 1967 operation in Bolivia that led to the capture and execution of Castro's revolutionary ally Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Posada needed a job, and Rodriguez had a destination," said Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a nonprofit organization at George Washington University that collects and publicizes government documents. "If Rodriguez is the CEO of the operation, Posada is the chief operating officer." [Predictably, this US paper neglects to mention the large scale narcotics trafficking Posada and Rodriguez organized out of Ilopango.]

Former CIA Agent Affirms Possibility of Chavez’s Assassination in Venezuela  3/17/2005 HOV: "In an interview on Miami’s Spanish-language channel 22, the former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez said that the U.S. government has plans to “bring about a change in Venezuela.” When pressed as to what type of plans these might be, Rodriguez responded that the Bush administration “could do it with a military strike, with a plane.” The former CIA agent’s comments were made last week, on Thursday, during the talk show of a well-known supporter of the anti-Castro movement, Maria Elvira Salazar. Rodriguez affirmed during the program, “According to information I have about what is happening in Venezuela, it is possible that at some moment they [the Bush administration] will see itself obliged, for national security reasons and because of problems they have in Colombia, to implement a series of measures that will bring about a change in Venezuela.” The moderator, not satisfied with his vague answer, asked Rodriguez what kind of measures these might be and he responded, “They could be economic measures and at some point they could be military measures.” He then added, “If at some point they are going to do it, they will do it openly.” As an example, Rodriguez gave the Reagan administration’s strike against Khadafi, whose residence was bombed and whose adoptive daughter was killed in the process."

Contra Campaign  9/23/2004 Miami New Times: "The so-called Kerry Committee alleged that Rodriguez had helped steer $10 million from the notorious Medellín cocaine cartel to the contras. The committee concluded that trafficking was rampant in the rebels' effort… That was some seventeen years ago, but Rodriguez's hatred for Kerry -- and his closeness to the Bush family -- has driven Rodriguez from the CIA shadows onto the open political stage. He's railed against Kerry on Cuban radio and in the October edition of Soldier of Fortune magazine. He also jumped at the chance to join the Vietnam Veterans for Truth, an anti-Kerry group that invited Rodriguez to speak at a nationally televised September 12 rally at the Capitol… President Dick Cheney, who was then a congressman, played a key role in the disinformation campaign. He led the effort to squelch various Iran-contra investigations, especially when it came to drug allegations. And George W. Bush? Well, he seems to have no qualms about Iran-contra, since he has hired several of the scandal's central figures -- including Elliott Abrams, Otto Reich, and John Negroponte -- to serve under him… Perhaps the most damning allegation against Rodriguez comes from former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Celerino Castillo, a decorated Vietnam vet who was stationed in Central America during Iran-contra. While working for the DEA, Castillo says he became aware of drug trafficking at San Salvador's Ilopango air base, where Rodriguez was organizing the contra supply effort. The DEA agent has testified in Congress and recounted in his well-documented book, Powderburns, how the airport hangars controlled by Rodriguez and other government operatives were used by drug traffickers. "The only reason Felix wasn't arrested is because he knew where all the bodies were buried in the Iran-contra operation," says Castillo, who is now a substitute high school teacher living in Texas."

kerry_lied_while_good_men_died_rally_update  9/22/2004 www.vnsfvetakerry.com: "Felix Rodriguez, Bay of Pigs veteran and CIA officer, dramatically recounted his personal encounters with Kerry in Senate Intelligence Committee hearings." Felix Rodriguez managed the Contra Resuply operation out of Ilopango, El Salvador, a hub of Contra arms for Cocaine trafficking.

Felix Rodriguez: Kerry No Foe of Castro  8/30/2004 NewsMax: "Rodriguez is also looking forward to his featured speech against the candidate that is scheduled for a Sept 12 rally in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans for the Truth. This vet group, like the hard-charging Swift Boat clan, is doing everything it can to, in Rodriguez’s words, “to get the real word out about John Kerry.” ...Without targeting specific programs, Kerry’s slash-and-burn bill sought to reduce the Intelligence budget by $300 million in each of fiscal years 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000. Rodriguez has, of course, tracked all this and is using it for fodder in his radio broadcasts. According to the hero, he has had to ramp up production of the Spanish edition of “Shadow Warrior” to accommodate all the requests from his listeners, who want to learn more about the real record of Kerry."

UQ Wire: Was Bush Spy Pick On Agency Hit Team?  8/24/2004 Unanswered Questions Wire: "The Mexico City nightclub photo reveals a mixed group of apparent Cuban exiles, Italian wise guys, and square-jawed military intelligence types. It was discovered among keepsakes kept in the safe of the widow of CIA pilot and drug smuggler Barry Seal (third from left). It appears on the cover of “Barry & ‘the boys:’ The CIA, the Mob & America’s Secret History” (MadCow Press, Eugene OR. 2001). Goss appears second on the left. He is seated between notorious CIA pilot and drug smuggler Barry Seal (third left) and the equally-notorious CIA assassin Felix Rodriguez (front left), a Cuban vice cop under the corrupt Mob-run Batista regime who later became an Iran Contra operative and a confidant of the first George Bush. The only one of the spook celebrants displaying any hint of tradecraft (seated on the other side of the table covering his face with his sport coat) is Frank Sturgis, most famous as one of the Watergate burglars." [Felix ran Ilopango at the heart of Cocaine Contra.]

Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía: El hombre que asesinó al Che  10/7/2003 Cubadebate: "En diciembre 1985, George Bush recibe abierta y desvergonzadamente a su amigo Félix Rodríguez, torturador, asesino, ladrón y narcotraficante en la Casa Blanca. Rodríguez participa ahí en la celebración de Navidad. En octubre del año siguiente, el General Singlaub se queja de los "contactos diarios" de Rodríguez con la oficina de Bush, temiendo "daños para el presidente Reagan y el Partido Republicano"."

Cuban warns of Posada Carriles’ possible escape  6/24/2002 Granma: Posada was Felix Rodriguez #2 at Ilo Pango air force base in El Salvador, the source of much Coca Contra trafficking in the 80's. Felix is a long time CIA employee close to George Bush senior and the CIA rep in on the Che take down.

Castro foe won't face murder plot charge  2/20/2002 Miami Herald: Posada Carriles was Felix Rodriguez' #2 at Ilo Pango, the center of the Coca Contra trade. He could have blown that wide open…

Miami-Dade Reversal -- A Cuban Terrorist Payback To Bush Family?  12/7/2000 Pacific News: "At the core of the CANF terrorist connection was Mas Canosa's personal friendship with two other Cubans who had worked for the CIA, Luis Posada and Felix Rodriguez. In 1985 Rodriguez was reporting personally to Vice President Bush's office about his logistical support for the Contras from a base in El Salvador. That same year, Mas Canosa helped Posada escape from a Venezuelan prison and relocate in El Salvador as part of the Rodriguez Contra supply operation. (Seven years later, at a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner, President Bush said, "I salute Jorge Mas.") "

Section of Pamphlet released as part of Nancy Spannaus' campaign for U. S. Senate, Virginia  8/1/1994 American Almanac: "The people Ollie North worked with in the Contra operation could make up an international police lineup of drug traffickers and terrorists. Here are some of his most notable associates: {{Juan Ramo@aan Matta Ballesteros:}} This Honduran cocaine kingpin was convicted in July 1990 of conspiracy to kidnap, torture, and murder DEA agent Enrique Camarena. {The Los Angeles Times} (July 7, 1990) said that Ballesteros ``is reputed to be one of the world's biggest drug kingpins.'' At the time of the Camarena affair, Matta Ballesteros was the owner of a Honduran charter airline, SETCO Air, that was paid over half-a-million dollars by the U.S. State Department to airlift ``humanitarian aid'' to the Contras in a program run by Ollie North from the White House. Other funds, drawn directly from secret North-Secord bank accounts in Switzerland, were also funneled into SETCO Air. The Kerry Report states: ``SETCO was the recipient in 1986 of $185,924, in State Department NHAO office funds for the transportation of humanitarian assistance to the FDN [Contras] based in Honduras. A 1983 U.S. Customs Service report stated that `SETCO aviation is a corporation formed by American businessmen who are dealing with Matta and are smuggling narcotics into the United States.' The Matta referred to in the report is Juan Matta Ballesteros, a major cocaine trafficker in the region, and wanted by U.S. law enforcement agencies for the brutal murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico.'' An Aug. 9, 1985 entry by Oliver North into his notebook removes any shadow of a doubt that North was fully aware of the Contra-cocaine connection: ``Honduran DC-6 which is being used for runs out of New Orleans is probably being used for drug runs into U.S.'' The Honduran plane referenced by North was owned by Matta Ballesteros."

The book that could turn Whitewatergate into Bushgate  4/29/1994 EIR, LaRouche: Review of Compromised: Clinton, Bush, and the CIA by Terry Reed and John Cummings. [LaRouche publications are suspect, but many of the details match up with other sources not published at this time.]

Group: Cuban American National Foundation  8/1/1989 Namebase: "Govt Connections: Mas Canosa is a close friend of Felix Rodriguez (aka Max Gomez). Rodriguez worked for the CIA until the mid-1970s. He was involved in the Iran-Contra network, coordinating the transfer of arms and supplies to the contras from the Ilopango air field in El Salvador.(8) During the 1980s Rodriguez met on several occasions with then-Vice President George Bush and was heavily involved in the Iran-Contra affair.(1,2) Jorge Mas Canosa is on the Radio Marti board.(29) Oliver North's diaries refer to Mas Canosa as a pass through for money in the Nicaraguan contra support network.(29)" Coca Contra.
     

Links/Enlacestop

Bush and Felix RodriguezContra Resuppliers Who Did Not Testify, Part II, The Guardian, September 30, 1987

Felix Rodriguez and cocaine smuggling for the Contras, CBS News, Nov 15, 1996

Claims linking Contras, drugs, El Salvador revived,   Dallas Morning News, 11/30/96

DEA Agent Celerino Castillo testimony, April 27, 1998

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Félix_Rodríguez_(soldier)

spartacus-educational.com/JFKroderiguez.htm

Venezuela and the Narcos   Venezuela y los narco   Narco Colombia News

www.cantankerousbuddha.com/2015/01/wiki-felix-rodriguez-aka-maximo-gomez.html
  

The Murder of Senior DEA Agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena in 1985top

Most references to a "CIA agent" in the Kiki Camarena murder are to Felix Rodriguez.

Berrellez habalndo de Felix
La CIA, Camarena y Caro Quintero: La historia secreta, 2014  Entrevista con Berrellez.
US probing claims that CIA operative, DEA official betrayal led to murder of agent: report  2/28/2020 Fox News: "The U.S. Justice Department is investigating explosive new allegations that a Central Intelligence Agency operative and Drug Enforcement Administration official played a role in the 1985 abduction, torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a report claims. The renewed focus into the grisly killing of Camarena – who is featured in the Netflix series “Narcos: Mexico” – is based on recent statements witnesses provided to U.S. agents and prosecutors, according to USA Today. The Justice Department reportedly started re-examining the case in 2019, two years after a federal court tossed convictions against two suspects."

Ex-DEA chief who was best friend of agent 'Kiki' Camarena who appears in new Narcos TV show reveals how he avenged his pal's cartel murder... and how a bead of sweat could get you killed while undercover  11/13/2018 Daily Mail: "Mike continued: ‘They were doing inhuman things to him. Sticking things up him and other appalling torture. After more than 30 hours Rafael Caro Quintero came to the ranch house. Mike said: ‘According to one of the witnesses, he was high on cocaine. He walked up to Kiki and hit him on the head with a piece of pipe. That was the death blow. ‘Fonseca, older and wiser than Quintero, then showed up and saw Kiki was dying. He slapped Quintero on the face and told him, “this is your baby, you live with it”. ‘That’s because he knew killing a US federal agent was going to bring the full force of our government against them. He was smart enough to know that. Quintero was much more brazen and thought get away with anything.’ Ballesteros was conclusively tied to the horror when strands of his hair were found in a drained swimming pool at the kidnap ranch."

HOW A DOGGED L.A. DEA AGENT UNRAVELED THE CIA'S ALLEGED ROLE IN THE MURDER OF KIKI CAMARENA  7/1/2015 LA Weekly 

Blood on the Corn  11/17/2014 Medium 

Docs Reveal CIA-Guadalajara Link, Not Conspiracy  11/13/2013 Insight Crime: "At first glance, they seemed like wild assertions: in October, the Mexican magazine Proceso and Fox News, based on interviews with two former agents and a former contractor, said the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had executed Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985, after Camarena discovered the agency’s plan to finance the CIA’s proxy army in Central America, the Contras, using illicit drug funds. The details were sketchy — reports of a CIA asset recording the torture session came via Mexican informants, for instance — but the sources were strong. Ex-DEA agent Phil Jordan once headed the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC); Hector Berrellez was a DEA supervisor on the case; and Tosh Plumlee was a former CIA contract pilot who worked with SETCO, a Honduran-based airline owned by Honduran drug trafficker Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros."

El agente de la DEA asesinado, Kiki Camarena, cayó en una operación de la CIA que salió mal, según fuentes de seguridad  10/27/2013 Narco News: "Berrellez también hizo otra revelación que considera parte clave del rompecabezas en el asesinato de Camarena. Como parte de la investigación de la muerte del agente de la DEA, Berrellez dice que su equipo rastreó a todos los que aparecían en su lista de llamados. Uno de esos números, dice Berrellez, pertenecía al periodista mexicano Buendía, lo que significa que Camarena estuvo en contacto con el periodista antes del asesinato de Buendía en 1984. “Buendía podía identificar a los tipos de la CIA [en la operación encubierta de armas por drogas de la Contra] por nombre. ¿Qué información le proporcionó a Kiki [Camarena]? se pregunta Berrellez. “Creo que Kiki habló con Buendía antes de su asesinato, y creo que Kiki entrevistó a Plumlee luego de eso y habló sobre lo que supo de Buendía, y luego Plumlee lo informó [a sus superiores de la CIA] lo que finalmente llevó a que Kiki fuera levantado [para interrogarlo], y luego se excedieron, y ahora está muerto.” Berrellez sólo puede especular en ese frente, pero es una opinión que tanto Plumlee como Jordan comparten. De hecho, el ex miembro del personal del senador Hart, Holen, comparte una preocupación similar. Holden afirma que la naturaleza de la información que Plumlee reportó a sus superiores de la CIA luego de reunirse con Camarena, “plantea algunas preguntas de a quién culpar por el secuestro, tortura y muerte [de Camarena].”"

Assassinated DEA Agent Kiki Camarena Fell in a CIA Operation Gone Awry, Say Law Enforcement Sources  10/27/2013 Narco News: "Present at the house in Guadalajara where Camarena was held after his kidnapping, Berrellez says, were narco-traffickers like Caro Quintero, his partner Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and members of their organization. Also at the house, he adds, were DFS agents as well as several CIA operatives, among others — along with plenty of tape-recording equipment. Berrellez says he has sources who were at the house when Camarena was being tortured and later became government witnesses and have confirmed these facts. The goal of abducting Camarena, Berrellez believes, was not to kill him, but rather to conduct a police-style interrogation to find out where he was getting his information about CIA’s covert operations in Mexico. Berrellez — as well as Jordan and Plumlee — say they believe it is likely Camarena was abducted on orders from powerful individuals who were calling the shots in the CIA-supported Contra supply operation (individuals who ultimately reported to the White House)."

The CIA agent, Felix Rodriguez, police executed DEA in Mexico. Oct 18  10/18/2013 NYC Havana Blog: [Looks like a Google translation] - "The story describes the three exagentes begins with the claim thatEl Gato Rodriguez, besides being infiltrated the DFS took a Honduran Mexico named Juan Matta Ballesteros, a figure known by Colombian drug traffickers. In Mexico, according to interviewees, Matta’s mission was to get drugs in Colombia for the Guadalajara Cartel, led by Caro Quintero in the eighties. Mexican drug trafficker gave the U.S. government facilities for selling cocaine, marijuana and other drugs where I wanted. Washington is suited because of the profits involved."

Cuban Felix ‘El Gato’ Rodriguez murdered Kiki Camarena, say U.S. agents  10/16/2013 Progreso Weekly: "Three former U.S. federal agents decided to end a 28-year silence and simultaneously entrusted this journal and the U.S. Fox news services with an information “bomb”: Enrique Kiki Camarena was not murdered by Rafael Caro Quintero — the capo that served a sentence for that crime — but by an agent of the CIA. The reason: the DEA agent discovered that his own government was collaborating with the Mexican narco in his illegal business."

“The CIA helped kill DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena,” say witnesses  10/15/2013 El Pais: "But new revelations suggest that Caro Quintero may have not been the only one responsible for the gruesome murder. Another figure has surfaced in the case, Félix Ismael “El Gato” Rodríguez, a Cuban exile who participated in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. El Gato has also been linked to the 1967 ambush of Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Bolivia. These CIA-connection claims are now being brought to light by Phil Jordan, the former director of DEA’s powerful El Paso Intelligence Center in Texas; former DEA agent Héctor Berrellez; and Tosh Plumlee, who maintained he was hired to fly covert missions on behalf of US intelligence. The three men spoke to Fox News in exclusive interviews broadcast last Thursday… In its own investigation this week, the Mexican news magazine Proceso delved even further by reporting that El Gato introduced a Honduran, Juan Matta, to the Guadalajara cartel. Matta served as a middle-man between Colombian traffickers and Caro Quintero, who was the “head of all the heads” in the Mexican cartel."

“Camarena fue asesinado por la CIA”  10/14/2013 El Pais: "Hasta ahora se pensaba que Camarena había sido asesinado por orden de los fundadores del cartel de Guadalajara, entre ellos El Príncipe Caro Quintero. El funcionario estadounidense había desmantelado con sus investigaciones una gigantesca plantación de marihuana de un rancho llamado El Búfalo y en represalia los capos habían ordenado su secuestro y asesinato. Se han escrito ríos de tinta sobre estos hechos, narrados exactamente de esta manera. Estas nuevas revelaciones apuntan, en cambio, a que trabajadores vinculados con el Gobierno de EE UU encargaron el asesinato de Camarena a un personaje novelesco, Félix Ismael Rodríguez, alias El Gato, un cubano que participó en la frustrada invasión de Bahía de Cochinos y en la muerte de Ernesto Che Guevara en Bolivia en 1967. El giro a la historia corre a cargo de Phil Jordan, exdirector del Centro de Inteligencia de El Paso (EPIC); Héctor Berrellez, exagente de la DEA; y Tosh Plumlee, expiloto que en ocasiones realizó trabajó para las agencias federales. Los tres detallaron a la cadena Fox News que policías mexicanos y particulares estadounidenses relacionados con la CIA participaron en las torturas a Camarena en 1985 y que incluso las grabaron en video. Un portavoz de la CIA lo negó rotundamente: “Es ridículo”."

Camarena Figure Gets 3 Life Terms : Drugs: Honduran Juan Matta Ballesteros has received two other lengthy sentences for his role in the DEA agent’s murder.  5/9/1991 LA Times: "Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, 46, a Honduran national, will serve the concurrent triple life terms in addition to 150-year and 75-year consecutive sentences handed down by Los Angeles federal court judges during the last 17 months. “The sentences are a joke--a political joke,” Matta’s attorney, Martin A. Stolar said. Stolar said Matta’s conviction in the Camarena case will be appealed. Appeals in the two earlier convictions are also pending. During the trial, prosecutors charged that Matta attended meetings to plan the abduction of Camarena in retaliation for U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency campaigns to deter cocaine trafficking in Mexico. Prosecutors described the affluent Honduran businessman as one of the most influential drug smugglers ever jailed in the United States."

Honduran Guilty of Kidnapping, Not Murder, of U.S. Drug Agent  7/27/1990 NYT: "Mr. Matta was convicted in the ninth day of jury deliberations on charges of racketeering in the kidnapping and slaying of Mr. Camarena, of conspiring to kidnap Mr. Camarena and of kidnapping the agent and holding him for interrogation. But jurors found Mr. Matta not guilty of a count that charged Mr. Matta with murdering Mr. Camarena, a 31-year-old agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration."

KEY SUSPECT ARRESTED IN U.S. AGENT`S DEATH  4/6/1988 Chicago Tribune: "Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros was being flown to the U.S. early Wednesday, where he is to face four drug-related indictments, according to sources here. They said Matta also will be questioned about the 1985 murder in Mexico of Enrique Camarena, an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration."
  

The Guardiantop

Contra Resuppliers Who Did Not Testify
Part II
by Peter Shinkle and Dennis Bernstein
The Guardian, September 30, 1987

U.S. military officials, private businessmen and mercenaries are among those who kept the contras supplied when support from the U.S. government was forbidden by the Boland Amendment that halted military assistance to the contras until 1986.  But several key figures who worked for the contras in El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and the U.S. during this period did
not testify before the Iran-contra committee.

Florida federal public defender John Mattes, who investigated the resupply network, said the Iran-contra select committee made a mistake in questioning high officials without talking to the footsoldiers of the North Network, the men who handled the gritty underside of the resupply effort.

"(The select committees) went to the ... heads of the conspiracy, to the John Poindexters and to the Oliver Norths and said, 'Did you do anything wrong, are you guilty of a crime?'" said Mattes. "Any good criminal investigation starts at the ground leve and builds the case against the principals by using the footsoldiers. In this situation they should have interviewed the mercenaries and asked them who they were working for."

...Col. James Steele, former chief U.S. military adviser in El Salvador and senior officer in charge of U.S. military operations based at El Salvador's Ilopango airport, could have revealed significant information about U.S. military involvement in the contra resupply effort. Steele was in regular contact with Felix Rodriguez from September 1985 through summer 1986, according to Rodriguez's testimony before the Congressional investigating committees last May. Steele made Rodriguez his "deputy," allowed him to use a military car, and gave him a KL-43, a coding device provided to Steele by North, according to a memo sent to North released by the committees.

For the rest of the article, see http://www.wbaifree.org/bernstein/guardian/g870930.html

On CBS Newstop

The CIA and Cocaine: Truth and Disinformation
Who has the airplanes?

November 15, 1996--John Deutch, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, went to Watts to speak to hundreds of
neighborhood residents. The head of the CIA visiting the ghetto!? Now you know they must be in deep trouble! The CIA and the media tried to suppress the stories of CIA drug-dealing.

For 10 years, the mainstream media refused to report on it--even when the Senate's own Kerry Report brought out damning evidence. They tried to ignore the series by Gary Webb that appeared in the San Jose Mercury that revealed the names of Nicaraguan contra operatives who were distributing cocaine in South Central L.A. and Compton to raise money for the CIA's secret contra war.

In the last month, this country's most prominent newspapers, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times, all carried stories intended to discredit Webb's report. This campaign has not worked. On Nightline, November 15, Ted Koppel remarked how attempts to dis Webb's report had only made the masses of people more suspicious that crimes were being covered up.

...Who Has the Planes?

Thirty years ago, Malcolm X made a penetrating observation: Oppressed people don't own airplanes and boats. The media and the government try to blame oppressed people for drugs--but international drug trafficking requires fleets of cargo planes, landing strips in several countries, networks of international contacts, pools of investment money, networks for money laundering and the high-level contacts for getting past U.S. Customs and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

In 1989, pilot Mike Tolliver told CBS that, after years of smuggling drugs, he was recruited into the contra supply operation by a "Mr. Hernandez." Tolliver identified "Hernandez" as Felix Rodríguez, the CIA agent directing contra supply from El Salvador's Ilopango Air Base. Tolliver says he flew a DC-6 loaded with guns and ammunition for "Hernandez" in March 1986, from Butler Aviation at the Miami Airport down to Aguacate, the U.S.-controlled contra air base in Honduras. Tolliver says the guns were unloaded by contras and he was paid about $70,000 by "Hernandez." After a three-day layover, Tolliver said he flew the aircraft, reloaded with over 25,000 pounds of marijuana, as a "nonscheduled military flight" into Homestead Air Force Base near Miami.

"We landed about 1:30, 2 o'clock in the morning," said Tolliver, "and a little blue truck came out and met us. [It] had a little white sign on it that said `Follow Me' with flashing lights. We followed it." "I was a little taken aback," Tolliver told the CBS program West 57th. "I figured it was a DEA bust or a sting or something like that." It wasn't. Tolliver said he just left the plane and the drugs sitting there at the airport to be unloaded, and took a taxi from the base.[1]

West 57th traced this DC-6 back to a company called Vortex. Vortex is one of four airlines hired by the U.S. State Department to supply the contras--using money designated by Congress as being for "humanitarian aid" only.

In April 1987, a Customs service official told the Boston Globe, "We think he did land at Homestead," and acknowledged that there was a system under which contra supply flights were able to fly in and out of U.S. airports free of Customs inspection. But that same Customs official claimed that Tolliver was only a "free-lancer" who "bluffed his way" into Homestead. One researcher writes, "It was not explained how Tolliver bluffed his way into an Air Force base, leaving behind over 25,000 pounds of marijuana which apparently bluffed their way out."[1]

[1] Washington's War on Nicaragua, Holly Sklar, South End Press, 1988

This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
http://www.mcs.net/~rwor

Dallas Morning News top

Claims linking Contras, drugs, El Salvador revived           
(extracted from: http://cgi.sjmercury.com/drugs/postscript/update1130.htm) [no longer available due to Agency pressure]

Published: Nov. 30, 1996

BY DAVID LaGESSE AND GEORGE RODRIGUE
Dallas Morning News


WASHINGTON -- Ten years ago, El Salvador's Ilopango Air Base served as the major depot for American aid pouring south into a secret war against Nicaragua's Marxist Sandinista regime.

A former federal agent charges that Ilopango also served as a key transit point for smugglers flying narcotics back north, some of whom flew for the U.S.-backed Contras.

Former Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Celerino Castillo III said that while the White House ran its covert war, he ran his own secret operation -- and that his informants found a startling mix of arms, narcotics and money at Ilopango.

Castillo, now retired and living in McAllen, Texas, said he found that many pilots flying for the Contras were listed in DEA records as suspected smugglers.

''I found that other agencies were sleeping with my enemy,'' Castillo said in a recent interview. ''They knew these guys (pilots) were suspected drug traffickers, and hired them anyway.''

Former officials at the base deny permitting or condoning smuggling.  ''It is absolutely false and all ... (expletive),'' said former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez, who ran the Contra resupply effort at Ilopango for the Reagan White House's National Security Council.

... When Castillo first published his allegations, in a 1994 book titled ''Powderburns,'' they got little attention.

More recent allegations of possible CIA complicity in the cocaine trade, made most prominently by the Mercury News, have raised new interest in Castillo's account. During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last week, members of the audience shouted demands for an investigation of the Texan's charges.

... Information gathered by the Dallas Morning News in Washington, Texas, Panama and El Salvador indicates that during his Central American service Castillo was rated as a dedicated and capable agent and that he had grounds for thinking that the United States was knowingly working with smugglers.

The Dallas Morning News spoke with Castillo's informants, with some of his supervisors and with an accused smuggler who flew out of Ilopango. The paper also reviewed previous congressional hearing records and some still-secret government documents by and about Castillo.

Castillo's two chief informants had intimate knowledge of Ilopango and its military overseers. They had access to its records. And they confirmed that they told Castillo that the airport was often used by drug smugglers and by drug-money couriers.

...''Castillo's stuff about Ilopango fits,'' said John Mattes, a former investigator for the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Communications. Its chairman, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., probed Contra smuggling allegations in the late 1980s.

See http://cgi.sjmercury.com/drugs/postscript/update1130.htm for the entire article. [no longer available due to Agency pressure]

DEA Agent Celerino Castillo testimonytop

Celerino "Cele" Castillo III
Author: "POWDERBURNS" Cocaine, Contras & The Drug War • 2709 N. 28 1/2 St., McAllen,Texas 78501 •
Tele/Fax: 956-631-3818 Pager: 956-318-4913 • E-Mail: cc3@hiline.net

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF CELERINO CASTILLO III, (D.E.A., RETIRED) FOR THE HOUSE
PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
April 27, 1998

For several years, I fought in the trenches of the front lines of Reagan's "Drug War", trying to stamp out
what I considered American's greatest foreign threat. But, when I was posted, in Central and South
America from 1984 through 1990, I knew we were playing the "Drug War Follies." While our government
shouted "Just Say No !", entire Central and South American nations fell into what are now known as,
"Cocaine democracies."

While with the DEA, I was able to keep journals of my assignments in Central and South America. These
journals include names, case file numbers and DEA NADDIS (DEA Master Computer) information to
back up my allegations. I have pictures and original passports of the victims that were murdered by CIA
assets. These atrocities were done with the approval of the agencies.

We, ordinary Americans, can not trust the C.I.A. Inspector General to conduct a full investigation into the
CIA or the DEA. Let me tell you why. When President Clinton (June, 1996) ordered The Intelligence
Oversight Board to conduct an investigation into allegations that US Agents were involved in atrocities in
Guatemala, it failed to investigate several DEA and CIA operations in which U.S. agents knew before
hand that individuals (some Americans) were going to be murdered.

I became so frustrated that I forced myself to respond to the I.O.B report citing case file numbers, dates,
and names of people who were murdered. In one case (DEA file # TG-86-0005) several Colombians and
Mexicans were raped, tortured and murdered by CIA and DEA assets, with the approval of the CIA.
Among those victims identified was Jose Ramon Parra-Iniguez, Mexican passport A-GUC-043 and his
two daughters Maria Leticia Olivier-Dominguez, Mexican passport A-GM-8381. Several Colombian
nationals: Adolfo Leon Morales-Arcilia "a.k.a." Adolfo Morales-Orestes, Carlos Alberto Ramirez, and Jiro
Gilardo-Ocampo. Both a DEA and a CIA agent were present, when the individuals were being
interrogated (tortured). The main target of that case was a Guatemalan Congressman, (Carlos Ramiro
Garcia de Paz) who took delivery of 2,404 kilos of cocaine in Guatemala just before the interrogation.
This case directly implicated the Guatemalan Government in drug trafficking (The Guatemalan
Congressman still has his US visa and continues to travel at his pleasure into the US). To add salt to the
wound, in 1989 these murders were investigated by the U.S Department of Justice, Office of
Professional Responsibility. DEA S/I Tony Recevuto determined that the Guatemalan Military
Intelligence, G-2 (worst human rights violators in the Western Hemisphere) was responsible for these
murders. Yet, the U.S. government continued to order U.S. agents to work hand in hand with the
Guatemalan Military. This information was never turned over to the I.O.B. investigation. (see attached
response)

I have obtained a letter, dated May 28, 1996, from the DEA administrator, to U.S. Congressman Lloyd
Doggett (D), Texas. In this letter, the administrator flatly lies, stating that DEA agents "have never
engaged in any joint narcotics programs with the Guatemalan Military".

I was there. I was the leading Agent in Guatemala. 99.9% of DEA operations were conducted with the
Guatemala military. In 1990, the DEA invited a Guatemalan military G-2 officer, Cpt. Fuentez, to attend
a DEA narcotic school, which is against DEA policy. I know this for a fact because I worked with this
officer for several years and was in Guatemala when he was getting ready to travel to the States.

Facts of my investigation on CIA-Contras drug trafficking in El Salvador:

The key to understanding the "crack cocaine" epidemic, which exploded on our streets in 1984, lies in
understanding the effect of congressional oversight on covert operations. In this case the Boland
amendment(s) of the era, while intending to restrict covert operations as intended by the will of the
People, only served to encourage C.I.A., the military and elements of the national intelligence community
to completely bypass the Congress and the Constitution in an eager and often used covert policy of
funding prohibited operations with drug money.

As my friend and colleague Michael Ruppert has pointed out through his own experience in the 1970s,
CIA has often bypassed congressional intent by resorting to the drug trade (Vietnam, Laos, Iran,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc).

When the Boland Amendment(s) cut the Contras off from a continued U.S. government subsidy, George
Bush, his national security adviser Don Gregg, and Ollie North, turned to certain foreign governments,
and to private contributions, to replace government dollars. Criminal sources of contributions were not
excluded. By the end of 1981, through a series of Executive Orders and National Security Decision
Directives, many of which have been declassified, Vice President Bush was placed in charge of all Reagan
administration intelligence operations. All of the covert operations carried out by officers of the CIA, the
Pentagon, and every other federal agency, along with a rogue army of former intelligence operatives and
foreign agents, were commanded by George Bush. Gary Webb (San Jose Mercury News) acknowledged,
that he simply had not traced the command structure over the Contras up into the White House, although
he had gotten some indications that the operation was not just CIA.

On Dec. 01, 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed a secret order authorizing the CIA to spend $19.9
million for covert military aid to the recently formed Contras--- hardly enough money to launch a serious
military operation against the Cuban and Soviet-backed Sandinista regime.

In August 1982, George Bush hired Donald P. Gregg as his principal adviser for national security affairs. In late 1984, Gregg introduced Oliver North to Felix Rodriguez, (a retired CIA agent) who had already been working in Central America for over a year under Bush's direction. Gregg personally introduced Rodriguez to Bush on Jan. 22, 1985. Two days after his January 1985 meeting, Rodriguez went to El Salvador and made arrangements to set up his base of operations at Ilopango air base. On Nov. 01, 1984, the FBI arrested Rodriguez's partner, Gerard Latchinian and convicted him of smuggling $10.3 million in cocaine into the U.S.

On Jan. 18, 1985, Rodriguez allegedly met with money-launderer Ramon Milan-Rodriguez, who had
moved $1.5 billion for the Medellin cartel. Milan testified before a Senate Investigation on the Contras' drug smuggling, that before this 1985 meeting, he had granted Felix Rodriguez's request and given $10 million from the cocaine for the Contras.

On September 10, 1985, North wrote in his Notebook:

"Introduced by Wally Grasheim/Litton, Calero/Bermudez visit to Ilopango to estab. log support./maint.
(...)"

In October of 1985, Upon my arrival in Guatemala, I was forewarned by Guatemala DEA, County
Attaché, Robert J. Stia, that the DEA had received intelligence that the Contras out of Salvador, were
involved in drug trafficking. For the first time, I had come face to face with the contradictions of my
assignment. The reason that I had been forewarned was because I would be the Lead Agent in El
Salvador.

DEA Guatemalan informant, Ramiro Guerra (STG-81-0013) was in place in Guatemala and El Salvador
on "Contra" intelligence. At the time (early 80's), he was a DEA fugitive on "Rico" (Racketeering
Influence and Corrupt Organizations) and "CCE" (Continuing Criminal Enterprise) charges out of San
Francisco. In 1986, he became an official advisor for the DEA trained El Salvador Narcotics Task Force.
In 1989, all federal charges were dropped because of his cooperation with the DEA in Central America.
Guerra is still a DEA informant in Guatemala.

December 1985, CNN reporter Brian Barger broke the story of the Contra's involved in drug trafficking.

Notes from my Journals & Intelligence Gathering

January 13, 1986, I wrote a report on El Salvador under DEA file (GFTG-86-9145).

January 16, 1986---HK-1217W--Carlos Siva and Tulio Pedras Contra pilots.

January 23, 1986, GFTG-86-9999, Air

Intelligence in "El Salvador" TG-86-0003, Samana and Raul.

In 1986, I placed an informant (Mario Murga) at the Illopango airport in El Salvador. He was initiated and
wrote the flight plans for most Contra pilots. After their names were submitted into NADDIS, it was
revealed that most pilots had already been document in DEA files as traffickers. (See DEA memo by me
date 2-14-89.)

Feb. 05, 1986, I had seized $800,000.00 in cash, 35 kilos of cocaine, and an airplane at Ilopango. DEA #
TG-86-0001; Gaitan-Gaitan, Leonel

March 24, 1986, I wrote a DEA report on the Contra operation. (GFTG-86-4003, Frigorificos de
Puntarenas, S.A), US registration aircraft N-68435 (Cessna 402).

April 17, 86, I wrote a Contra report on Arturo Renick; Johnny Ramirez (Costa Rica). Air craft TI-AQU
& BE-60.. GFTG-86-9999; Air Intelligence.

April 25,26 1986--I met with CIA Felix Vargas in El Salvador (GFTG-86-9145).

April of 1986, The Consul General of the U.S Embassy in El Salvador (Robert J. Chavez), warned me
that CIA agent George Witters was requesting a U.S visa for a Nicaraguan drug trafficker and Contra pilot
by the name of Carlos Alberto Amador. (mentioned in 6 DEA files)

May 14, 1986, I spoke to Jack O'Conner DEA HQS Re: Matta-Ballesteros. (NOTE: Juan Ramon
Matta-Ballesteros was perhaps the single largest drug trafficker in the region. Operating from Honduras he
owned several companies which were openly sponsored and subsidized by C.I.A.)

May 26, 1986, Mario Rodolfo Martinez-Murga became an official DEA informant (STG-86-0006). Before
that, he had been a sub-source for Ramiro Guerra and Robert Chavez. Under Chavez, Murga's
intelligence resulted in the seizure of several hundred kilos of cocaine, (from Ilopango to Florida) making
Murga a reliable source of information.

May 27, 1986, I Met U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alberto Adame in El Salvador. Has knowledge of the Contra
Operation at Ilopango. He was in El Salvador from 1984 thru 1987.

On June 06, 1986, I send a DEA report/telex cable to Washington DEA in regards to Contra pilots, Carlos
Amador and Carlos Armando Llamos (Honorary Ambassador from El Salvador to Panama) (N-308P).
Llamos had delivered 4 1/2 million dollars to Panama from Ilopango for the Contras. Information was
gathered by informant Mario Murga. Leon Portilla-TIANO = Navojo 31 & YS-265-American Pilot:
Francisco Viaud. Roberto Gutierrez (N-82161) Mexican (X-AB)

June 10, 1998, I spoke to CIA agent Manny Brand Re: Sofi Amoury (Cuban Contra operator and
Guatemalan Galvis-Pena in Guatemala.

June 16, 1986-GFTG-86-9999, Air Intel (DEA-6) El Salvador

Early part of 1986, I received a telex/cable from DEA Costa Rica. SA Sandy Gonzales requested for me to investigate hangers 4 and 5 at Ilopango. DEA Costa Rica had received reliable intelligence that the Contras were flying cocaine into the hangers. Both hangers were owned and operated by the CIA and the National Security Agency. Operators of those two hangars were, Lt. Col. Oliver North and CIA contract agent, Felix Rodriguez, "a.k.a." Max Gomez. (See attached letter by Bryan Blaney (O.I.C.), dated March 28, 1991).

June 18, 1986, Salvadoran Contra pilot, Francisco "Chico" Guirrola-Beeche (DEA NADDIS # 1585334
and 1744448) had been documented as a drug trafficker. On this date, at 7:30a.m, he departed Ilopango
to the Bahamas to air drop monies. On his return trip (June 21) Guirrola arrived with his passengers
Alejandro Urbizu & Patricia Bernal. In 1988 Urbizu was arrested in the US in a Cocaine conspiracy case.
In 1985 Guirrola was arrested in South Texas (Kleberg County) with 5 and 1/2 million dollars cash, which
he had picked up in Los Angeles, California. (U.S. Customs in Dallas/ Ft. Worth had case on him.)

June 18, 1986, DEA 6 on Air Intelligence, GFTG- 86-9999; El Salvador.

June 27 & 28, 1986, US Lt. Col. Albert Adame spoke with US Ambassador Edwin Corr re: Narcotics.

In a July 26, 1986 report to the Congress, on contra-related narcotics allegation, The State Department
described the Frogman CASE as follows, "this case gets it's nickname from swimmers who brought
cocaine ashore in San Francisco on a Colombian vessel." It focused on a major Colombian cocaine
smuggler, ALVARO CARVAJAL-MINOTA, who supplied a number of west coast smugglers. It was
further alleged that Nicaraguan Contra, Horacio Pererita, was subsequently convicted on drug charges in
Costa Rica and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. Two other member of the organization were
identified as Nicaraguans Carlos Cabezas & Julio Zavala. They were among the jailed West Coast
traffickers and convicted of receiving drugs from Carvajal. They claimed long after their convictions, that
they had delivered sums of monies to Contra resistance groups in Costa Rica.

July 28, 1986, I Met with CIA agents Don Richardson, Janice Elmore and Lt. Col. Adame in El Salvador.

July 29, 1986, I Met with Don Richardson and Robert Chavez at the US Embassy in El Salvador.

August 03,1986, Ramiro Guerra, Lt. Col. A. Adame, Dr. Hector Regalado (Dr. Death, who claimed to
had shot Archbishop Romero) and myself went out on patrol in El Salvador.

In Aug. 1986, The Kerry Committee requested information on the Contra pilots from the DEA. The
Department Of Justice flatly refused to give up any information.

Aug. 15, 1986, I spoke to CIA (Chief of Station) Jack McCavett and Don Richardson; El Salvador; Re:
Fernando Canelas Sanez from Florida.

Aug. 18, 1986, I received $45,000.00 in cash from CIA Chief of Station (CIA), Jack McKavett for the
purchase of vehicles for the DEA El Salvador Narcotic Task Force.

Aug. 28, 1986, I had a meeting with El Salvador US Ambassador, Edwin Corr, in regards to Wally
Grasheim, Pete's Place and Carlos Amador (3:00 p.m.)

Oscar Alvarado-Lara "a.k.a." El Negro Alvarado

(CIA asset and Contra pilot) was mentioned in 3 DEA files. On June 11, 1986, Alvardo transported 27
illegal Cubans to El Salvador Ilopango, where they were then smuggled into Guatemala. On Sept. 28,
1987, Alvarado picked up CIA Randy Capister in Puerto Barrios Guatemala after a joint DEA, CIA and
Guatemala Military (G-2) operation. Several Mexicans and Colombians were murdered and raped. This
was supported by the CIA. DEA File TG-86-0005.

1986, DEA El Salvador, initiated a file on Walter L. Grasheim (TG-87-0003). He is mentioned in several
DEA, FBI and U.S Customs files. This DEA file is at The National Archives in The Iran-Contra file in
Washington D.C (bulky # 2316). Also see attached Top Secret/Declassified Record of Interview on Mr.
Grasheim, by the Office of Independent Counsel, dated Jan. 03, 1991.

Sept. 01, 1986, at approximately 5:00pm, I received a phone call in Guatemala from (C.I) Ramiro Guerra,
Re: Raid at Wally's house in El Salvador Wally's plane (N-246-J).

On September 01, 1986, Walter Grasheim (a civilian) residence in El Salvador was search by The DEA
Task Force. Found at the residence was an arsenal of US military munitions, (allegedly for a Contra
military shipment). Found were cases of C-4 explosives, grenades, ammunition, sniper rifles, M-16's,
helicopter helmets and knives. Also found were files of payment to Salvadoran Military Officials (trips to
New York City). Found at his residence were radios and license plates belonging to the US Embassy. We
also found an M16 weapon belonging to the US Mil-Group Commander, Col. Steel. Prior to the search, I
went to every department of the U.S. Embassy and asked if this individual worked in any way shape or
form with the embassy. Every head of the departments denied that he worked for them. A pound of
marijuana and marijuana plants growing in the back yard, were also found.

Sept. 02, 1986, I departed Guatemala on Taca Airlines @ 7:30a.m to El Salvador.

Sept. 26, 1986, Meeting with Col. Steel Re: Mr. Grasheim (Col. Steel admitted that he had given an M-16
to Grasheim) and CIA George W. Also talked to Don Richardson (CIA) re: Ramiro Guerra. Talked to
Col. Adame Re: CIA George.

October 03, 1986, Spoke to DEA Panama re: Mr. Grasheim. Was advised to be careful.

October 15, 1986, Asst. Atty. Gen. Mark Richard testified before the Kerry Committee, that he had
attended a meeting with 20 to 25 officials and that the DEA did not want to provide any of the
information the committee had requested on the Contra involvement in drug trafficking.

October 21, 1986, I send a Telex/cable to Washington D.C on the Contras.

October 22, 1986 talked to El Salvador Re: Grasheim.

October 23, 1986, HK-1960P Honduras. 1,000 kilos of cocaine. DEA- 6 was written on this case.

October 29, 1986 Talked to DEA HQS (John Martch) re Contras & Grasheim.

October 30, 1986, Talked to Salvadoran Gen. Blandon re: to Mr. Grasheim.

Nov. 07, 1986, Talked to John Martch 202-786-4356 and Azzam-633-1049; Home: 301-262-1007.
(Contras).

Nov. 13, 1986, I Met with Ambassador Corr @2:00pm re: Mr. Grasheim. (He stated, "let the chips fall
where they may." Met w/ Lt. Col. Adame.

November 14, 1986, Met with Salvadoran Col. Villa Marona re: Mr. Grasheim. He advised that the U.S
Embassy had approved for Grasheim to work at Ilopango.

On January 20, 1987, Joel Brinkley (special to the New York Times) reported. "Contra Arms Crew said
To Smuggle Drugs" The 3rd secret had surfaced. Brinkley wrote: "Fed. Drug investigators uncovered
evidence last fall that the American flight crews which covertly carried arms to the Nicaraguan rebels were
smuggling cocaine and other drugs on their return trips back to the US. Administration Officials said today
that when the crew members, based in El Salvador, learned that DEA agents were investigating their
activities, one of them warned that they had White House protection. The Times then quoted an
anonymous US official who said the crew member's warnings which came after DEA searched his San
Salvador house for drugs, caused 'quite a stir' at Ilopango."

Feb. 09, 1987, I had meeting with Lt. Col. Adame and Elmore re: major argument with DEA HQS I.A.
Lourdez Border. They had just arrived in Guatemala for a two-day fact finding tour of El Salvador.

Feb.10, 1987, I met with U.S. Ambassador Corr (Salvador) re DEA HQS Intel. Analyst Lourdez Border
and Doug (last name unknown) both were rookies). In two days in El Salvador, they determined that
there was no contra involvement in drug trafficking.

February 27. 1987, I spoke to Mike Alston DEA Miami, RE: Contra pilots John Hall; Bruce Jones' airstrip
in Costa Rica, Colombian Luis Rodriguez; Mr. Shrimp-Ocean Hunter Costa Rica > to Miami. Contra
Operation from Central American to U.S.

March 03, 1987, met with Janis Elmore (CIA) from 9:00pm till 12:00

March 30, 1987, I invited U.S. Custom Agent Richard Rivera to El Salvador in an attempt to trace
ammunitions and weapons found in Mr.Grasheim's residence. It's alleged that The Pentagon put a stop on
his trace. (They were never able to trace the items).

April 01, 1987, Bob Stia, Walter (pilot) Morales and myself flew to El Salvador. Met with two CIA agents
who advised us that we could no longer utilize Murga because he was now working with them).

April 07,08,09, 1987, I met with John Martch in Guatemala Re: Contras and OPR.

Sept. 27, 1987, Central American CIA agent, Randy Capister, the Guatemala military (G-2) and myself,
seized over 2,404 kilos of cocaine from a Guatemalan Congressman, Carlos Ramiro Garcia de Paz and
the Medellin cartel (biggest cocaine seizure in Central America and top five ever). However, several
individuals were murdered and raped on said operation. CIA agent and myself saw the individual being
interrogated. The Congressman was never arrested or charged.

October 22, 1987, I received a call from DEA HQS Everett Johnson, not to close Contra files because
some committee was requesting file. If you have an open file, you do not have access to the files under
Freedom of Information Act.

Aug. 30, 1988, Received intelligence from (Guido Del Prado) at the U.S. Embassy, El Salvador re: Carlos
Armando Llemus-Herrera (Contra pilot).

Oct. 27, 1988, Received letter from "Bill," Regional Security Officer at the Embassy in El Salvador re:
Corruption on US ambassador Corr and del Prado.

Dec. 03, 1988, DEA seized 356 kilos of cocaine in Tiquisate, Guatemala (DEA # TG-89-0002; Hector
Sanchez). Several Colombians were murdered on said operation and condoned by the DEA and CIA. I
have pictures of individuals that were murdered in said case. The target was on Gregorio Valdez (CIA
asset) of The Guatemala Piper Co. At that time, all air operations for the CIA and DEA flew out of Piper.

Aug. 24, 1989, Because of my information, the U.S. Embassy canceled Guatemalan Military, Lt. Col.
Hugo Francisco Moran-Carranza, (Head of Interpol and Corruption) his U.S. visa. He was documented
as a drug trafficker and corrupt Guatemalan Official. He was on his way to a U.S. War College for one
year, invited by the CIA.

Feb. 21, 1990, I send a telex-cable to DEA HQS Re: Moran's plan to assassinate me.

Between Aug. 1989 and March 06, 1990, Col. Moran had initiated the plan to assassinate me in El
Salvador and blame it on the guerrillas. On March 06, 1990, I traveled to Houston to deliver an
undercover audio tape on my assassination. The Houston DEA S.A Mark Murtha (DEA File
M3-90-0053) had an informant into Lt. Col. Moran.

Feb. 24, 1990, I moved my family back home because DEA could not make a decision.

March 15, 1990, After 6 months knowing about the assassination plan, DEA transferred me out to San
Diego, California for 6months.

April 05, 1990, an illegal search was conducted at my residence in Guatemala by Guatemala DEA agents
Tuffy Von Briensen, Larry Hollifield and Guatemalan Foreign Service National, Marco Gonzales in
Guatemala (No search warrant). DEA HQS agreed that it had been an illegal search requested by OPR S/I
Tony Recevuto. (OPR file PR-TG-90-0068) On Sept. 16, 1991, a questionnaire was faxed to me in
regards to the illegal search. (see attached)

April 11, 1991, in an undercover capacity, Carlos Cabezas's wife sold me 5 kilos of cocaine in San
Francisco. (DEA # R3-91-0036; Milagro Rodriguez)

On April 16, 1991, I met with Carlos Cabezas at the DEA Office in San Francisco. He stated to me that
Zavala and himself were informants for the FBI in San Francisco at the time his wife delivered the
cocaine. Alvaro Carbajal had supplied the 5 kilos of cocaine. (There is undercover audio tape available as
evidence) Mr. Cabezas gave me his undercover business card. It was identified as "The California
Company" at 3519-Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94110 REAL ESTATE & INVESTMENTS Carlos A.
Cabezas, Sales Associate Pager: 371-7108 Fax: (415) 647-0918; Res: (415 991-3104; Bus: (415)
647-8014.

May 10, 1990, DEA HQS OPR S/I Tony Recevuto returned to Guatemala and requested from the U.S.
Ambassador, to please grant Lt. Col. Hugo Moran-Carranza a US Visa, so that he could testify before the
BCCI investigation in Miami. The ambassador could not understand why anyone, for any reason, request
a US Visa to an individual who had planned the assassination of a US drug agent.

May 27, 1990, I was ordered to returned back to Guatemala to pack my house whole goods. The threat
was still very real for me. On June 01, 1990, I departed Guatemala for the last time. On June 05, 1990,
another American was killed by the Guatemalan Military.
Before the Kerry Committee

The CIA acknowledgment by Central American Task Force Chief testified: "with respect to (drug
trafficking) by the Resistance Forces...It is not a couple of people. It is a lot of people."

The DEA has always stated that my reports were unfounded, but they later recanted. DEA Assistant
Administrator, David Westrate stated of the Nicaraguan War: "It is true that people on both sides of the
equation (in the Nicaraguan War) were drug traffickers, and a couple of them were pretty significant."

In a Sept. 20-26, 1989, series of debriefings and in subsequent debriefing on Feb. 13, 1990, by DEA
agents in Los Angeles, Lawrence Victor Harrison, an American-born electronics specialist who had
worked in Mexico and had been involved with the leading figures in the Mexican drug cartel, was
interviewed. He testified that he had been present when two of the partners of Matta-Ballesteros and
Rafael Caro-Quintero, met with American pilots working out of Eloping air base in El Salvador, providing
arms to the Contras. The purpose of the meeting was to work out drug deals.

Several days earlier, on Feb. 09, 1990, Harrison had told DEA interrogators that Nicaraguan Contras were
being trained at a ranch in Vera Cruz, owned by Rafael Caro Quintero. It was at Quintero's Guadalajara
ranch that DEA Agent Kiki Camarena, and his pilot were interrogated, tortured and buried alive.

January 23, 1991, letter to Mr. William M. Baker, Asst. Director of Criminal Investigative Division, FBI;
from Lawrence E. Walsh and Mike Foster,... requesting several FBI files on Walter L. Grasheim. (see
attached)

January 30, 1991, letter to DEA Ronald Caffrey, Deputy Asst. Administrator for Operation at DEA from
Craig A. Guillen, Associate Counsel of the Office of Independent Counsel; requesting Walter L. Grasheim
reports. (see attached)

In 1991, a DEA General File was opened on an Oliver North in Washington D.C. (GFGD-91-9139)
"smuggling weapons into the Philippines with known drug traffickers."

In 1991, before I departed the DEA, I met with FBI agent Mike Foster, investigator for The Office Of
Independent Counsel on Iran-Contra, where I gave him all detail information of the Contras' involvement
in drugs.

October, 1994, The Washington Post reported that former Government Officials, including the DEA,
CIA, State Department, US Customs and White House official were quoted as saying that Lt. Col. Oliver
North did not advise them of his knowledge that the Contras were involved in drug trafficking.

In 1997, I joined DEA SA Richard Horn in a federal class action suit against the CIA. The suit is against
the CIA and other federal agencies for spying on several DEA agents and other unnamed DEA employees
and their families. United States District Court for The District of Columbia; Richard Horn vs. Warren
Christopher, Civil Action No. 1:96CV02120 (HHG) January 30, 1994.



This is a list of DEA case file and names of individuals that may help support
my allegations.

GFTG-86-9145, GFTG-87-9145 El Salvador

GFTG-86-9999, GFTG-87-9999, Air Intelligence

TG-87-0003, Walter L. Grasheim (Salvador case)

TG-86-0001, Leonel Guitan-Guitan

DEA Informants STG-86-0006 and STG-81-0013

US Ambassador Edwin Corr

Janis Elmore (CIA 1986 through 1989). I reported to her when in El Salvador.

Don Richardson ( CIA & Political Officer in El Salvador 1986,87). I reported to him in El Salvador.

Felix Vargas (CIA El Salvador 1986, 87)

Col. James Steel ( Mil-Group Commander El Salvador).

U.S. Lt. Col. Alberto Adame (Under Steel)

Lupita Vega (the only Salvadoran which was cleared for "Top Secret") worked in the Milgroup in El
Salvador.

Felix Rodriguez (CIA at Ilopango hanger 4 & 5)

Jack McCavett (CIA Chief of Station in El Salvador).

CIA George Witter in El Salvador. He asked for US visa on drug trafficker Carlos Alberto Amador.

CIA Randy Capister (covert operation in Central America 1985 t090). Involved in several atrocities.

CIA Manuel Brand (retired Cuban-American) Guatemala

State Department (De Luoie) El Salvador.

State Department RSO Bill Rouche El Salvador

State Dept. Official Del Prado (El Salvador)

DEA John Martsh (DEA HQS)

DEA Jack O'Conner (DEA HQS)

DEA HQS Agents AZZAM & Frank Torello (retired) involved in Contra ops in Europe.

Salvadoran General Bustillo (retired in Florida)

US Custom Richard Rivera and Philip Newton

DEA Sandy Gonzales (Costa Rica)

Lincoln Benedicto-Honduras US Embassy-Consul General April 30, 1986. Re: Matta-Ballesteros

Some people have asked, "Why I am doing this? I reply, "That a long time ago I took an oath to protect
The Constitution of the United States and its citizens". In reality, it has cost me so much to become a
complete human being, that I've lost my family. In 1995, I made a pilgrimage to the Vietnam Wall, where
I renounced my Bronze Star in protest of the atrocities my government had committed in Central
America. I have now become a veteran of my third, and perhaps most dangerous war --- a war against
the criminals within my own Government. Heads have to roll for those who are responsible and still
employed by the government. They will be the first targets in an effective drug strategy. If not, we will
continue to have groups of individuals who will be beyond any investigation, who will manipulate the
press, judges and members of our Congress, and still be known in our government as those who are
above the law.

Celerino Castillo III 

 

Call Cele at (956)631-3818 to purchase his book - POWDER BURNS: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War .

 

Model letter to Janet Reno supporting an investigationtop

Please forward all responses to CAAEF at: caaef@igc.org or see P/F info at end of letter.

I hope many of you will agree to have your name or organization on the letter. Many of us are working hard at keeping this issue alive inside Washington. This is one step - please stay posted for more to come.

Please pass this to others you think will sign on. Note the deadline to have your information in is 11 p.m. on Monday, 20th. The letter will be hand-delivered on Tuesday, 21st July.

You are also encouraged to send your own letter, however we would like to get a good showing of solidarity from our communities.

Thank you all for your support!

Paddy

=====================================================

Send a message: "YES add my name __________ and organization ____________ to the Janet Reno letter." Call 202-543-6780 or fax your OK to 202-543-6434 or simply respond by e-mail to caaef@igc.org NO LATER THAN MONDAY JUNE 20 at 11 PM!!
--------------------------------------
(LETTER)

July **, 1998

The Honorable Janet Reno
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
Constitution Avenue and 10th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Attorney General Reno:

We are writing as members of the Cuban American Community to express our deep concern about recent news reports of financial links between people living in the U.S. and Luis Posada Carriles, the alleged mastermind of a series of bombings targeting Cuban hotels, restaurants and night clubs last year. In total, 12 bombings occurred in Cuba between April and September 1997. On September 4, 1997, a bomb exploded at the Copacabana Hotel, claiming the life of Fabio di Celmo, an Italian citizen. We request a full investigation of these reports, and if warranted, the prosecution of those involved in violations of U.S. law.

According to the New York Times, Posada Carriles admitted to receiving financial support for acts of international terrorism over the course of several years from the late Jorge Mas Canosa, founder and long-time Chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation(CANF).  Additionally, the New York Times claims to be in possession of independent evidence that indicates that financial support for the specific purpose of planting bombs in Cuba last summer came from a number of other individuals within the United States.

We are particularly disturbed by reports that the FBI responded indifferently to credible evidence of the involvement of American citizens when it was presented to them by a Cuban American businessman based in Guatemala at the time of the bombings. We believe that had such evidence come to your attention, it may have helped avert the injuries and loss of life caused by the bombings. 

These revelations follow on the heels of an apparent foiled assassination attempt against Fidel Castro by several Cuban Americans who were arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard off the coast of Puerto Rico in October of last year. Recent media stories have reported that one of the rifles found aboard the cabin cruiser La Esperanza, which was owned by a member of the Executive Board of CANF, was registered to the President of CANF.  As Cuban Americans, we share a great concern for the situation of our loved ones on the island. However, we strongly oppose the use of violence as a means of demonstrating political opposition. Regardless of the nature of the Cuban government, we can not condone actions that violate international and U.S. law, and most importantly, place our loved ones in danger.

We have committed ourselves to the humanitarian cause of reconciliation between Cubans in exile and our brothers and sisters on the island. We disapprove of any person who from U.S. soil conducts or finances acts of violence against Cubans or Cuban Americans.

We call on you to do all in your power to investigate and prosecute any person under U.S. jurisdiction that is found to be involved in acts of violence against the Cuban state and people. Further, we call on you to condemn in the strongest terms the use of terror to achieve political goals.

We look forward to further contact with you on this issue.

Sincerely,

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
*
* CUBAN AMERICAN ALLIANCE EDUCATION FUND, INC.
*
* CAAEF (East Coast) CAAEF (West Coast)
*
* 614 Maryland Ave., NE, #2 3161 Bridle Dr.
*
* Washington, DC 20002 Hayward, CA 94541
*
* Tel(202)543-6780 e-mail: caaef@igc.org Tel(510)538-9694
*
* Fax(202)543-6434 WebPage: www.cubamer.org Fax(510)538-9614
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Christmas note from President Bush to Felix Rodriguez, in his handwriting, 12/88top
http://www.parascope.com/ds/papertrail/felixNote.htm - now defunct

Bush Christmas note to Felix Rodriguez


Powderburns; Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War
by Celerino III Castillo . To purchase ==>  Amazon.com

Emminently readable account of the Contra resupply effort run by Felix Rodriguez

See also http://www.copvcia.com/contra1.htm for a page on Castillo with photo and a statement

And also http://www.copvcia.com/ for general info, site recommended by le Monde.
 

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