U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

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DRUG TRAFFICKING IN THE CARIBBEAN: DO

TRAFFICKERS USE CUBA AND PUERTO RICO AS

MAJOR TRANSIT LOCATIONS FOR UNITED

STATES-BOUND NARCOTICS?

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JANUARY 3 AND 4, 2000

Serial No. 106–178

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

LISA SMITH ARAFUNE, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on:

January 3, 2000 ......................................................................................... 1

January 4, 2000 ......................................................................................... 59

Statement of:

Agostini, Jose Fuentes, former attorney general of the Government of

Puerto Rico .................................................................................................... 60

De La Guardia, Ileana, daughter of Cuban Colonel Tony De La Guardia;

and Jorge Masetti, former Cuban Ministry of Interior Official ................ 23

Diaz-Balart, Lincoln, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida ............................................................................................................ 19

Ledwith, William E., Chief of Foreign Operations, Drug Enforcement

Administration; Michael S. Vigil, Chief Agent in Charge, Caribbean

Field Division, Drug Enforcement Administration; and John C.

Varrone, Executive Director, Operations, East, U.S. Customs Service .... 85

Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida ............................................................................................................ 10

Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:

Agostini, Jose Fuentes, former attorney general of the Government of

Puerto Rico, prepared statement of ............................................................. 66

Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana, information concerning 60 dangerous fugitives ................................. 147

De La Guardia, Ileana, daughter of Cuban Colonel Tony De La Guardia,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 26

Gilman, Hon. Benjamin A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, information concerning a December 21, 1999, GAO report 54

Ledwith, William E., Chief of Foreign Operations, Drug Enforcement

Administration; and Michael S. Vigil, Chief Agent in Charge, Caribbean Field Division, Drug Enforcement Administration, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 89

Masetti, Jorge, former Cuban Ministry of Interior Official, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 31

Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida, U.S. Customs Service Caribbean staffing information ................ 126

Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida, prepared statement of .................................................................... 15

Varrone, John C., Executive Director, Operations, East, U.S. Customs

Service, prepared statement of .................................................................... 109

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DRUG TRAFFICKING IN THE CARIBBEAN: DO

TRAFFICKERS USE CUBA AND PUERTO

RICO AS MAJOR TRANSIT LOCATIONS FOR

UNITED STATES-BOUND NARCOTICS?

MONDAY, JANUARY 3, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Miami, FL.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:23 p.m., in the Commission Chambers, Sweetwater City Hall, 500 S.W. 109th Avenue,

Miami, FL, Hon. Dan Burton (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Burton, Gilman, Ros-Lehtinen, Mica,

and Ose.

Also present: Representative Diaz-Balart.

Staff present: James C. Wilson, chief counsel; Kevin Long and

Gil Macklin, professional staff members; Kristi Remington, senior

counsel; Lisa Smith Arafune, chief clerk; Maria Tamburri, staff assistant; and Michael J. Yeager, minority counsel.

Mr. BURTON. Good afternoon. A quorum being present, the Committee on Government Reform will now come to order.

I ask unanimous consent that all materials, exhibits or other extraneous materials referred to in the course of this hearing be included in the record. Without objection, it is so ordered.

I also ask unanimous consent that the Congressmen who are not

members of this committee be allowed to participate in this hearing. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Before I go to my opening statement, I would like to state that

not only is the chairman of the Government Reform Committee

here and other members, but also the chairman of the International Relations Committee, Mr. Ben Gilman is here. So this is

a very important hearing for southern Florida and for the United

States, because it bears on not only an important subject, but it

also is important enough to have two committees represented here

today.

I want to thank everybody in south Florida for allowing us to be

here. Everyone today will be able to say that they are part of a historic event. This is the first congressional hearing of the new millennium and it is being broadcast live into Cuba on Radio Marti

so Fidel Castro and the people of Cuba will be hearing what we say

today and what we find. And if he blocks it, I hope Radio Marti

will rebroadcast it again and again so that the people of Cuba will

hear the facts.

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The topic of the hearing is drug trafficking in the Caribbean; specifically, do traffickers use Cuba and Puerto Rico as major transit

points for United States-bound narcotics? Fidel Castro’s longstanding participation in international drug trafficking is well-documented, as is Cuba’s notorious state sponsorship of terrorism. Unfortunately for the American people, President Clinton has chosen

to ignore these facts and proceed down the trail of normalization

with a totalitarian drug-running Castro dictatorship.

In November, the Clinton-Gore administration refused to put

Cuba on the major drug list of countries that substantially impact

the United States. Just last week, the State Department informed

my staff that they are going to send a United States Coast Guard

officer to Cuba to be a liaison with the Castro government on drug

trafficking matters. That’s very curious to me since Castro is deeply involved in the drug trafficking himself. These decisions were

clearly rooted in politics rather than determined by the facts.

The stained foreign policy legacy of this administration has never

been more evident. The Clinton administration has turned its back

on American children in order to normalize relations with Fidel

Castro, a brutal dictator who is helping flood American streets and

school yards with deadly drugs, all the while lining his pockets

with illicit drug money.

The Clinton-Gore legacy will be an entire generation of Americans subjected to dramatically increased drug use as well as record

numbers of drug addicts and overdose deaths. This has already

happened in places like Baltimore, MD where 1 out of 17 citizens— 1 out of 17—are addicted to heroin, according to the DEA. In August, our Government Reform colleague, Mr. Cummings, told us of

the devastating impact it has had on his district in Baltimore and

later this month, Chairman John Mica’s subcommittee will hold a

field hearing in Baltimore. Just up the road in Chairman Mica’s

district in Orlando, over 50 people died of heroin overdoses last

year alone, many of them teenagers.

It does not take boxes of physical evidence, just common sense,

to see that Fidel Castro’s regime has resorted to drug trafficking

to help fund Cuba’s sagging economy. It is quite clear to those who

have followed Cuba as closely as I have that his brutal dictatorship

is in dire straits since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsidies that it provided to Cuba. Further, the Helms-Burton embargo has Castro’s dictatorship strapped for hard currency. This begs

the question, where has Castro turned to subsidize this loss of

money. In my opinion, he has turned in large part to drug trafficking and quite possibly money laundering to prop up his regime.

There is an abundance of evidence that Castro’s regime is involved in drug trafficking. My staff has conducted nearly a yearlong investigation into one particular shipment of drugs seized by

the Colombian National Police last December. The International

Relations Committee, chaired by Mr. Gilman, has been doing the

same thing. These investigations have shown the Cuban Government was the primary principal behind this shipment of drugs destined for Havana before it was seized. We believe this shipment

may have been headed for the United States after it got to Cuba.

7.2 metric tons of drugs, cocaine, worth $1.5 billion was seized in

six containers belonging to the Cuban Government which were to

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be transported to Cuba by a Cuban Government-owned shipping

company and were to be opened only in the presence of the Cuban

Government’s customs agents. This is now being called ‘‘the December incident’’ in Cuba.

According to an article in the May 27, 1999 government-run

newspaper in Havana, Prensa Latina, Rogelio Sierra, a spokesman

for the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, said—he is a government official down there—that 7 tons of Cuba-bound cocaine seized

in Colombia in December was destined for the United States of

America. The only Clinton-Gore administration response to this

statement was they could not explain it. I think that tells a lot.

Why would a Cuban foreign ministry official have said that the cocaine shipment was going to the United States through Cuba? I

can only imagine there was hell to pay for Mr. Sierra as a result

of his slip of the tongue.

Sierra’s statement is important because it directly contradicts

Fidel Castro’s earlier assertions in January when he alleged that

two Spanish businessmen, who were minority partners in the joint

venture company, were solely responsible for this shipment. Since

these two were from Spain, the shipment must have been going to

Spain—a perfect setup by a notorious lying dictator.

In reality, the Cuban Ministry of Interior, which is the equivalent of our CIA, assigned two agents to run this company under the

Cuban Ministry of Light Industry. It was an operation that proceeded only under the strict control of the Ministry of Interior. The

two Interior agents were very upset that this cocaine shipment was

twice delayed in Colombia and even phoned one of the Spanish

businessmen to ask when it would be delivered. After the seizure

in Colombia, when the Cuban authorities could have detained the

other Spaniard, they sent him back to Spain with a gift for his sick

wife without detaining or questioning him about the seizure.

He said that he was not involved in the drug operation, had no

knowledge of it and he was willing to take a lie detector test administered by the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United

States. So far the DEA has not offered him a lie detector test.

Surprisingly, the White House chose to take Castro’s story without a shred of evidence and based their assumptions on Castro’s

word—nothing else. Now, the Clinton-Gore administration is sending a U.S. Coast Guard officer—a law enforcement officer—as a reward to Castro, who no doubt requested help as a face-saving effort

to show the world he is ‘‘serious’’ about drug trafficking. Sadly, the

Clinton-Gore administration has chosen to reward Castro rather

than question his complicity with drug traffickers.

This is not the only case that can be made that the Castro regime is neck-deep in drug trafficking. On April 8, 1993, the Miami

Herald reported that the United States Attorney in Miami had a

draft indictment for drug trafficking and racketeering against Raul

Castro, Fidel’s brother, also a high-ranking Cuban Government official. Under pressure from the Clinton-Gore Department of Justice

in Washington, the indictment was shelved. Why? Is it because the

Clinton administration is so tilted toward normalizing relations

with Cuba that it does not want to deal with the allegations of

drug trafficking by Castro’s Cuba? Unfortunately, this seems like

the logical conclusion.

4

I hope the television is working and I hope you will all pay attention to the monitor there. I want to show a portion of a DEA-edited

surveillance videotape that shows a drug trafficker bragging about

faking an emergency landing in Cuba to drop off a load of dope,

then getting the royal treatment from the Cuban Government. He

was even given false repair documents for his plane, which permitted him to enter the United States after leaving Cuba. I was

provided with this tape only after threatening to subpoena it from

the DEA. The administration and the DEA would not give it to us.

While I would like to show more of the tape, the vulgar language

prohibits me from doing so. So you are going to see the part where

he is talking about his involvement landing in Cuba and getting

false information about the landing.

So would you please show the video now?

[Videotape shown.]

Mr. BURTON. Well, the volume was poor. For those of you in the

media, we will make that available at the conclusion of the hearing

so you can get a more clear picture of what we are talking about.

I apologize for that, but under the circumstances with the volume

problem we had, I think we will let you see that later.

That portion of the video seems pretty convincing to me, but not

to the administration, which has repeatedly claimed there is no evidence of Cuban Government involvement in drug trafficking. I cannot believe this administration is making those statements. And I

think today the witnesses we are going to have will clearly show

that the Cuban Government has been deeply involved in drug trafficking since the 1970’s.

My good friend, Representative Bob Menendez, a New Jersey

Democrat, said, ‘‘In a country where every human rights activist,

political dissident and journalist is followed, that narco-traffickers

can meet without the Cuban secret police knowing is a tale from

Alice in Wonderland.’’ This is from one of the President’s own party

members.

I agree with my Democrat friend from New Jersey. Castro knows

everything of significance that is going on in Cuba. It is impossible

to believe that anyone could move 7.2 tons of cocaine through Cuba

without Castro’s knowledge or at least his willingness to turn a

blind eye to the movement in exchange for some of the profit.

The Clinton-Gore administration has argued that Cuba does not

have the capacity to respond to drug plane overflights or boats entering its territorial waters. That claim rings hollow. Castro has

shown his ability to lethally respond to innocent civilians in the

past. For example, Castro scrambled his MiGs in 1996 to shoot

down two Brothers to the Rescue planes in international airspace,

murdering innocent Americans.

Castro has also sent his Navy to murder nearly 100 innocent

women and children when it rammed the 13th of March tugboat,

and then used fire hoses to flood the deck and sink the ship. These

were innocent men, women and children merely fleeing the oppression of his brutal dictatorship.

What this shows is that Castro has the capacity to respond to

boats and planes if he wants to, even if it involves killing innocent

women and children. Apparently Castro feels more threatened by

innocent women and children telling the world the truth about his

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dictatorship than he does by allowing drug traffickers to use Cuba

as a syringe for injecting drugs into American streets and school

yards.

My good friend, Senator Robert Torricelli, who is chairman of the

Democrat Senatorial Committee, recently said, ‘‘The regular use of

Cuban air space and the tracking of drugs through Cuba make it

clear Cuba belongs on the major drug list. Any decision not to place

Cuba on the list would be for purely political reasons.’’

The Clinton-Gore administration is now in the ironic position of

defending Fidel Castro’s illicit activities. What the administration

does not realize, or chooses to ignore, is that by not placing Cuba

on the major’s list, it became an accomplice to Castro’s activities.

The Clinton-Gore administration’s decision will impact an entire

generation of American children. Even worse is that the ClintonGore administration made this decision based on its desire to normalize relations with Fidel Castro—shameless even to fellow

Democrats like Senator Torricelli and Representative Menendez.

Today, we will hear first from two very important Members of

Congress from southern Florida—Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana

Ros-Lehtinen. Then we will hear from two very important witnesses. First, Mr. Jorge Masetti, who is a former Cuban Ministry

of Interior official, and then his wife, Ms. Ileana de la Guardia,

whose father, Cuban Colonel Anthony de la Guardia, was executed

by Fidel Castro for drug trafficking in the famous General Ochoa

case. Mr. Masetti will be providing us with his eyewitness testimony to the drug trafficking and state-sponsored terrorist activities

of the Castro regime. Ms. de la Guardia will explain how her father

acted with the knowledge of Fidel Castro when he ran the drug

trafficking organization out of the Ministry of the Interior.

Now, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Congressman

Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who is not on our committee, but is hosting

these hearings in his district. My staff has informed me that Congressman Diaz-Balart’s staff, especially Ana Carbonell, deserves a

special thank you for all of her hard work in putting this event together. Ana, I would like for you to stand up so everybody can see,

because you worked very hard on this.

[Applause.]

Mr. BURTON. She has probably collapsed from all this work—

there she is back there.

I would also like to thank the city of Sweetwater for permitting

the committee to hold this hearing in their lovely town hall, particularly Mayor Jose Pepe Diaz, and the Sweetwater Police Department, including Chief Jesus Menocal, Assistant Chief Ed Fuentes,

Lieutenant Roberto Fulgueira, Sergeant Lawrence Churchman,

Corporal Ignacio Menocal and Officer Eddie Magarino. I hope I got

those names pronounced correctly, so forgive me if I did not.

Finally, I would like to thank Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln

Diaz-Balart for their support of our hearings in the past and for

their hard work down here.

I would like to now recognize Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen and

Congressman Diaz-Balart, who will be testifying from up here, and

then we will go to our witnesses who came all the way from Spain

to testify today.

6

So we will start with—oh, excuse me, pardon me. First, we go to

opening statements. Forgive me, my colleagues. We will start with

my ranking member and the head of the International Relations

Committee, Chairman Gilman.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mayor Diaz and the

Sweetwater officials for hosting this hearing.

And we welcome the opportunity to appear here today in Miami

along with our congressional colleagues to address a very important issue, an issue of the narcotics trade targeting our Nation, and

in particular Cuba’s links to the illicit narcotics trade targeting

both our Nation and the European continent. It is a subject which

is and should be of major importance and concern not only to our

Nation and all of our communities, especially here in south Florida

but many of our towns and cities throughout our Nation have been

ravaged by illicit drugs trafficking here from abroad through places

like Cuba.

On November 10, 1999, President Clinton notified me in my role

as chairman of our International Relations Committee of his annual determinations on the major drug source, and the major transit list, as required by law. Regrettably, the President failed to include Cuba on the major’s list, a nation which is the largest land

mass in the Caribbean and only 90 miles from our Florida coastline.

The list of major drug trafficking transit nations included the

nearby Caribbean nations of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. The Bahamas were also included on the President’s list. The

State Department International Narcotics Bureau [INL], which has

the lead on preparing the recommendations for the President’s annual major’s list determination was apparently ignored on the longoverdue inclusion of Cuba as a major drug transiting nation that

significantly impacts our own Nation.

The fact that the State Department avoided answering questions

at our hearing in our committee last November on what their own

recommendations were with regard to Cuba being included on that

major’s list, is some indication that they have privately disagreed

with the President, as some media accounts have already speculated. After weeks of State Department lawyer time and extraordinary legal gymnastics on whether the term ‘‘through’’ means

drugs over the skies and in the territorial waters of Cuba, we once

again witnessed a failure of Presidential leadership in our fight

against illicit drugs.

In his November 10 letter to the Congress, President Clinton

stated that our law enforcement community, with regard to the 7.5

metric tons of deadly cocaine seized in northern Colombia in December 1998 and clearly consigned to Cuba, believed that Spain

and not the United States was the ultimate destination of this

major shipment.

Irrespective of the ultimate destination of that particular large

shipment of cocaine, it is obvious that massive amounts of illicit

drugs are now transiting Cuba, either to our Nation or to the European continent and possibly with some Cuban Government complicity. This is an alarming trend and a new reality which we ignore

at our own risk.

7

Our administration has sadly become a cheerleader for the dictatorial communist regime in Havana, and has not adequately recognized the long-term significance that this massive shipment of

cocaine represents. Our Nation’s administration has not been objective, it has swallowed the Cuban Government’s efforts to spin— hook, line and sinker—on a likely destination of this massive tonnage of Colombian cocaine seized in December 1998 in northern

Colombia and, as we all acknowledge, was consigned to Cuba.

It has long been my understanding that our Drug Enforcement

Administration [DEA], had no concrete evidence to support the conclusion that Spain was the ultimate destination of this major shipment of 7.5 tons of cocaine. There may be conjecture, there may be

hints and speculation, but there is no hard evidence that Spain was

the final destination, as Mr. Castro and his regime would have us

believe, without a thorough inquiry.

Why should we give this benefit of the doubt to Cuba and to the

Castro regime? We ought to be more than curious in conducting a

serious, no nonsense investigation of that major shipment, the implications of which are ominous for our Nation and for Europe.

Once the shipment of 7.5 tons of cocaine was clearly and effectively determined to be headed for Cuba, could we have expected

Mr. Castro to say it was headed for our Nation? Never—since he

is a master of propaganda and disinformation.

The head of the Spanish National Police told our committee staff

in late October of last year in Colombia, that Cuba is the only destination they have been able to determine for this massive load of

Colombian cocaine, not Spain, as Mr. Castro and as our President

is so willing to believe at this point.

There are a few significant conclusions that the DEA has made

clear to our Committee on International Relations, however that

are worth noting again for the record concerning Cuba’s rightful inclusion on the major’s transiting list. First, the DEA says a massive shipment of 7.5 metric tons of cocaine such as this does not

represent the first time that Cuba was used to transit such illicit

drugs. This route would have been tried and tested many times

and well before such a massive quantity of drugs were passed

through Cuba.

Second, any organization moving such a large quantity of illicit

drugs is targeting both our Nation and Europe, two of the major

cocaine markets in the world. A recent case in point was a drug

trafficking organization that our DEA encountered that was moving large quantities of drugs to Europe as well as to Florida and

to Texas.

Until we have a thorough investigation by our administration of

this 7.5 ton narcotic shipment’s ultimate destination, instead of the

distortions, speculation and propaganda from Mr. Castro and from

our administration, we should give the benefit of the doubt to the

communities and to the children of our Nation.

Mr. Chairman, we thank you for keeping the focus on this important issue and for conducting this field hearing today in Miami.

Today, we look forward to hearing firsthand from those who are

not naive about the illicit drugs and about Cuba’s involvement. We

look forward today to hearing from those who can provide us with

the facts which ought to concern each and every community in

8

America, all those wanting to see our Nation prevent illicit drugs

from coming to our Nation from abroad, entering our Nation from

Cuba or anywhere else around the globe.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Chairman Gilman.

Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the interest of time, I

think I will yield my opening statement.

Mr. BURTON. Ok, Mr. Ose. Mr. Mica, do you have an opening

statement?

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Today’s hearing is a followup of a hearing that I chaired on November 17, 1999 on the question of Cuban links to international

drug trafficking. That hearing we conducted in Washington was the

first on this subject area and it raised specifically a number of

questions. Unfortunately, we got more questions out of the hearing

than answers. That is why it is important that we focus at least

part of today’s full committee hearing on the subject of Cuba and

its involvement.

Why Cuba? Because the scourge of illegal drugs entering our

country remains a national security and an economic threat to the

United States of America. Because American citizens are dying

every day from these drugs and because there are very large questions to be answered concerning Cuba’s role in drug trafficking.

The chairman talked about the number of deaths in my district

from heroin. We know that a large portion of that heroin is produced in Colombia then trafficked through the Caribbean and we

have traced some of that, of course, to Cuba and other areas. The

only reason we have not exceeded the number of deaths last year,

my law enforcement folks told me while I was home this year, is

because they have become so good at providing quick drug antidotes in the treatment of these folks. Otherwise, our young people

would be dying at an even more rapid rate.

The chairman also opened his remarks with saying that in Baltimore, 1 out of I think 17 or 18 people of their population are being

addicted to heroin. A recent city council woman in Baltimore said

that it is now one in eight people. That is why we are taking our

subcommittee there in a few more weeks.

Cuba, of course, we know is located just 90 miles south of Florida

and it is the largest of the Caribbean nations. It provides a direct

trafficking route for drugs that are produced in South America as

they move through the Caribbean and into the southeastern United

States, mainly through Florida.

When you draw a straight line from any northern port in Colombia—and Colombia now produces 80 percent of the cocaine. When

the Clinton administration took over in 1993, there was almost

zero cocaine produced in Colombia, most of the cocaine came out

of Peru and Bolivia. In 7 short years, they have managed to make

Colombia the world’s largest producer of cocaine through their policy.

We also know, due to the latest statistics, that the DEA can trace

through a very accurate analysis of heroin, that 74 percent of the

heroin reaching our shores comes from Colombia. It is also amazing

that in 1993, almost zero heroin was produced in Colombia, there

9

was none produced there. In 6 or 7 years, this administration’s policy has turned Colombia into the major producer of heroin in the

world, and 74 percent of that heroin is coming into the United

States.

The illegal drug trade is first and foremost a business, and drug

traffickers always seek the shortest, most direct, least expensive

route and most cooperative route. That is why Cuba is of great concern to us.

Cuba’s role in illegal drug smuggling raises more questions, as

I said, than have been answered in the past. Compounding the difficulty is the fact that Cuba is a closed society that has made no

effort to assist the United States anti-drug operations.

Castro’s government and his policies have isolated this island nation from the rest of its neighbors in the western hemisphere.

These same policies have also shrouded the cooperation or lack of

cooperation with international law enforcement. Castro’s Cuba does

not publish statistics on anti-drug enforcement and they do not

share information on known drug trafficking enterprises, which are

in fact moving drugs through Cuba. In short, they are not part of

the solution, helping the United States solve this serious drug trafficking problem, but in fact and unfortunately, they may be a large

part of the problem.

Recent United States and Colombian law enforcement operations

have found that Colombian drug traffickers have used Cuba as a

meeting place for their criminal business enterprises. This fact was

clearly illustrated in the 1997 case of Miami cocaine kingpin Jorge

Cabrera, whose attorney described these very such meetings on

Cuban soil in his October 7, 1996 letter to Attorney General Janet

Reno. This is the same Jorge Cabrera who contributed large political donations to the Clinton-Gore campaign and danced some 5

years ago at a Christmas party at the White House.

Today, there is little doubt that Cuba remains a meeting place

for drug operations as we continue to examine the 7.3 metric tons

of cocaine seized in Colombia in December 1998. We also know

from the result of our hearing, that massive amount of cocaine was

destined for a Cuban Government-owned and operated company.

That, in fact, the company was 51 percent owned by the Cuban

Government.

In October 1999, Operation Millennium netted more than over 31

major Colombian drug traffickers and a wealth of information on

well-established drug trafficking routes. The Miami DEA office confirmed that Colombian and Mexican drug trafficking organizations

met in Cuba. In the past, we have explored the drug smuggling activity over Cuban air space as well as in Cuban waters.

In a letter from President Clinton’s drug czar, General Barry

McCaffrey, in May of last year, the General stated, ‘‘The intelligence and law enforcement communities report that detected drug

overflights over Cuba, although still not as numerous as in other

parts of the Caribbean, increased by almost 50 percent last year.’’

That was in 1998—he spoke in 1999. And yet, for reasons unknown, Cuba was not placed on the major’s list, and the major’s

list again is for transit and drug trafficking nations, which is designated by the administration each year.

10

The Castro government can shoot innocent aircraft out of the

sky, as they demonstrated with the two Brothers to the Rescue

planes in 1994, but they cannot seem to interdict aircraft carrying

illegal drugs in their airspace. Common sense, coupled with these

facts, demand both questions and answers. These facts are stubborn and they will not go away because of any diplomatic whitewash or creative explanations offered by the State Department or

this administration, which we know is both eager and active in trying to normalize relations with the Castro government.

But first, these questions must be answered. I continue to be baffled by this administration’s seeming unwillingness to thoroughly

explore many of the leads that indicate Cuba’s involvement in illegal drug smuggling activities. Why did this administration refuse

to add Cuba to the list of major drug transit countries? Doing so

would only have served to leverage the annual certification process

in order to ensure that Cuba is not facilitating illegal drug smuggling, either through complicity or through direct involvement.

We are here today because the American people deserve to know

the full truth regarding Cuba’s links to international drug trafficking. And I am pleased that we are here today also, for the first

time, give the Cuban people an opportunity to hear what is going

on with their government and their country.

I thank the two members of the Miami congressional delegation,

for calling this hearing and applaud them both their leadership on

this and other issues in Congress and before my subcommittee and

the full committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Congressman Mica. Now we will hear

from the two panelists who are up here on the dias with us. One

is a member of the committee and the other is a member of the

very powerful Rules Committee, Mr. Diaz-Balart. We will start

with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who has been doing yeoman’s service for

the people of south Florida for a long time.

STATEMENT OF ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Chairman Burton. It is

a pleasure to have you in our south Florida community, and Chairman Gilman as well. I have the unique pleasure of serving both as

a member of the Government Reform Committee under the able

leadership of Dan Burton, as well as in the International Relations

Committee under the wise and talented Ben Gilman. So it is an

honor to be with my leaders here today. And thank you, Mr. Ose

and Mr. Mica for joining Congressman Diaz-Balart and me and the

south Florida community. Thank you so much, Jose Pepe Diaz, the

mayor of Sweetwater, a beautiful municipality that I had the pleasure of representing for many years and now is very well represented by our colleague, Lincoln Diaz-Balart. Thank you to you,

Pepe, and your very able Council members and staff and the police

officers and everyone involved.

And as the chairman and Mr. Mica and Mr. Gilman have all

pointed out, we are very pleased that our words today are being

broadcast live through Radio Marti, because this is an important

message and a message of hope that we bring to the enslaved people of Cuba. Very often we are asked how many political prisoners

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there are in our native homeland and our answer is always 11 million. So we hope that 1 day they will be free and that they will be

able to enjoy the fruits of liberty and freedom as we have here in

the United States.

As all of the previous speakers have pointed out, the December

1998 seizure by the Colombian police of 7 tons of cocaine bound for

Havana was the catalyst which prompted a renewed focus on Castro’s involvement in the narcotics trade. This could have been the

epitaph of the Castro regime’s drug connection, but unfortunately

the reaction of the Clinton administration to this case and to other

information has been to issue statements of a rhetorical nature

claiming the lack of concrete evidence.

Castro, who is clearly concerned by this committee’s investigation

into his regime’s participation in the drug trafficking trade, has

used his well-oiled propaganda machine most recently to try to

once again divert the world’s attention from his numerous crimes.

And I refer to the front page of the December 29 edition of

Granma, the Cuban daily that is controlled by the communist

party, and it stated just a few days ago, ‘‘Ros-Lehtinen has participated in the direction of the most vile

crusades against our country, particularly in Congress. ‘‘What level

of credibility could possibly be given to these attempts to damage

what has been built and to stimulate anything that will complicate

bilateral relations? ‘‘The example of this,’’ the editorial continues, ‘‘is in the ongoing investigation about the alleged connection between Cuba and the international drug trafficking which has been

the subject of Congressional hearings held by Ros-Lehtinen and her

gang, even though high level officials of the U.S. Government deny

such connection.’’ So there you go, guys, now you know you are part of a gang.

In the last few weeks, Castro has also referred to me as a ‘‘ferocious wolf disguised as a woman.’’ I am extremely proud to be the

subject of his attacks and I assure him that I will continue to work

against his oppressive dictatorship until freedom and democracy

reign in the island.

While the White House does its best to avoid the subject, some

law enforcement officials have a different story to tell. DEA agents,

who have spoken to me or to my staff on condition of anonymity,

have stated that the documentation does exist detailing the activities of drug runners who go from the Bahamas and other neighboring Caribbean nations to Cuba for loading and unloading of drug

shipments. They also refer to the sightings and the logs of air traffic into Cuba, suspected to be related to the drug trade.

This is but a recent example of what David Perez and Johnny

Crump, both former narcotics traffickers, as well as Mario Estevez

Gonzalez, former member of the Cuban Intelligence Service, referred to in their Senate testimony in April 1983.

Perez testified that traffickers would leave from Miami into Bimini, then to Williams Key and then to Guincho Key and then to

Paredon Grande in Cuba.

Estevez testified that from the period of 1981 to 1982, he was approximately responsible for $7 million from drugs returning to the

Cuban Government by trafficking back and forth from the United

States. He added, ‘‘It doesn’t matter what moves in Cuba or takes

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place in Cuba, nothing gets done in Cuba unless it has the blessings and the price set by Fidel Castro himself . . .’’

If this was the operation 17 or 18 years ago, how much more

profit does the Castro regime reap today? How much more pervasive and elaborate must the Cuban trafficking network be today?

Yet, there are those, including some administration officials, who

would turn a blind eye to this reality. They would question the

value of these statements for evaluating the current scenario and

they persist in their recanting of the regime’s assurances that it is

not involved. Any such assumption flies in the face of logic and is

negated by information which has surfaced in recent years.

In February 1999, Cuban defector and former spy for Castro’s Intelligence Service, the DGI, Major Juan Antonio Rodriguez Menier

testified in Paris that the Castro Regime was involved in money

laundering and drug trafficking and further stated that it had supported the terrorist acts of Carlos ‘‘the Jackal.’’

In January 1999, a complaint filed in France by lawyer Serge

Lewisch on behalf of Ileana de la Guardia, the exiled daughter of

Cuban Colonel Antonio de la Guardia, who was accused of drug

trafficking and sentenced to death by a Castro court, charged that

Cuba had become a major conduit for drugs. In the complaint and

related interviews, Ileana de la Guardia stated that Cuban drug

trafficking was a matter of state, organized by the highest echelons

of power in the country. It is impossible that Fidel Castro was unaware of this.

In the fall of 1996, the prosecution of Jorge Cabrera, referred to

in previous statements by these panelists, convicted of transporting

almost 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States, gave specific

information highlighting cooperation between Castro officials and

the Colombian cartels. However, the United States Justice Department declined to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the allegations of Cuban Government complicity in the drug traffic to the

United States.

In April 1993, it was reported that the United States Attorney

for the southern district of Florida had drafted an indictment

charging the Castro regime as a racketeering enterprise and Cuban

Defense Minister Raul Castro as the chief of a 10-year conspiracy

to send tons of Colombian cocaine through Cuba into the United

States.

It is difficult to establish a precise date for Cuba’s entry into the

hemisphere’s trafficking network. Some knowledgeable on the

issue, such as Cuban defector and former senior intelligence office,

Major Juan Antonio Rodriguez Menier, known as Coqui, claim that

the regime’s involvement dates back to the 1970’s.

While insufficient data exists documenting a precise 1970’s inception, it can be ascertained from information obtained during Senate

and House congressional hearings held in 1982; also from the indictment of four senior government officials in November 1982 by

the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of Florida as a result of

the Jaime Guillot-Lara case; and from numerous reports by the Department of State, Department of Justice and our intelligence

agencies, that the Castro connection to narcotics trafficking was in

place by the early to mid-1980’s.

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Former Cuban intelligence officers who defected to Spain have

stated that Fabio Vazquez Castano, a Colombian connected to insurgent groups in his country, contacted Manuel Pinero Losada, director of the Americas Department, a specialized intelligence section of the Castro regime, and proposed an arrangement whereby

Cuba would supply arms and would receive payment in cocaine.

The Castro leadership endorsed the proposal based on:

(1) the destabilizing effect narcotics trafficking would have on the

United States;

(2) that cocaine is the equivalent of foreign exchange that Cuba

desperately needs; and

(3) the ability to assist the guerrillas in Colombia.

Some of this information surfaced again during the investigation

of Jaime Guillot-Lara.

Interviews of former Castro officials conducted in 1993 for a

study sponsored by the Department of Defense’s International Security Affairs Bureau to address, among other things, Colombian

trafficking, narco-terrorism, and insurgency, revealed similar data.

The information retrieved focused on Fernando Ravelo-Renedo, a

former Cuban ambassador to Colombia, and Gonzalo BassolsSuarez, a former minister-counsel of the Cuban Embassy in Bogota, as the individuals chosen by the Castro brothers to orchestrate the elaborate and enduring Cuba-Colombia drug connection.

Despite the data dealing with the Castro regime’s involvement in

narcotics trafficking, there are those who question whether the

Castro regime is aware of such activities and whether it has the

capability to patrol its waters and airspace to prevent them.

Statements of former spies and high-level Castro officials indicate that drug trafficking activities are a directive from the Castro

brothers, executed by their senior leadership. Thus, it would seem

that the burden of proof can be met by referring to this testimonial

evidence.

However, other factors such as Cuba’s intelligence gathering capabilities should be taken into consideration. Just last year, the

FBI arrested Cuban spies here in south Florida after they had successfully penetrated or had attempted to penetrate various United

States military installations. Senior FBI counter-intelligence officers classified the Cuban espionage ring as ‘‘one of the most sophisticated and efficient’’ they had witnessed.

The presence of Russia’s Lourdes espionage facility and China’s

listening station in Cuba raise the question of intelligence sharing

and how these significantly augment the Castro regime’s own capacity to monitor activities not just around Cuba, but indeed

throughout the hemisphere.

The Castro regime demonstrated its capacity to interdict clearly

on February 24, 1996. It deployed Cuban MiGs and shot down two

Brothers to the Rescue planes, killing four innocent civilians, three

of them United States citizens.

The dictatorship’s capacity to monitor is shown by its surveillance of attempts by the Cuban people to escape their island prison

in search of freedom in the United States. The regime was willing

and able to attack and sink the 13 de Marzo tugboat, killing innocent men, women and children who gasped for air and struggled to

stay afloat. They quickly drowned as the Cuban Coast Guard boats

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repeatedly rammed them and turned the water cannons on them.

The Castro regime is then obviously more than capable of preventing the use of its waters for the drug trade into the United States.

As a Member of Congress who represents a south Florida district

which is directly impacted by the scourge of illicit drugs and as a

member of this committee, I would like to commend Chairman Burton for holding this hearing. There is much information detailing

that will come out that high-level government officials have been

involved and continue to be involved in smuggling drugs into the

United States by allowing waters and airspace to become critical

ports of call for the hemisphere’s trafficking network.

Our goal should be that which was articulated by former President Ronald Reagan in May 1983. He said, ‘‘I want the American

people to know what they are faced with, the most sinister and despicable actions.’’ It is up to the Congress to exert our oversight and investigative

capabilities to uncover the truth and take all necessary steps to ensure that this threat against our national security is effectively addressed.

And for that, we thank Chairman Burton and Chairman Gilman

for their leadership. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much for that very well thought

out statement, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen. Obviously you have

been doing your homework, as you always do.

We will now hear from a very important member of the Rules

Committee and a great leader from southern Florida, Lincoln DiazBalart.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen follows:]

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STATEMENT OF LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you very

much. It is my honor to be able to welcome you, Chairman Burton,

and Chairman Gilman, Mr. Mica, Mr. Ose, along with our distinguished colleague and friend, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, to the district that

I am honored to be able to represent in south Florida. I want to

thank Mayor Diaz and the entire city for their hospitality.

I especially would like to send a message of hope, as well as solidarity, to the people of Cuba who are listening to us today. They

too will soon be able to hold meetings on issues of their choice and

they, more than anyone else, know that nothing of magnitude, especially activities for profit, can take place in Cuba without the acquiescence and the complicity of the totalitarian tyrant.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent to include my entire statement in the record.

Mr. BURTON. Without objection.

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. I will not read it all. It begins delineating the

substantial evidence in the public domain that has mounted, showing that the Castro dictatorship is aggressively involved in narcotrafficking, at least since the early 1980’s; goes into detail with regard to the indictment that was issued in 1982 here; continues

with specific cases, for example, with direct logistical assistance by

the Cuban armed forces of drug trafficking into the United States;

and it goes on giving specific examples.

Prior members of the committee, their statements have talked

about the April 1993 Miami Herald leak from the U.S. Attorney’s

Office. After that investigation was shelved by the Clinton administration, it was leaked. The grand jury’s draft indictment was

leaked to the Miami Herald, and I think it is of extraordinary importance that we actually read a few parts of what the Miami Herald was able to make public.

The draft indictment states, ‘‘The Cuban government facilitated

the transportation and distribution of large quantities of cocaine

destined for the United States, including south Florida.’’

The indictment, the Miami Herald stated, is historically significant because it names the entire Government of Cuba, including its

armed forces and its Interior Ministry, as criminal organizations.

The indictment of the Cuban Government was the result of months

of secret testimony before a Federal grand jury in Miami.

Now one of the witnesses who testified before that grand jury

spoke to me later and talked to me about another witness’ testimony. And they personally connected Raul Castro and the other

high ranking members of the dictatorship to narco-trafficking of cocaine into the United States. The indictment reads, ‘‘In return for

substantial sums of money, Raul Castro exploited his official position by offering narcotic traffickers the safe use of Cuba, including

Cuban airspace, as a location for the transshipment of multi-hundred kilogram loads of cocaine destined for the United States.’’

Among the other allegations in the indictment, in exchange for

millions of dollars, Raul Castro assured Colombian cartel leaders

that the Cubans would protect their shipments. Special radio frequencies were provided to make Cuban airspace friendly to drug pilots, who were also allowed to land on Cuban soil with their loads

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of cocaine. With this special frequency, traffickers could enter and

exit Cuban airspace without molestation.

The draft indictment states Cuban officers used their radio facilities to warn smugglers of approaching United States Coast Guard

cutters. Drug planes were allowed to drop their cocaine loads to

smuggler vessels waiting in Cuban waters. Colombian cartel leaders were allowed to live in Cuba, provided with housing, cars, security, entertainment. That is in the indictment.

Mention was also made, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members,

of the Cabrera bust in 1996. I think it is important to read also

what was leaked to the Miami Herald when that investigation was

quashed, because Cabrera was arrested—he was busted in January

1996. He started offering at that time substantial assistance to the

DEA to the United States Attorney here, to Customs, personally

tying Fidel Castro to drug trafficking and offering to go back into

Cuba, arrange another deal with Fidel Castro and cocaine traffickers in Colombia, and that that deal could be under surveillance—

he offered that.

Now it would be my suggestion to the committee that has done

an extraordinary job on this subject, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gilman

and members, with regard to the bust by the heroic Colombian police in December just a year ago of over 7 tons, that you focus upon

the Cabrera bust as well, because the lawyers for Cabrera and the

other drug traffickers, when one speaks to them, it is very interesting. They were obviously—they talk about the fact that DEA and

Customs and the U.S. Attorney’s Office down here, they were

amazed obviously when this case broke and they started to receive

the direct evidence of Castro’s direct participation in drug deals. As

a matter of fact, the substantial assistance was treated obviously

in the highest, most confidential manner, and the investigation

continued. And all of a sudden in July of that year, after 6 months

investigation, the investigation was leaked to the Miami Herald,

Mr. Jeff Lein wrote it, front page of the Miami Herald, ‘‘Traffickers

tie Castro to Drug Run.’’ And at that time then, the U.S. Attorney’s

Office told Cabrera’s lawyer, sorry, the investigation is over, your

client lied to us. The lawyer said well, how? Well, we will deal with

that at the hearing.

The lawyer was waiting for the hearing so that the evidence

would be put forth as to how Cabrera lied in the substantial assistance that he was giving the authorities. But the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the day of the hearing, dropped the lying charge and Cabrera

was sent away pursuant to the sentencing guidelines for 19 years

for his plea for smuggling, and was fined.

Cabrera’s lawyer, as I said before, says that his client had offered

to help set up a cocaine shipment from Colombia to Miami that

American authorities could monitor and, quote, that shipment

would come through Cuba in full view, it would go unnoticed, it

would go unseized, Colombian drug traffickers would be embraced

in Cuba. Cabrera’s lawyer says, also told agents and prosecutors

that they would be in a position to catch Miami-based ‘‘mules’’ who

would collect the cocaine once it arrived, and the money

launderers, who would wash the profits. The government, however,

was not interested.

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What we have seen from the government, Mr. Chairman, is quite

interesting. Chairman Gilman and you and others have pointed out

that despite your committee’s investigation with regard to the seizure of over 7 tons of cocaine in December 1998 by the Colombian

police in northern Colombia, not only was the Cuban Government

not placed on the major’s list, as has been stated before, but you,

Mr. Chairman, received a letter, along with Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and

I, from Mr. McCaffrey, after the Colombian bust. This letter was

dated January 28, 1999, and it states there is no conclusive evidence to indicate that the Cuban leadership is involved in criminal

activity. This is the letter. Cuban officials cite lack of resources for

the government’s inability to patrol its territorial waters.

Not only, as it has been mentioned, was the Cuban dictatorship

able to shoot down unarmed planes in February 1996, but just this

last weekend, again in a small private airplane leased by a pilot

who used to be in the South Vietnamese Air Force, the Cuban Government immediately intercepted that pilot as soon as he went over

Cuban space and followed him, the Cuban MiGs followed him until

he left Cuban airspace.

So not only were the Brothers to the Rescue able to be intercepted in February 1996, but if there is a lack of resources for the

government’s inability to patrol its territorial waters, they sure

were able to patrol them a few days ago when the former South

Vietnamese pilot decided to fly an unarmed civilian plane, and he

was immediately intercepted.

So with all due respect, in my opinion, there are two possible

causes or explanations for the Clinton administration’s drug policy

as it relates to Castro’s Cuba. The first possibility is that it is a

policy of naivete to the point of ridiculousness. The second possibility is that it is one of purposeful cover-up. I really cannot believe

that those in leadership positions on this critical issue in the administration could be so inept as to be responsible for a policy rooted in the first possible cause. I believe that the Clinton administration covers up the Castro regime’s role in narco-trafficking because

the Clinton administration’s policy of appeasement of Castro at all

costs could not be maintained if the American people learned the

truth.

That is why it is so important for Congress to continue investigating and not simply give up based on the fact that there is only

1 year left of this administration. It is the duty of Congress to continue investigating. That is why I commend you, Mr. Chairman,

members of this committee, as the committee charged with oversight of the Executive under the law, to proceed, so the American

people can realize what the truth is with regard to Cuba and specifically Castro’s regime in narco-trafficking and the American people can make up their minds as to how their democratically elected

government should proceed to protect the security of the American

people.

Thank you very much.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Diaz-Balart, for that

very insightful and eloquent statement.

Before we go any further, I would like to show some posters. Ms.

Ros-Lehtinen referred to the March 13 tugboat incident and I think

it is extremely important that once again we emphasize that tragVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
22

edy and how Fidel Castro was able to drown those innocent

women, children and men and yet he cannot intercept, he says,

drug traffickers. We will get into that a little bit later.

Do any of the members of the committee have any questions of

Ileana or Lincoln?

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I just want to commend both Lincoln and Ileana for making such a forthright and extensive statement that focuses attention on the illegal trafficking that transits

Cuba for an extensive period of time.

Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you. And I would just like to say real quickly—I will yield to my colleague in just a second—that Ileana and

Lincoln represent a large amount of Cuban-American citizens who

have relatives in Havana and in Cuba and they have to deal with

these problems on a regular basis and they know first-hand of the

problems that they are talking about. So even though we have

some knowledge of it and we have been researching this, what they

have said today is very factual and I really appreciate the research

they have done.

Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

One of the things that I have been trying to glean from the reading that was given me for this hearing was in 1989 with the fall

of the Iron Curtain and what-have-you, the substantial amount of

support that had been going to Cuba ceased, either from the Soviet

Union or others. Have we ever quantified—is it on the nature of

$200 million——

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. $100 billion.

Mr. OSE. $100 billion annually?

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. No, over the 30-year period the Soviets subsidized.

Mr. OSE. So about $3 billion a year.

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Yes.

Mr. OSE. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. $3 billion a year. And that is why they are trying

every avenue to get hard currency, and that is why they are trying

to break the Helms-Burton embargo.

I would like to now have our next panel—Mr. Masetti and Ms.

de la Guardia. Could you come forward and take your place at the

microphone? Is the sound quality all right on the microphones

now?

I would like to have our translator sit between them. Are you

going to be the translator?

Ms. EMEDAN-LAUTEN. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much for your help.

I would like to have Ms. de la Guardia and Mr. Masetti stand

up to have you sworn in, please.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. BURTON. Have a seat.

Because we always show deference to the ladies, we will allow

Ms. de la Guardia to make her opening statement.

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STATEMENTS OF ILEANA DE LA GUARDIA, DAUGHTER OF

CUBAN COLONEL TONY DE LA GUARDIA; AND JORGE

MASETTI, FORMER CUBAN MINISTRY OF INTERIOR OFFICIAL

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. Members of the committee, today is a most important day for me, for you have granted

me the opportunity of bringing my testimony to you. A testimony

that, as a matter of fact, the regime of Fidel Castro has tried to

silence, but they will not be able to hide the truth in spite of the

many efforts at doing this, efforts that they undertook in 1989

when they killed my father Antonio de la Guardia, together with

the Cuban General Arnaldo Ochoa and his respective aides Amado

Padron and Jorge Martinez.

Mr. GILMAN. May I interrupt a moment? Would the translator

bring the microphone closer to her? Thank you.

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. The process that found

them guilty, known as the Ochoa case or Cause No. 1 of the year

1989, dictated that 14 officials of the Ministry of the Interior accused of drug trafficking, amongst which my uncle Patricio de la

Guardia, general of the brigade, was included.

Mr. BURTON. To the translator, if you could pull that mic—I do

not think they are picking up and I want to make sure that everybody hears everything.

Ms. EMEDAN-LAUTEN. Can you hear me now?

Mr. BURTON. Just get as close as you can.

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. As the daughter of one

of the accused, I was present during the process, which I may add,

did not include the minimum legal warranties. And now I will enumerate some of the most flagrant violations.

The accused did not have the right to choose their defense attorneys. The attorneys representing the accused were just attorneys

and also officials of the Ministry of the Interior. I was able to visit

with my father, 24 hours before the trial. Until then, neither my

father nor I nor anyone close to the family members knew that this

process would take place and we found out very late that night

through an order not to find an attorney.

The power of oral summation used by the President of the court,

only applied in times of war, according to the Cuban law itself in

its Article 475 of the law of Penal Military Procedures, and Cuba

at that time had already signed the peace accords with Angola.

And that is why they would have had to have been tried by the

Military Chamber of the Supreme Popular Court, according to Article 14 of the law of Military Court, and not as it was by a Special

Military Court.

Therefore, the judges should have been elected by the National

Assembly of Popular Power, according to Article 73 of the Constitution. Instead, the members of the court were elected by an anonymous power. And in fact, this power was Fidel Castro himself,

which I later learned by a witness, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who

said that he, Fidel, had remained during the entire process in a

room during the hearing behind a glass window, from where he

was able to direct the attorneys and the judges.

The accused were condemned and found guilty of drug trafficking, for which Cuban law sets forth a maximum penalty of 20

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years, according to Article 30.1 of the Penal Code at the time, and

not the death penalty as actually happened.

You may ask yourselves what were the real causes that led to

such amount of irregularity legally, and so many efforts to bar the

defense of these individuals. And last, what reason made Fidel

Castro eliminate them physically and morally, these people who

were already condemned to death. Well, I will tell you that at that

time, many people and myself included, we knew that the causes

were political, as some people that I am not allowed to mention by

name because they have brought this information out of jail, thus

I am unable to mention this source, believed and still believe that

the causes were political.

This letter which was smuggled out of prison states, and I quote,

with Ochoa and Tony, what happened was that there had emerged

antagonic opinions that were irreconcilable, divergence of opinions

regarding state policies, government rule, the rule of law, the status of the only—of the sole party, and the economy. These were criteria regarding the need for a democratic liberalization, which is to

say changes in the different spheres of the economy, of politics and

the rule of the state and government, which was widely known by

everyone because neither one of them made any efforts to hide

them.

I can assure you that what the letter stated is the truth, because

in my house, in my father’s house, there was an atmosphere where

things were discussed, where people could talk about the changes

in Eastern Europe with Perestroika and where the government was

criticized. My father mentioned more than once that he had had

enough, that people in Cuba were not able to freely choose to travel, to set up their own business, to choose who was going to rule

the country. In my house, there were magazines such as Time,

Newsweek, Paris-Match and literature considered subversive by

the regime as well.

Regarding Ochoa himself, he said in my presence that he was not

in agreement with Fidel Castro, and he also typified him as someone who is crazy. My father’s family before the revolution was considered one of the most aristocratic families in Havana and they

had gone to school here in the United States. My uncle Patricio de

la Guardia and my father Antonio de la Guardia then became

linked to Fidel Castro in the 1960’s and supported the regime in

very important military positions.

When they stopped believing in the regime, they made this

known to Fidel Castro and Castro, instead of undertaking a political process as he had done on several occasions with other dissidents, he preferred not to recognize that political dissident within

the core of the Army, and imagined that by accusing these officers

of drug trafficking, he would be able to cleanse his responsibility

in a drug traffic that Cuban authorities were involved in and which

the services of the United States had apparently proof of.

So, with Cause No. 1 of the year 1989, Fidel Castro does away

with two problems in one legal indictment—the emerging

dissidency within the core of the Army, on the one hand, and his

responsibility with drug trafficking on the other.

To conclude, while all the rules of international law were violated

with the Ochoa process, according to the conclusions of the United

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Nations in its Decision No. 47 of the year 1994, Fidel Castro will

no longer be able to hide the truth in spite of the many efforts that

he is still undertaking to try to hide and change the facts. I know

that he will not be able to, thanks to a free world, a free press and

free men such as—and democratic men such as you, that have allowed me to be here before you to listen to the truth of the killing

of my father in the most obscure Ochoa case.

Thank you very much.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Ms. de la Guardia. I know it has been

a very difficult time for you.

We will now hear from Mr. Masetti. Can you make sure the

microphones are close to you, so that we can hear both, please.

[The prepared statement of Ms. de la Guardia follows:]

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Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Dear members of the committee, I come before you here today to bring my testimony of being

convinced that at the beginning of the year 2000, it is high time

that Cuban citizens are allowed to live in freedom without the

weight of an ideology that represents hate and in the name of

which horrible atrocities are being and have been committed. This

is not a cop-out, but I am convinced that if the ideology of Castro

had not emerged in the Latin American continent, many of us that

were its armed right hand, that grew up in an ideology of hate, unfortunately only learning to destroy, would have been very different. We would not have had so much bloodshed from young people and the true meeting between our people and our cultures

today would not be a dream, but a reality. Castrism with its load

of hate has only served to bring us apart.

Unfortunately, we cannot speak of this in the past because it still

exists and it is still there, and Cubans are still suffering from it.

Colombians are still being shot down by the bullets of those trained

in Cuba. In Argentina, my country of origin, there are still mothers

dressed in black in mourning and we could enumerate one by one

the countries within the continent that knew and are still suffering

as a result of this devastating ideology.

And the United States has not been able to escape this scourge.

As a matter of fact, it is the No. 1 goal. And some are still asking

themselves whether Castrism is still a threat for the interests of

this country. I can assure you, according to my own experience,

that while Fidel Castro is still in power, Cuba will be a constant

threat for North Americans.

I remember that once in Havana, I was approached in order to

explore different guerilla organizations to carry out a kidnapping

with strictly financial, not political, goals. In Panama, I met with

a commander of the Colombian organization, M–19, because according to them, they were far advanced in the research of a potential target in Barranquilla in that country. I went back to Havana

to relay the information to Manuel Pineiro, the Director of the

Americas Department of the Central Committee of the Communist

Party in Cuba. He raised every possible objection he could think

of—the country, the organization—he did not like any of it, but as

soon as he found out that the target was a North American executive of Texaco, his fears disappeared immediately and he authorized the operation and he gave it all his resources, because if the

target was a North American, in his own words, ‘‘Fidel will like it.’’

Fortunately for me, this operation was finally not able to be undertaken, but the will of the Cuban officials was evident.

Regarding also the United States, I can assure you that during

the years 1974 and 1975, tens of dozens of militants of the Popular

Socialist Party of Mari Bras in Puerto Rico received military instruction in Cuba at the secret unit Punot Cero.

Likewise, I also witnessed when I was working with the Department of the Americas in the Cuban Embassy in Mexico, the support afforded the Puerto Rican organization, Macheteros, for undertaking the Wells Fargo truck in September 1983, where $7.2 million were stolen and were sent through Mexico—out of which $4

million were sent through Mexico to Havana. Also, the person delivering the truck was brought out of the United States with the

30

support of documents and being masked as personnel of the Cuban

Embassy in Mexico. He was then sent to Cuba. The support

brought to this operation was directly supervised by Jose Antonio

Arbesu, who was then the chief of the United States Section of the

Department of the Americas of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

I was also able to witness the efforts undertaken in Mexico by

Cuban officials to try to free the Colombian drug trafficker Jaime

Guillot Lara, held in that country and who was then sent to Cuba

where he died of a heart attack in 1990.

I can even remember—I cannot remember whether it was in

1986 or 1987, but it would be enough to just do research in the

press regarding the exact date that the M–19 of Colombia, in order

to pay back for favors received from the Libyans, detonated a bomb

in the North American school in San Jose, Costa Rica where a

teacher was wounded. The explosive used was delivered in Managua by an official who was linked to special troops in Cuba and

who operated in that country with the pseudonym Lucio, and that

was in charge of relations with that organization.

I do not want to go on further for fear of boring you, but I am

at your service for replying to any questions you may have.

My only goal has been to provide evidence of the will of the Castro regime toward the United States and toward Latin America. I

also have as a goal, and I find it timely, to let you all know that

I hope my testimony will help bring support to those who are still

fighting inside of Cuba for their freedom and for democracy, and

for making relations with that country in the future, those framed

within brotherly love and not hate and resentment. Please continue

to support them and help them because they, in spite of all repression and danger, they are helping you with their struggle and all

the countries of this continent.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Masetti follows:]

31

32

33

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Masetti and Ms. de la

Guardia. I want to tell you both how much I appreciate you coming

all the way from Spain to testify, and I think the whole committee

is impressed with your candor and your bravery.

We will now go to questioning and each member will have 5 minutes and we will go as long as members have questions of this

panel. I will start off.

Mr. Masetti, when you were a senior member of Fidel Castro’s

Ministry of the Interior, did you have any knowledge of the Interior

Ministry’s involvement with drug trafficking?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Let me just make clear that

I was not a member of the Ministry of the Interior, but of the

Americas Department within the Communist Party, an organization created for broadening subversive activities throughout the entire continent.

But in reply to your question; yes, I did have knowledge of the

involvement of the Castro regime in drug trafficking.

Mr. BURTON. You know, rather than me asking you a whole series of questions about the drug trafficking, can you tell us when

you became aware of the drug trafficking coming in from Latin

America, from Colombia, and was it frequent and was it coming in

by the shipload and could Castro have known about it—or could

this have happened without Castro’s knowledge? And also, what

happened to the money that was paid?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Well, let me begin with what

I can say, I can say that at the beginning of the 1980’s, I do not

remember if it was in mid-1980’s or toward the end of the 1980’s,

I got information regarding the fact that Jaime Guillot Lara was

detained at the airport in Mexico for the use of false documents.

I do not know for a fact that Mexican officials knew at all the type

of character they had apprehended.

And I can also say that I know this because I saw it, that Cuban

officials in the embassy as well as the ex-Ambassador himself, Mr.

Fernando Ravelo, were there at the embassy in Colombia.

All those efforts reaped good results and Guillot Lara was freed

in Mexico. From there, he went to Spain and then on to Cuba

where he died of a heart attack in 1990.

I further learned that the links with Guillot Lara had begun

after a relationship that existed between him and the organization

M–19, because of weapons that were sent to be taken at a point

called El Choco. That is to say that Cuba used the drug trafficking

routes to send weapons to Colombia and in exchange they paid

them with favors, for example, letting them bring the drugs

through Cuba. Of course, they immediately discovered that drug

trafficking was very profitable and they quickly went into business

with Guillot Lara and they let him come to live in Cuba.

Likewise, I met Carlos Alonzo Lucio, the representative of the

M–19 in Cuba. I even went with him, and I do not remember if this

happened in 1987 or in 1988, but I went with him to Colombia to

meet in El Calco with Desaro, who was the commander of the M–

19 forces.

Mr. BURTON. I think you meant 1988 or 1989, did you not?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. No, rather December 1987.

Mr. BURTON. OK.

34

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. In December 1987, he was already asking me if I knew of any Latin American organization that

would be able to provide pilots for him to transport cocaine paste

from Colombia. Since that was not something that I did as part of

my work, I did not keep any contacts with him.

This person, this character I met once again in Havana shortly

before the killing of Antonio de la Guardia. He went there trying

to set up the following business: Cuba would falsely purchase a certain paint to justify the wholesale purchasing of ether that his sister-in-law would need for a company called Arcos Lucs. This company was so well known in Colombia that it was called Narco

Loose.

This factory was later blown up by the narcos because the arrangement they had with the Lucio family was that they would

allow them the use of the factory but that they would not go into

distribution or sale, and the minute they started attempting this,

they blew up their factory.

Later, this character dared to become a political advisor and his

political platform was let us try to moralize Bogota. And he is currently sought by the Colombian authorities for illicit profits or drug

trafficking. And he currently lives in Cuba at a house that is frequently visited by the pianist Frank Fernandez and many foreigners have spotted him there as I very well know.

This is regarding what I personally know. There are other facts,

which are the last days that I was in Cuba, I worked with my

wife’s father in the MC Department, Mr. Antonio de la Guardia.

And I was able to see bags, diplomatic pouches, filled with dollars

in low denominations.

Mr. GILMAN. Where was that you saw these diplomatic bags?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. In the offices of the Department.

Mr. GILMAN. In Cuba?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. In Cuba, in the Siboney development. These valises were then delivered, half of them to the

Minister of the Interior, Jose Abrantes, and half of them to Mr.

Naranjo, an aide to Fidel.

Mr. GILMAN. And these valises contained currency?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Money, dollars, in cash.

The other question I asked myself, knowing from the inside the

repressive interworkings of Castro’s regime, when the legal proceedings were undertaken against General Ochoa and against my

father-in-law, they made a very detailed description of all the drug

trafficking activities. So the small Colombian planes would come

very close to Cuban shores, they would drop the drugs and then

fast boats from Cuba would go pick up the drugs and bring them

to shore. So that then boat owners from Miami would go to Cuba

to pick them up, where they sometimes went to pick them up and

they stayed for a few days. This was described in public throughout

the hearings or the proceedings.

So the questions that I asked myself are the following: There is

a participation or involvement of the following forces—the Coast

Guard that sent the quick boats to pick up the drugs; the forces—

the armed forces that have to give the authorization to do these

pickups from the planes; the immigration forces, so that these trafVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
35

fickers could go through Cuba freely, they had to have false documents.

And Fidel Castro, who in his own words, knew even how many

cookies were sent to the soldiers in Angola, how could it be possible

that he not know about this? This is all regarding drug trafficking.

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. What I wanted to say

was that his rank as a Colonel did not allow him or did not grant

him authority to open up the air corridors for these planes to be

able to come through Cuban space. In other words, this authorization had to come from a higher level of authority and only Raul

Castro, in other words.

Mr. GILMAN. And all of this information was part of the court

proceedings in the trial of your father?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. This that we are discussing right now were all the operations for the drug trafficking

that came up during the trial, but of course, the responsibility as

far as the higher ups could not be mentioned during the proceedings, nor the final destination of the money, the amount of money

from all these operations.

Mr. GILMAN. And what was the date of that trial?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. They were detained

June 13 and the trial began June 30.

Mr. GILMAN. Of what year?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. By July 7, 1989—this

is the year. OK, by July 7, 1989, the attorneys found these four

people guilty and condemned them to death. But in the time period

of 15 to 20 days, this all took place. The other 10 accused were sentenced to 20 or 30 year terms in prison and shortly thereafter my

father was shot. So the whole time period we are discussing was

about a month.

Mr. GILMAN. Jorge, you hadn’t finished your testimony, would

you want to complete your testimony?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Yes, but regarding drug trafficking, that is the information that I possess regarding Cuba’s involvement.

Mr. BURTON. Before I yield to my colleagues—I think we will go

to Mr. Mica next—there are two things that I wish you would

elaborate on for the members to help them with further questions.

Is it possible for shiploads of drugs to come into Cuba without Fidel

Castro knowing about it? And do you have any knowledge of moneys being given to Fidel Castro or his subordinates from drug trafficking?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. The second question, I have

no information regarding that subordinates handed money over to

Fidel Castro; but, of course, the moneys resulting from drug traffic

from the department directed by Manuel Pineiro, that money had

to go to Fidel Castro.

Regarding your first question, I think that this is obvious to anyone who has ever been in Cuba. The level of control and repression

makes it impossible for any type of higher level drug trafficking activity to take place without the knowledge of Fidel Castro. For example, in December 1998, in Cartagena, a 7-ton container full of

drugs was found.

36

And Fidel Castro did then the same thing he did in the Ochoa

case; knowing full well that the Colombian authorities had the information, he took steps before anything else happened, accusing

two Spaniards of the drug trafficking in that case. It is truly impossible, unthinkable, for two foreigners to ever be in Cuba bringing

in that load of drugs illegally, to then send to Europe or to the

United States.

And supposing that these two foreigners were truly drug traffickers, it is impossible for Castro not to have known about this because he does in-depth research of any foreign businessman investing in Cuba. The two Spaniards have even said that they had nothing to do with the drug part of the operation, but that they did

know that the Cuban Government used them to create fronts or

ghost type companies that would get credit then from the United

States, thus allowing them to launder the money.

So Fidel Castro is not looking for businessmen, but rather laundry—people in charge of laundering.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Gilman.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ileana de la Guardia, did you meet with your father Colonel de

la Guardia in jail just before his death? And where did that take

place?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. Yes, I was able to visit

him three times. The first time, the process was already underway

and as a family member during this time, I was able to realize that

he was trying to assume responsibility for everything and not defending himself any more. So due to the fact that the night before,

Fidel Castro visited him in prison and asked him please to assume

all responsibility, that in the end, everything will be handled internally.

During the last visit just before he was executed and having realized that Fidel Castro was not going to make good on his promise,

he asked me to please not let any of my brothers go into the military. And he also then made some comments on politics and the

route he thought the government would be taking and he makes

reference to the China Wall. My interpretation of what he said is

that he once had believed that Cuba would open itself up, that

changes would ensue, and that with this he was saying that to the

country, it would become more isolated.

Mr. GILMAN. What did you learn from your father about the complicity of the Cuban Government in the narcotics trafficking?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. What I was able to

learn, of course, was indirectly learned, because my father, being

the professional that he was, never spoke to his children about the

operations that were undertaken in his department. The indirect

knowledge, for example, would be the result of conversations that

he would have with other people and that I may at times overhear,

or through phone calls that he would have through which, for example, I learned of Mr. Vesco’s visit to Cuba.

Also, I know from this that Mr. Vesco received protection from

Fidel Castro during the 1980’s, that is at the beginning of the

1980’s, because Fidel Castro asked my father to take care of him,

to take care of Vesco. In other words, Vesco would be able to broaden his illegal activities through a house that was built in Cara

37

Lago Leceur and that he would be able to do this because of the

house that would have all the sophisticated means of communication available at that time.

And then just 3 years before 1989, that is when my father started cutting any type of link he would have with Robert Vesco, because it was his understanding that Mr. Vesco was a lowly illegal

person, that he wanted nothing else to do with him, and he would

pass whatever activities regarding Vesco needed to be done to

somebody else.

Mr. GILMAN. Ileana, were you jailed after your father’s death?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. Well, they did not hold

a trial against me, they were not able to do that. But the entire

year during which we were going about receiving a permit to leave

Cuba, we encountered a very difficult situation with the regime because they tried to accuse us of disorderly conduct in a public place

and an attempt to disarm the police.

This is something that I believe they set up by themselves in an

attempt to frame us. They set this up in the street and so they detained us and had us at the police overnight. They had some policemen beat us up.

Mr. GILMAN. One last question, Ileana. Where you have been living, did you file a lawsuit against the Castro regime for the illegal

prosecution and the irregularities in the judicial proceeding against

your father?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. Yes, by 1989, I had already done this, by January. I brought a complaint in France versus Fidel Castro for killing, torturing, kidnapping and drug trafficking. The complaint has gone through several stages and is currently going through the stage known as casaseone in Spanish.

Mr. GILMAN. And that complaint is still pending, is that right?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. It is still open and it

is still pending.

Mr. GILMAN. One last question of Mr. Masetti. What is the role

of Cuban Government officials in those Cuban-owned companies

that are used as a front for drug trafficking? Is it business or an

intelligence function, or both?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I am convinced that these

new Cuban businessmen have a more Mafia-related culture than

business culture. It is very hard to come to understand that these

new businessmen turn out to be ex-intelligence officials dedicated

to illegal activities abroad, that they have only changed their dress

and their GMT Rolex watches for true gold Rolex watches, but

their activities are and remain the same.

But the question is an interesting one, and that is just where I

believe that the North American Government, the American Government, is responsible.

And perhaps I am diverting a bit from the main topic, but I

think it is important. If the United States Government should lift

the embargo against Cuba, what Cuba seeks is not consumables.

That, they can seek anywhere and they do. But rather, lines of

credit and money that is used for these businesses that only people

authorized by Fidel Castro can own, because in Cuba, Cubans cannot have their own business. So lifting the embargo on Cuba would

serve only to consolidate Mafia that we already know exists in

38

other latitudes, to carry out this type of activity in Cuba and that

could perpetuate themselves in power and be in control even after

the death of Fidel Castro.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Masetti, you described in your testimony the beginning of

some of your involvement. I believe that you said that weapons

were going from Cuba to Colombia, is that correct?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Correct.

Mr. MICA. And were these given by the Castro regime in the beginning or was there money coming back for the weapons?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. No, there was no exchange of

money for these weapons, no money paid for these weapons. And

a lot of those weapons were not only sent to Colombia, they were

delivered to many other countries in Latin America. Generally

speaking, they were not Soviet weapons, because this could burn

out the Cuban cover, this could make it known that Cuba had been

involved. A lot of the weapons came, for example, from Vietnam.

The Vietnamese Government would give it to Cuba and then Cuba

would send it to guerilla movements throughout Latin America.

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. American weapons.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. American weapons. And a lot

of the weapons sent to Colombia were weapons that were already

in Cuba before Cuba was armed by the Soviets. For example, a lot

of FAL weapons, F-A-L.

Mr. MICA. Right. You also went on to describe very briefly the

evolution of drug trafficking and the beginning of some relationships between Cuban officials or Cuban individuals and Colombians. Could you elaborate for the committee how drug trafficking

evolved from these contacts?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I really do not have the details of that evolution, but what I have stated is what I know firsthand, and I would rather not talk about things that I may have

learned through other ways, because it could be not totally reliable

information.

Mr. MICA. I am interested in your description—and I would have

to go back and get your exact testimony—of a situation where there

were some legitimate exchanges or activities between Cuba and Colombia, whereby they saw some profits and then that evolved into

drug trafficking. It appears that this case with the 7.3 metric tons

patterned some of what you described before. It would appear also,

given the fact that in Cuba, I guess the government owns 51 percent of any business enterprise, that someone in government would

be involved in the business and if that business turns into drug

trafficking, then you have got the government as a majority partner.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. The first type of activity that

you are referring to was not a legal type of activity that later became illegal. But rather that the Department of the Americas was

forced to arm the M–19 that was——

Mr. MICA. Right. Well, there are two parts to this. First, I was

asking if any of the arms trafficking turned into drug trafficking,

if he had knowledge of that.

39

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Yes, that is exactly what I

was coming to.

Mr. MICA. OK. And then the second part, there are some legitimate activities of business between Colombia and Cuba, even

though in Cuba, 51 percent of any business must be owned by the

government, I believe. I am trying to find out if, in the first part,

was there drug activity evolved from the arms shipment? The second part would be legitimate commercial activity that is transformed into drug activity.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I would not be in the least

surprised, but I have no information.

Mr. MICA. Direct knowledge?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. No.

Mr. BURTON. If the gentleman would yield real briefly.

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. You said that initially the M–19 were getting guns

from Cuba and they were giving drugs to Castro in exchange for

those and Castro saw profit in those and that is how he got into

the drug trafficking.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Exactly, then they kept on.

Mr. BURTON. And then they kept on because they could make

money.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. They—in other words, the

Cuban Government takes those weapons routes directly and in this

specific case, the link with the drug traffickers directly. In the case

of Jaime Guillot Lara, he even then came later to live in Cuba.

Mr. BURTON. OK.

Mr. MICA. This is a part of the question I was trying to get back

to. Does he have direct knowledge of that or is this something he

heard?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. No.

Mr. MICA. It is something you heard?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. No. Of this I do have direct

knowledge. I am talking about the things that I am not replying

to. But of this, I do have direct knowledge because I did have contact with a lot of the people from M–19 and I know them. And the

presence of Guillot Lara in Cuba is something that I personally

know, as I personally know of the efforts of Cuban diplomats in

Mexico and of Ravelo himself. And that is why I would rather not

talk about things that somebody else may have told me because we

may be indulging in speculation.

Mr. MICA. Right.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. That is why I prefer to give

witness of the things that I lived through or I went through myself.

Mr. MICA. Well, do you have any knowledge of that going on

today through your contacts, continuing today?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I think the presence of Carlos

Lucio in Havana is very illuminating. I do not think Fidel Castro

is providing humanitarian protection to this character in Havana.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.

I think we have heard powerful testimony today from people who

have inside knowledge about how the regime worked and they have

40

testified that they do not think that a shipment that all of us have

alluded to, the 7 tons of cocaine that were headed from Colombia

to Havana and then ultimately to the United States could have

gone on without the participation and the involvement, directly or

indirectly, of Fidel Castro. We have heard today that these witnesses believe that more and more Cuba is becoming a money laundering bank, that it is becoming a refuge for international

lawbreakers. They mentioned the presence of Mr. Vesco and many

others who have been involved in money laundering and others

who have been involved in international drug transactions, and

that Cuba is being used as a transit point for the shipment of

drugs and they find many ways of trying to disguise this involvement. And I think this is something that is meritorious for the Department of Justice of our U.S. Government to look into and to get

eye-witness accounts and to followup with testimony of people who

know how this system has worked and how it has manipulated the

drug problem in our hemisphere.

And I wanted to ask Ileana, if I could, to tell us more about the

trial of her father, the procedures that were used, the rights that

were abused, the questions asked, the atmosphere related to the

trial, and about her father’s role and if he did confess his culpability, why or why not. Why do you think that Castro tried her father

and what was Castro ultimately afraid would come out.

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. Well, I think that the

real goal of the Ochoa case, a process with so many irregularities

where, for example, the person orchestrating or directing the process is not the justice department or those in charge of justice, but

rather one man, Fidel Castro, who is trying also to cover up his responsibility in drug trafficking.

I believe that he was trying to cover up his responsibility by

making the accused responsible for these activities, but there is a

second goal, a goal that I have repeated over and over again, which

seems to me quite obvious. It was a political goal. Why? Because

Arnaldo Ochoa, accused of drug trafficking, was at the time in Angola and he had nothing to do with the operations of the MC, the

department that my father directed.

There is also a process which we see where the accused seem to

be implicating themselves. We see no offering of proof of evidence,

there is no material evidence during the entire process. The attorneys were attorneys that were brought to the trial and they were

also officers of the Ministry of the Interior at the same time, members of military intelligence gathering institutions and military

counter-intelligence institutions.

They are judged by a special military tribunal or court, which is

only used in times of war. But Cuba was not at war on any military front at the time. The peace agreements had already been

signed in Angola. So they would have had to have been judged by

a supreme popular court.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. And Ileana, your father did admit culpability

in the drug trade. If you could tell us why he did that in the trial.

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. My dad not only admitted his blame, but he also, from the onset, said that there was

no other higher authority responsible for these acts. And I knew for

a fact that this was not true, because he depended—or the intelVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
41

ligence department of the Ministry of the Interior gave him reports

on things that happened. He could delegate on them as well as

Pepe Naranjo, who was Fidel Castro’s aide.

He did this as a staged show, because the night before, Fidel

Castro went to visit him in jail and told him to assume all responsibility and that later on, nothing would happen. But above all,

that he would not be executed. This I found out through my father

himself. And I believe that the reason why he told me that last

time that I was able to visit him not to let my brothers go into the

military was because he knew that he had been betrayed, that the

promise would not be fulfilled and that he was going to be executed.

I believe that the process is a mixture of two things and is a result of two causes: No. 1, the political opinions my father was beginning to espouse, which were counter to the mainstream government opinion; and No. 2, these illicit operations involving the

Cuban Government. I believe that Castro uses one to do away with

the other. In other words, he uses the drug trafficking of the MC,

that department, in order to eliminate my father and these officials

physically as well as morally in front of the Cuban people.

And last, I think that he thought that having served the government for such a long time, my father believed that Castro would

then forgive him and spare him finally for this sort of dissidence,

quote-unquote, that he was beginning to have. So he would spare

his life in the end.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Diaz-Balart.

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I want

to thank Mr. Masetti and Ms. de la Guardia for their very important testimony today and for having spent so much careful and deliberate time with us.

The questions that I had have been asked. I have one more that

has come to mind as a consequence of the last answer and that is,

do you have any knowledge of whether or not a similar situation

developed with General Ochoa that may have prompted him in his

case to also assume responsibility for the charges that Castro

brought against him? In other words, do you have any contact with

his family, for example, have you had any conversations with his

survivors or is that not the case?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. I believe, regarding

General Ochoa, that after 1989 when I left Cuba, I no longer had

any contact with his family since then. But before he was detained;

that is, in January 1989, Arnaldo Ochoa at my uncle’s own house

openly said quite naturally that he was opposed to Castro’s policies. It is my believe that Arnaldo Ochoa believed that the fact that

he was a hero in his country and because of his political relations

with generals, officials, military as well as political personalities in

the former Soviet Union, that all of this would afford him protection; that is, that he I believe met with Gorbachev himself, he was

somehow involved in discussing Perestroika, and he believed that

he would be protected.

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Yes, because you talked about your opinion of

why your father accepted the responsibility for the charges that

Castro brought publicly against him. So I was wondering if you had

42

any knowledge or opinion with regard to the same subject of why

General Ochoa would have accepted public responsibility for what,

without any doubt, contained falsehoods publicly charged against

him by Castro.

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. Regarding Ochoa himself, regarding his specific case, I do have some information regarding an argument he had with Raul Castro 1 weekend before he was

detained, as a result of which, Raul Castro I believe was going to

have him arrested. And his attitude throughout the entire process

was an attitude of someone that believed that to a point, regardless

of whatever attitude he may have during the process, he also will

be spared because of his connections. Though at the same time, his

attitude during the process was the attitude of someone who knows

that the die had been cast and nothing can be done any more about

the situation.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I would also like to add something that we have missed here. The French press described the

Ochoa trial as the last trial of Moscow, the last process of Moscow,

referring to the set of trials or proceedings during the 1950’s in

Moscow. And this symbol was not just used as what it may seem,

a symbol of something that reminds us of those proceedings in the

1950’s, but also to remind us that the same methods were used legally and the same types of tortures were used as in the 1950’s.

These means were described in Soviet manuals, they were accepted

by Cuban officials and they were used by Cuban officials.

The type of torture, summarizing in a very few words, entails

changing the rhythm of human beings in 24 hour periods. That is,

denying them sleep, providing them with a light that is never

turned off, with extreme cold, taking them breakfast at 10 at night,

then 15 minutes later lunch, and dinner 15 hours later. That

makes the pineal glands stop secreting melatonin. And in 3 days,

this makes the person tortured in this fashion become a total idiot.

This type of torture does not seek to obtain any information from

the individual but rather to provide an extra or added assurance

for perpetrating the lie or perpetuating the lie; that is, the individual becomes convinced of what he is being told to confess and he

will confess.

And that, added to the fact that they are now being accused by

their brothers in arms, who were their brothers in arms until 24

hours before. We have seen these spontaneous confessions in the

Soviet Union before and we did see them in the Ochoa case. I believe that is the case of the same type.

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. de la Guardia, my questions really devolve to trying to establish what was the typical standard of living in Cuba as compared

say with the standard of living that your family enjoyed. And then

I want to go through a number of questions that arise from the information I have.

As it relates to your upbringing, did you live a normal Cuban

life?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. I can say regarding my

own case that it was a question of having two different lives parVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
43

alleling—one outside the house, one inside the house. I classify it

as a type of schizophrenia.

I would say that it was very contradictory, because for example,

outside the house, my life would be characterized as the typical life

that any student would have and that I had for most of the 24

years that I was there. Most students, quote-unquote, would have

to join the discipline that most students go through in education,

they would have to go to political activities, they would have to undertake voluntary work, which they say is voluntary, but it is actually compulsory or obligatory. And you know, I oftentimes would

repeat slogans that were slogans that were given to us by the government, and that sort of thing.

Then I say that it is a contradictory life because inside the house,

we would enter a totally different world, a world where my grandparents on my father’s side were bringing me up and I was raised

under their influence, in an atmosphere where politics were not

discussed, where the regime was not discussed; an entirely other

life, the life that my family had known before the 1960’s, and

where you had to fulfill certain roles, the roles within a family

that, how can I say, was not the typical family currently in Cuba

where everybody is separated. This other type of life where most

importantly we had a lot of information from abroad, from France,

from the United States and, as I have already mentioned before,

magazines like Newsweek, Time, Paris-Match and also literature,

literature that was disallowed elsewhere in Cuba that nobody else

would be allowed to read and that you could not find. We even

could find movies there. This created a lot of difficulties for me because I was not able to bring home other people, other students

lest they accuse me of being bourgeois or other such accusations.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, if I may ask two more questions.

Your house was in a rather well-to-do neighborhood that was

normally reserved for diplomatic corps?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. The house where I was

brought up was the house that my grandfather had had built. And

it was one of the well-to-do select neighborhoods in Havana.

For example, my family already had a house and they had, for

example, cars, cars that were no longer seen circulating in Cuba.

To give you an example, when I finished my studies at the University, my father had saved, stored away, an MG, a sports car, and

of course, his dad had given him this car and he wanted to give

it to me as a present. And this was the topic of many family arguments because I could not be seen with that car outside, I could

not circulate with the car in the streets of Cuba.

And what I can say is that my family, before the revolution, had

a social standing that was, how can I say, well-to-do, and that with

the revolution, they lost many of these material things. So the

things that they kept because they, well, wanted to keep them

somehow, they later could not have and could not use because they

would be the target of other people who were ever vigilant of people who could be influenced by society before the revolution.

Mr. OSE. Was the ability of your family to retain these privileges

a function of your father’s closeness to Fidel Castro?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. I believe that in part,

yes. I think that with the regime they lost some things, but at the

44

same time, the power that they acquired with the revolution, and

I can say that this was like political or military power, allowed

them to preserve some of the things that they had as a family before the revolution.

But at the same time, he was not able to pass on to me a lot of

these material things, even though sometimes they could be sentimental presents, because of the risk they could pose to me politically, as far as me being integrated into Cuban society at that time.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. May I be allowed to say

something?

Mr. BURTON. Sure, go ahead.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Perhaps Ileana, because she

experienced this at a very early age and because she lived within

it, cannot appreciate these things in themselves, but we are also

democratic as a couple. Undoubtedly there was a bourgeois that remained in Cuba that did not become integrated politically. There

were even people who decided to stay but not participate politically

in the government.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that that group lost absolutely

everything and they were forced by the regime to leave Cuba. Perhaps the type of privilege that Ileana’s family was able to preserve

was ridiculous as compared to the type of privilege they would have

had before the revolution. But it was just the same ridiculous situation that other people then were able to enjoy, other people coming in and being able to live in the houses of those bourgeois who

had not become politically integrated and had been forced to flee

the country.

I just wanted to make that clear.

Mr. BURTON. Very good. I am going to yield to Mr. Diaz-Balart,

but I want to nail down a couple of things because the purpose of

the hearing is to talk about drug trafficking.

So Mr. Masetti, I would like to ask you some questions and if you

could keep your answers brief so we could get through this, I would

really appreciate it.

Do you recognize the name Carlos Lage Davila?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. No.

Mr. BURTON. You do not recognize that?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. No. Can you repeat the

name, please?

Mr. BURTON. Carlos Lage Davila, D-a-v-i-l-a.

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Carlos Lage.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. Do you know him?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Yes, Vice President.

Mr. BURTON. Yes, he is one of the Council of Ministers. He was

the one responsible for this company that got the 7.2 metric tons

of cocaine. Would it be possible for him to be in charge of that company and have the Ministry of the Interior have two people there

without them knowing about the 7.2 metric tons of cocaine coming

in?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. It is possible that Carlos

Lage may not have had information regarding that, but it is certain that the person in charge of operations, in charge of coordinatVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
45

ing all those transactions for any business in Cuba had to have

known. And when I say that he may not have been aware, I mean

that he may not have been aware of the specific details, but he,

like many others, must know that there are people within his company in charge of operations that are not fully legal.

Mr. BURTON. The Minister of the Interior had two people there

all the time that were watching what was going on in the company.

Now that’s the intelligence service in Cuba.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I would say that what those

two people were doing was taking care of the cocaine.

Mr. BURTON. OK.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Overseeing that nothing happened to it.

Mr. BURTON. And so the Minister of the Interior knew about the

cocaine, it was impossible for the government not to know that 7.2

metric tons came in.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Impossible.

Mr. BURTON. So I guess the point I wanted to get from you, Mr.

Masetti, as a former official of the government and your wife, her

father, it would have been impossible for this cocaine to be coming

into Cuba without Castro knowing about it and cocaine had been

coming into Cuba for a long time with the administration’s support.

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. Of course, it is impossible for that amount of cocaine to come into Cuba systematically

without the government knowing of it.

Mr. BURTON. And that kind of transactions have been going on

for a long time.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. The Colombian Police at the

time the 7.2 tons were discovered, they made public that that year

10 other such shipments had already been sent.

Mr. BURTON. Ten other shipments.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. They confirmed exactly 7, but

they say there may have been 10.

Mr. BURTON. But in addition to that year, to your knowledge

when you were there, were there cocaine shipments coming into

Cuba even back then?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I could not know that personally, because I had left Cuba 10 years before.

Mr. BURTON. But you said that the M–19, in exchange for weapons, were sending drugs through Cuba.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. In the year 1979 and 1980.

Mr. BURTON. But I want to nail this down. But you said that

they learned that they could make a lot of money from drugs and

that became a mode of operation.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Yes, exactly, and I can say

that first-hand in the 1980’s, but I am not in Cuba presently to be

able to say. But I am surprised at Mr. Carlos Lage and also Lucio’s

presence currently in Cuba.

Mr. BURTON. OK. Do you have a comment?

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. I think your testimony has been very helpful.

Even though the limit of time, the statute of limitations, even

though it has not passed, has not run with regard to drug trafficking by the Castro regime, the Clinton administration is getting by

publicly with the attitude of well, things have changed. To your

46

knowledge, based on your experience and your contacts, have

things changed? What would you say to people in the U.S. administration who have that attitude of we need not be worried about

Castro because things have changed with regard to drug trafficking.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Things have not changed, not

only with regard to drug trafficking but also Fidel Castro is still

the same. He is still the same military strongman, only that his situation is more adverse because his main ally, the socialist world,

has crumbled. But to think that Fidel Castro would not use any

means at his disposal to attack democracy anywhere in the world

at any time is not to know him. How could we otherwise understand that a government such as Fidel Castro, that is a subsidized

government, may have been involved in kidnapping for money of

businessmen for up to $2 or $3 million. Undoubtedly he likes

money just like any other member of the Mafia. But that amount

of money does not mean anything to a country in particular, the

main goal is to destabilize a situation. And that is why I said in

the words I brought here today that I had prepared, as long as

Fidel Castro is in Cuba, the threat to democracy in the United

States and elsewhere will always exist.

And for a man who is so obsessed with the role he will play in

history, I would not be surprised at all if before he dies, because

of course physically death is nearing, that he would be capable of

anything crazy, to attack the United States or to attack any other

democracy in the world.

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Would there not be, in your opinion, more of

a need for hard currency by Castro after the collapse of the Soviet

bloc than before? A need that would be filled in part by drug trafficking?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Of course. I would not be surprised at all, and though I have no hard proof, no hard evidence,

I am convinced and I would not be surprised that he would continue in drug trafficking operations.

I would propose that an investigation be brought of those businessmen in Cuba and I am sure that we would be surprised as to

the results of that investigation.

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. I have evidence—now

regarding this, I can say that yes, as a result of no longer having

subsidies from the Soviet Union, Fidel Castro has stepped up his

involvement in this type of operation, to seek money and from my

dad, I have personal knowledge that he has personal accounts and

that a lot of transactions that walked a fine line between what is

legal and what is not, were undertaken.

And we all know that in Cuba there is no type of organization

or institution of control that is not linked to Fidel Castro, that is

independent of Fidel Castro’s power.

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Ileana, did your father ever mention to you

any of the countries where Castro has personal accounts?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. He directly did not tell

me of this, but I learned of this through others that traveled with

my dad. For example, that in Switzerland, Castro had accounts

where he had money deposited for different amounts, and that in

47

Europe there was a certain amount of arms traffic and other monetary transactions that took place.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Mica, you said you had another question?

Mr. MICA. Just a quick question about the money. You said you

saw bags of money in the Ministry. Usually if you follow the

money, you can find out who is really involved. Where was the

money going that you saw in the Ministry?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. In the offices of the MC Department, which was a part of the Department of the Interior and

it was a special section of Cuban intelligence within the Department of the Interior.

Mr. MICA. And where was that money being deposited? You said

you thought that money was in dollars?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. As I said before, that money

was split 50/50, 50 would go to Pepe Naranjo, who was Castro’s

aide, and 50 percent would go Jose Abrantes himself. For example,

part of that money was used to build a luxury type of clinic in the

Siboney development that was officially and exclusively for the use

of the members of the Department of the Interior and others. It is

a clinic that is still in existence, but aside from sharing it with

members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, it is

also a clinic where people come from abroad to undertake different

procedures, medical procedures, they call it medical tourism.

Mr. MICA. Did you see this happen just once or was this—— Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. The handling of the money?

No, that was constant. The coming in and going out of moneys and

the handling of contrabands of all types. We have to understand

that this was a department that was created for the sole purpose

of getting foreign exchange illicitly, illegally.

Mr. BURTON. Would the gentleman yield?

When you say contraband, you are talking about drugs and other

things?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. All types of merchandise, including weapons.

Mr. BURTON. And was this in the millions of dollars?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I suppose so. I only saw the

bags, I did not count it personally, but I suppose so. It is important

to mention that this office was not clandestine or something hidden

away from the rest of the upper echelons of government. Since this

was a department that was in charge of violating the embargo from

the United States, that is through the use of speed boats bringing

in contraband, they sometimes brought merchandise that was used

for technological purposes. But they also brought consumables coming from Miami and other parts of the United States to supply the

houses of the higher ups. And there was a constant parade of government officials and staff from Raul’s office daily at that office.

Mr. BURTON. If the gentleman would yield for one more question.

The money that was split, half went to Fidel Castro’s chief aide;

do you know where that money went?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. It is impossible for Castro’s

chief aide to keep that money for himself.

Mr. BURTON. It went to Castro. Any more questions?

Mr. MICA. One more question. You described a scenario of drugs

being dropped off the Cuban coast, being picked up by boats and

48

brought to Cuba, and then being transshipped to the United States.

You said some people came and stayed, some for several days on

vacation and then picked the drugs up and took them back to the

United States. Who approved that transiting and how high up was

it known?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. That type of operation could

not, as I said before, have been authorized by Antonio de la

Guardia, who did not have the rank to authorize such things. He

only had the authority to handle operations within the MC. He had

the possibility of having a coordinating capability with other services, but for this type of permission, the Minister, this would have

to come from the Minister himself, and of course the Minister

would never act alone in the case of something as serious as this,

so he would have to have authority from even higher up than the

Minister.

Mr. MICA. A final question, Mr. Chairman. To your knowledge,

does the department or agency that you were a part of still exist

and is it active?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Well, I do not have exact

proof of that, but I am sure that presently under another name,

with another acronym, well, you know, they are doing that currently with the businessmen. The officials are living even better off

than before, so where are they getting the merchandise, it comes

directly from Miami.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you. Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I may followup on other

questions, because I do want to get to the money that my colleagues brought up earlier.

I want to make sure I understand the degree of trust that was

placed in Colonel de la Guardia in one case and General Ochoa in

another, by the Cuban regime. In the first instance, Colonel de la

Guardia had served with Castro since 1961; had been sent to New

York in 1962 for some reason; 1971, had gone to Chile to work with

the new administration of President Allende; in 1973, had been

sent to Spain and a possible kidnapping attempt of former Cuban

dictator Batista; in 1975, Colonel de la Guardia was in Switzerland

laundering money from Argentina’s Montonero guerrillas; in 1976,

he was in Jamaica as head of the Cuban special troops contingent

helping Prime Minister Michael Manley; in 1978, he was in Nicaragua; in 1979, he was made in charge of relations with Cuba’s

exile community; in 1986, he was asked by the Cuban Government

to set up a special import/export business, which is the MC Department. This was a gentleman who enjoyed substantial trust within

the government and access to Fidel Castro himself.

General Ochoa, on the other hand, a member of the military, was

asked by Castro in the late 1970’s I believe, to go to Angola to

clean up the mess that the Soviets had created in the combat going

on with Joseph Savimbi as it related to the freedom that would

subsequently come to the southern portion of Angola with its war

with South Africa.

Ochoa had been awarded—Ochoa was so respected by the Cuban

regime that in 1984, he had been given honorary—the highest honorary titles the Cuban military had ever granted, those being the

49

Orders of the Hero of the Cuban Republic and the Maximo Gomez

Order, First Degree.

General Ochoa lived a very spartan life, he did not live in a special area. From the information I have, he was very well respected

amongst the military. He in fact had the liberty when he was in

Angola to engage in commercial transactions, the purpose of which

were to make up the shortfall in funding that his troops needed to

survive in Angola, that was not forthcoming from the Cuban military.

There are any number of situations of that nature that lead me

to believe that these gentlemen enjoyed the trust and respect of

Fidel Castro personally. In fact, Ochoa was one of the few people

who could use the familiar ‘‘tu’’, t-u, in referring in the first person

to Fidel Castro himself. And that was a privilege extended to virtually no other individuals in the country.

To suggest that individuals in Colonel de la Guardia’s case, 26

year relationship with Fidel Castro, much as Lincoln and I are sitting here next to each other; or in General Ochoa’s case, with a

long history of serving the Cuban military in foreign posts—to suggest that they operated unilaterally challenges my—even my naivete, if you will, about this kind of thing.

Now as far as the money itself, in the late 1980’s, General Ochoa

had returned from Angola, he had been given these various

awards. Colonel de la Guardia, who worked for Jose Abrantes in

the Ministry of Interior, had done, from the Cuban perspective, excellent work in acquiring hard currency to ameliorate Cuba’s deficiencies otherwise. My question of, in particular, Mr. Masetti,

would be whether there was a significant political competition perceived by Raul Castro, originating in the Ministry of Interior, that

threatened the Castro regime. That is a long question and I apologize.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. The last part, could you repeat it?

Mr. OSE. Was there a political competition perceived by Raul

Castro between the Ministry of Interior, as run by Jose Abrantes,

and the regime itself?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. The wars, quote-unquote, and

that is how we could describe them, between the armed forces and

the Ministry of Interior date as far back as the 1960’s. We have to

understand that an officer of the Ministry of the Interior has a different level of life, of traveling, that causes or makes for a lot of

jealousy.

Fidel would always act as a referee between both of consolidating

his power in the Ministry of the Interior, leaving—he does not

allow anybody to sort of emerge with any amount of power, he always creates a balance, and even his brother, he leaves the armed

forces to him to direct and consolidates his power in the Ministry

of the Interior.

But we must keep in mind what was happening during the mid1980’s in the east and in the former Soviet Union. The officials

from the Ministry of the Interior had information then that the

armed forces would not have. If we look at all the desertions that

occurred during the 1980’s, we can see that most of them came

from the Ministry of the Interior and not from the armed forces.

50

Mr. OSE. Desertions or defections?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Defections. In the publication

Monquero from the Ministry of the Interior, Abrantes has a discussion which was made public where he openly describes himself in

favor of Perestroika. So that is why I think that what you mentioned is true, within the Ministry of the Interior, Fidel Castro was

able to see the germ of Perestroika and it was actually there.

The Ministry of the Interior was occupied by the armed forces

after the Ochoa case. And they had to pay a price for this type of

operation.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, if I may, prior to the trials that Colonel

de la Guardia and General Ochoa were involved in, as Chief Minister Abrantes, if I recall correctly, half of the money from the proceeds of these sales were going to the Ministry of the Interior and

half were going to Castro. After the trials, Castro’s people worked

at the Ministry of the Interior and they were still getting the first

half, so instead of only getting half, they were now getting it all.

So following up on Mr. Mica’s comment about following the

money, Castro now had all the money as a result of these trials

that we are talking about.

Mr. BURTON. Do you have a comment?

Ms. DE LA GUARDIA [through interpreter]. Yes, it is possible that

he now, before 1989, he tried to control both, but above all, the

Ministry of the Interior through Abrantes, but now after this, it is

possible that he had total control.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. But we must keep in mind

that he has always had full control of everything. The Ministry of

the Interior special troops were his main toys. You know, we have

to keep in mind that even the uniforms were purchased in the

United States. They dressed like American troops, Ray Bans and,

you know, this is how they were. But then he discovered that there

are men there that he must destroy when he learns that they have

begun to think with their own heads.

We must not lose sight of the fact and at the risk of sounding

cynical, although a very high cost was paid for the proceeding and

for the trial, he compared to the profits derived from it, paid very

little because he was able to occupy the Ministry of the Interior,

he was able to do away with these officials and then he was also

able to consolidate all the power and keep all the situation under

control.

Mr. BURTON. Let me—we are about to end now and Chairman

Gilman has some closing comments and we will make some comments about—excuse me 1 second.

[Pause.]

Mr. BURTON. We have just a few more questions that we would

like to ask about the FALN in Puerto Rico and if you can keep your

answers concise, we can adjourn relatively soon.

You had a relationship with Juan Segare Palma and I would like

to ask you a few questions about where and how you met him. His

code name was Junior.

You were told to meet him, correct?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I know Junior, I had to make

contact with him in Mexico by the end of 1983. Orlando Gomez was

the resident of the department and they received a directive indiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
51

cating—he repeat the directive and tells me that I have to meet

with Junior. He does not tell me that his name is Junior but he

tells me that he is the leader of the Macheteros. To place him in

a secure department in Mexico. And that he was going to teach

him a course on how to make a small box to interfere with TV

broadcasting. And that further, he was to remain in Mexico for a

few days because they were going to be sending $50,000 over to

him from Havana and so we had to create a situation where he

would be able to transport the money back to Puerto Rico.

Mr. BURTON. Let me interrupt here.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Provide a way for him to hide

the money and bring it back to Puerto Rico.

Mr. BURTON. He asked you questions about armored cars?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. More than a meeting, we

were at a dinner, and at this dinner, Mr. Komas was present and

also the person who brought the money, who was the chief of the

Department of the Americas, who used a code name. Also was Antonio Arbesu, the section chief, was present.

They said that they had had previous success with armored

trucks but they said that they had a new operation now because

someone was going to hand over the truck. I do not know who, I

was not exactly clear on whether it would be the chauffeur or

somebody else. They did not specify which city but he did ask if we

knew of any substance we could put in his coffee to sort of drug

him a little bit.

Mr. BURTON. So he was asking about narcotics to incapacitate

people. Did you help him out?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I have no evidence of that. At

that time, we gave him no reply.

Mr. BURTON. There came a time when he did get the money, the

$40,000.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. $50,000.

Mr. BURTON. $50,000. Who gave it to him?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Well, I prepared the bag with

the $50,000. The exchange was made at the airport in Mexico.

Once he went through immigration, it was done in a quick way, exchanging identical suitcases and the suitcase was given to him by

Mr. Agajes, who was a diplomat, and that is why his suitcase was

not searched.

Mr. BURTON. Now this money was for what purpose?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. What they made known to us

through Junior was that they had run out of money, that they had

this new operation ongoing with this truck, they did not say where,

but that they had to support themselves with this money until they

were able to successfully make the operation.

Mr. BURTON. Now the robbery that took place after the $50,000

was given to Segare Palma, was there any other contact between

Cuba and those people planning the robbery?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Junior was in Mexico. They

sent me to pick up a person whom they said to be the main leader

of the Macheteros. I was not given his name, I simply had to pick

him up at a certain place and take him to another place where he

was to meet with an official from the Cuban Embassy. But due to

52

the importance and priority of this person, we had to guarantee

that he would not be followed and that was my mission.

Mr. BURTON. OK.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. When I showed surprise as to

the entire interworkings of everything that was being done for this

person, they mentioned that he was a very high leader and that

Cuba owed him very many favors for previous operations.

Mr. BURTON. Did he know that the robbery was going to take

place?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Yes, because when I was taking him to meet with the other contact from the Cuban Embassy,

I asked him on the way if they had solved the little problem they

had with the coffee and he showed himself to be a little bit upset

and said that Junior should not have been so outspoken regarding

that, showing thusly that he knew what I was talking about. And

I am sure—I cannot say for sure because I was not there, but I am

sure that that meeting after Junior’s meeting was a meeting whose

goal was to make the exchange with the money.

Mr. BURTON. Now the Wells Fargo robbery happened on September 12, 1983. Afterwards, the man who took the $7.2 million from

Wells Fargo was smuggled out of the United States into Mexico. He

then ended up in Havana, is that right?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. This person, this leader?

Mr. BURTON. No, the man who took the $7.2 million.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. The person who delivered the

truck was swept from the United States, was taken quickly, swiftly

to Mexico where, with the help of Cuban Embassy officials, he was

given a change, dyed his hair, given a mustache, et cetera. He was

given a fake Argentine passport. The stamps for entering Mexico,

Arbesu himself took there personally. And then he went to Havana

and was living there.

Mr. BURTON. Victor Jerena?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I found out the name much

later, but right there at that time, I did not know it. So if Victor

Jerena was the person who delivered the truck, then yes. Undoubtedly it must be him, but at that time I did not know that.

Mr. BURTON. How much money, of the Wells Fargo robbery

ended up in Cuba? $4 million.

Now Alberto Ojito Rejos—I hope I am pronouncing his name correctly—was convicted in 1992 in Connecticut for his part in the

Wells Fargo robbery and sentenced to 55 years. Did you ever meet

Mr. Rejos?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. I later found out that this

leader of the Macheteros that I had encountered in Mexico was this

Mr. Rejos, but right then, I did not know.

Mr. BURTON. Do you know what ties he had to Castro and Cuba?

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. They explained to me later

when I found out who he was that it was someone that Cuba owed

a lot of favors to for previous operations. And they told me that he

was a man of a lot of experience and that he had undertaken a lot

of clandestine operations in the United States before.

Mr. BURTON. So they owed him.

Mr. MASETTI [through interpreter]. Exactly.

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Mr. BURTON. OK. Now let me change to another subject and I

apologize to my colleagues but we did not get through all this, so

it is very important. I would like to talk to you about—I think that

is it, I was in error.

I will now ask Mr. Gilman to make his closing statement and

then we will wrap this up. I appreciate very much your help.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Chairman Burton. I want to commend

you for bringing this very significant hearing to Florida and bringing our witnesses all the way from Spain to appear before us. It

was very enlightening and I think we have established some very

substantial and significant information for our committees in the

Congress.

Before closing, I want to commend Jorge Masetti and Ileana de

la Guardia for your courageous willingness to testify extensively for

our committee.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the results in brief,

the recent excellent December 21, 1999 GAO report to Congress entitled, ‘‘Assets DOD contributes to reducing illegal drug supply

have declined.’’ I ask that that statement be included in the full

record of these proceedings.

Mr. BURTON. Without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. GILMAN. As we examine the problems, Mr. Chairman, of

fighting drugs transiting the Caribbean, this GAO report at page

4 informs us why we have problems and so very little knowledge

of what is actually transacting in this area. The GAO notes that

for the years 1992 through 1999, that the number of Department

of Defense flight hours dedicated to detecting and monitoring drug

shipments have declined from 46,000 to 15,000 hours, a 68 percent

decrease. Moreover, the GAO report says that the number of ship

days declined from 4,800 to 1,800, a 62 percent decline over that

same period of time.

The Department of Defense admits that coverage of the high

threat drug trafficking areas in the Caribbean and in the cocaine

producing countries is limited, so it is clear that part of the problem here is a lack of commitment by the administration to prevent

drugs from ever reaching our shoreline. And the American people

are the ultimate losers from this gross neglect and I hope these

hearings can help turn around that sad neglect. And I thank you

again, Mr. Chairman, for conducting these hearings.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Gilman, Chairman Gilman.

And Ileana, did you have a closing comment?

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Burton. I wanted to congratulate you, Dan, and Chairman Gilman as well for your leadership that you have shown on this important issue of examining the

role of Fidel Castro to international drug trafficking, the use of

Cuba as a transit point for the shipment and the movement of

drugs, the use of Cuba as a refuge for international criminals and

the use of Cuba as a bank for money laundering.

I think that what we need to do is to capture the attention of

the Clinton administration Justice Department that has been reluctant to pursue these serious allegations and testimony such as

the ones presented today, because they are so hell-bent on normalizing relations between the countries, that they are willing to overlook and indeed hide much of the evidence that exists. So I hope

that sooner or later, we can get an administration that pays attention to these unfolding facts and will act in a deliberative manner

and overlook the political consequences in making sure that we can

eliminate the scourge of drugs in our community.

We have to understand the implicit role and complicit role of

Fidel Castro in the shipment of drugs in our hemisphere.

So I thank you, Mr. Burton and Mr. Gilman as well.

Mr. BURTON. Well, thank you, Ileana.

Ms. de la Guardia and Mr. Masetti, you are very courageous people. Thank you very much for coming all the way from Spain to be

with us. What you have said today and what you have given us

today will be very, very helpful in letting the American people and

the world know what Fidel Castro is all about.

We stand in recess until tomorrow morning at 9:30.

[Whereupon, at 5:16 p.m., the committee was recessed.]

(59)

DRUG TRAFFICKING IN THE CARIBBEAN: DO

TRAFFICKERS USE CUBA AND PUERTO

RICO AS MAJOR TRANSIT LOCATIONS FOR

UNITED STATES-BOUND NARCOTICS?

TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Miami, FL.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:31 a.m., in the Commission Chambers, Sweetwater City Hall, 500 S.W. 109th Avenue,

Miami, FL, Hon. Dan Burton (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Burton, Mica, Barr, Ose, and RosLehtinen.

Also present: Representative Romero-Barcelo.

Staff present: James C. Wilson, chief counsel; Kevin Long and

Gil Macklin, professional staff members; Kristi Remington, senior

counsel; Lisa Smith Arafune, chief clerk; Maria Tamburri, staff assistant; and Michael Yeager, minority counsel.

Mr. BURTON. I want to welcome everybody back to our second

day of this Miami field hearing. Today we are going to be continuing our discussion of the drug trafficking in the Caribbean.

Today we are going to hear from four witnesses. The first is my

good friend, Jose Fuentes Agostini, the former Attorney General of

Puerto Rico. He is going to give us his perspective on the problems

that they faced in Puerto Rico and first-hand information about the

Government of Puerto Rico’s efforts to combat drug trafficking. He

also is going to let us know how he feels about the Federal Government’s assistance or lack thereof. Mr. Agostini recently left the position to return to private practice, but he feels so strongly about

the drug problem he is here with us today.

Our second panel of witnesses will be from the administration.

We will hear from Bill Ledwith, the Chief of Foreign Operations for

the United States Drug Enforcement Administration about United

States drug cooperation—United States-Cuba cooperation on the

drug trafficking through Cuba. Mr. Ledwith recently testified before Mr. Mica’s subcommittee on November 17th in Washington.

His testimony there left many of us with a large number of unanswered questions and we look forward to hearing from him today

and asking more questions. Hopefully he will have more answers

than he did last November.

And then we will hear from the U.S. Customs Service. I want to

say just a couple of things about the Customs Service. They did

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yeoman’s service for the country recently—just before Christmas— when they intercepted a terrorist bringing explosives across the

border from Canada. He had enough explosives, I understand, to

blow up four or five city blocks, and he was targeting, they think,

either Seattle or Las Vegas. A few days later they made another

arrest at a remote Vermont border. So, I would just like to say to

all of those with the Customs Service that is a job well done and

we all appreciate that very much.

We will have Mr. Varrone from the Customs Service testify later.

I guess he has with him Mr. Quinn and Ms. Cody and other Customs officers to help him out. Thank you all for the good job you

are doing.

Our final witness will be Special Agent in Charge Mike Vigil of

the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Mr. Vigil is in charge

of the Caribbean Division and is based out of Puerto Rico, and we

look forward to his insights on drug trafficking as well, and what

can be done to strengthen our efforts in the Caribbean and in Puerto Rico.

With that, we will start off with our good friend, the former Attorney General of Puerto Rico for his testimony.

STATEMENT OF JOSE FUENTES AGOSTINI, FORMER

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE GOVERNMENT OF PUERTO RICO

Mr. AGOSTINI. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very

much for inviting me today. I would like to thank also Resident

Commissioner Carlos Romero Barcelo and the other members of

this Committee on Government Reform.

For the record, my name is Jose Fuentes Agostini, and I have

spent the last 3 years of my life as Attorney General of Puerto Rico

and chairman of the Puerto Rico-United States-Virgin Islands High

Intensity Drug Trafficking Area [HIDTA].

I come here today to represent the 3.8 million Puerto RicanAmerican citizens who reside in the island of Puerto Rico. Mr.

Chairman, we profoundly appreciate your personal help, just as we

profoundly appreciate the shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration of

dedicated public servants like other witnesses on today’s personal

agenda.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Federal Government for all the help it gives us in Puerto Rico in fighting this

tremendous problem with drug trafficking that we have in the Caribbean. The truth of the matter is, the relationship between the

State law enforcement agencies and the Federal law enforcement

agencies in Puerto Rico is second to none. I have not seen anywhere else in the United States such a level of joint effort as I see

in Puerto Rico because of the way that the law enforcement agencies—the Federal law enforcement agencies interact with each

other. There is always frictions created amongst them, but in Puerto Rico because of the limited resources we have, probably, we see

how they are able to work not only together but very closely with

the Puerto Rico Government, and we have seen some very impressive results.

I filed a statement for the record which I request be incorporated

into the Congressional Record.

Mr. BURTON. Without objection.

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Mr. AGOSTINI. I have had the opportunity to work with a lot of

the staff that the Members of Congress have. I know they are very

competent. So I am sure that my statement and the information

that is in there will get to you. So instead of wasting your time

with that, I would like to go into some other areas that are not in

my statement which specifically go into what it is we need to continue the change that we are seeing in the northern Caribbean and

actually in the southeast border.

We are seeing a lot of changes—a lot of resources going to the

southwest border. None of those resources are going to the southeast border. What happens is, when you squeeze a balloon at one

end the balloon is not going to pop, it is just going to grow bigger

at the other end, and that is what we are seeing, at least in the

northern Caribbean and probably in Florida, also.

My statement covers what the local law enforcement agencies are

doing to fight drugs and crime and the impressive results we are

obtaining, one of which is a 50 percent reduction in violent crimes

in the last 7 years in Puerto Rico. We have provided a breakdown

of the crimes reported for your use, and you can see how across the

board in the last 7 years we have been able to cut in half violent

crime on the island of Puerto Rico. This has come at great sacrifice

and great expense from the people of Puerto Rico. A huge amount

of our budget goes into this war because it is directly related to

drug use and drug interdiction. Some 8 or 10 years ago 8 out of

every—sorry, 3 out of every 10 murders in Puerto Rico were drug

related, nowadays, we know for a fact that even though we have

a 35 percent reduction in murders in Puerto Rico, 8 out of every

10 is directly related to drugs. So actually we have had a huge success in this area. If it were not for the drug problem, we would

probably have the murder rate in Puerto Rico down 80 percent.

My report, which was filed today, also covers the joint operations

which the Puerto Rico and Federal law enforcement agencies are

conducting under the auspices of our HIDTA Program, which I personally chaired for a year and a half, and the equally impressive

results that we have achieved having cocaine seizures to the tune

of 30,000 pounds during the first 11 months of 1999. But today,

like I said, I would like to concentrate on what we need to improve

on this impressive record.

First of all, I would like to bring to your attention the situation

of our Federal court system. Puerto Rico has seven Federal judges,

but for the last 7 years only six of those seven positions have been

filled. President Clinton has failed to submit an adequate nominee

for that position in 7 years. The result of that is a huge backlog

in Federal cases. The civil docket in Puerto Rico has been paralyzed for the last 5 years. No civil cases can be tried in Puerto Rico

because criminal cases have precedence over civil cases creating

tremendous problems. But we now are confronted with a situation

that we have a huge backlog in criminal cases, mostly drug-related

criminal cases.

Why is this happening? Well unfortunately, the Puerto Rico Constitution prohibits the use of the single most effective investigative

tool that exists nowadays, wire taps. So we use the resources of

Federal law to use this tool, very effectively I might add, but all

those cases need to be filed in Federal court. So what we are findVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing is that all the large criminal drug-related cases, basically

30,000 pounds worth of cocaine cases go to Federal court, and with

the resources that the Federal court has in the District of Puerto

Rico, it is simply impossible to attend that backlog. So I am going

to petition this committee today for at least two more Federal

judges and at least two more Federal magistrates so that we can

attend all criminal cases and start attending the backlog in civil

litigation that we have in Puerto Rico. And if at all possible, to fill

that vacant position on the court.

Additionally, I think there are various areas in which resources

need to be considered for Puerto Rico. And when I mention Puerto

Rico, I need to be clear on something. Sending resources to Puerto

Rico alone is not enough, because we need to be out there gathering information in the rest of the Caribbean if we are to be effective in Puerto Rico. I will give you an example. DEA—for example,

DEA does not cover Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico DEA has to cover

all the way down to Guyana. We are talking 20 different nations

out there that we need to gather intelligence from if we are going

to be effective in Puerto Rico in closing down our United States

border to avoid drugs from coming in.

So we need to continue to build on a mobile response capability

that is effective. What I mean by this is, we need helicopters. We

need Blackhawk helicopters, to be specific. Why Blackhawk helicopters? Because these helicopters have to be over the ocean for extended periods of time and the Blackhawk is the only helicopter

that has two engines. They can stay out there for hours surveiling

and watching these go-fast boats and aircraft that are getting all

these drugs into our shores.

We also need money to keep them in the air. Keeping a

Blackhawk in the air is an expensive proposition to the tune of

$2,200 an hour. We need money to maintain them. The truth of the

matter is, there’s eight of them in Puerto Rico right now. There are

eight Blackhawks in Puerto Rico that the United States National

Guard has, and these eight Blackhawks cannot be used for drug

interdiction because the money is not there to keep them in the air

and they are used only for training. So it behooves me to understand why if we have the equipment down there, we cannot find

the money to keep them in the air to help us with this war. I personally met with powers to be at the Pentagon, I have met with

Anna Maria Salazar on no less than four occasions personally. She

has tried—I must say she has tried very hard to help us find the

money but the money is not there to be found. So here we are sending Blackhawks to Costa Rica to pull marijuana plants and sending

Blackhawks to Colombia, that the Colombian Government cannot

keep in the air, and we have got them setting on the ground in

Puerto Rico and we cannot use them either. There’s something

wrong there that we need to fix real quick.

We need more go-fast boats for Customs and the U.S. Coast

Guard. United States Customs does have a lot of equipment in

Puerto Rico. They are now in the process of reorganizing their air

and marine assets. The Coast Guard does have equipment. Let me

give you an example. When the Coast Guard has a cutter out in

the middle of the Caribbean Ocean—Caribbean Sea and they spot

a go-fast boat moving, they cannot really do anything because a

63

cutter cannot do 50 or 60 miles an hour to stay with that go-fast

boat. There is the technology now where inflatable go-fast boats

can be put on the Coast Guard carriers and they could then follow

those go-fast boats. Then we need at night helicopters to spot them

and follow them. That is what I mean by mobile response capabilities. We need to be able—because we are spotting them, we just

cannot do much about it once we spot them.

There needs to be a continued development of our regional strategy. We need more agents for that. We need to have more manpower and all these islands, Central and South America feeding us

information. Puerto Rico’s HIDTA—Puerto Rico-United States-Virgin Islands HIDTA just won a prize from ONDCP for having the

best intelligence center in the nation. We have the best intelligence

center in the whole U.S.A. in Puerto Rico, so we can manage that

information, and we can put it to good use, but we need the capabilities to get out there hands on and make it happen.

DEA, FBI and Customs, plus INS, all need more agents—it is

that simple. They need more manpower because, believe me, it is,

by any stretch of the imagination, a duck shoot down there. It is

incredible how much more we could do if we had the resources.

And as far as DEA, FBI and Customs, they do an excellent job with

what they have. I sometimes am so impressed with how much they

can do with the amount of resources they have. It is really incredible. I mean, these are dedicated public servants that are really

making a change. INS is a different story, and I will get to INS

in detail in a little while.

Our HIDTA budget, we get $9 million a year. We have gotten $9

million every year for 4 years now. It is great. It has helped us put

together this super program that is very effective, but for some reason the budget is the same every year, and we now have three

times more HIDTAs than we had 4 years ago.

Mr. BURTON. HIDTAs, what is that?

Mr. AGOSTINI. High intensity drug trafficking area. It is the

ONDCP program——

Mr. BURTON. OK.

Mr. AGOSTINI [continuing]. That brings together all the Federal

and local law enforcement agencies under one roof. It gives them

money to attack drugs.

The U.S. Congress keeps getting petitioned for more money for

prevention, more money for treatment, more money for the Federal

Bureau of Prisons, all these are drug-related issues. Huge amounts,

billions of dollars, are being spent in these areas, but in the last

4 years no more money is going to interdiction.

We need to strengthen the counter drug efforts by INS on our

southeast border. The Caribbean corridor is the name of the area

where one-third of the drugs that come to the United States mainland come through. That includes Jamaica, Cuba. It includes Haiti,

the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the rest of the Caribbean.

We now have less INS Border Patrol agents and investigative

agents—we have less than what we had 8 years ago. We have

something like 40 for what is one of the largest entry points into

the United States, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a United States border. The west end of Puerto Rico is only 90 miles away from the

eastern end of the Dominican Republic, 90 miles. What is happenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing is, because of the pressure that is being put by law enforcement

agencies in Puerto Rico, they have adapted, and they adapt to

Haiti in this instance where there is very little law enforcement,

if any at all.

Once they are in Haiti where I would say about 18 percent of the

drugs are going nowadays, a huge stash house. Some of it goes

through Cuba—a very small percentage I would say. The largest

amount of it is going over land—which is very easy—to the Dominican Republic. When it hits the eastern end of the Dominican Republic it is only 90 miles away from the United States coast. So

they are using illegal alien runners to run drugs from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico every night and INS catches one boat

load and they are tied up for 3 or 4 days processing this boat load,

so it is open season. We need to change this. You cannot send 1,000

new Border Patrol agents to the southwest border and not expect

that to have an impact in Puerto Rico and Florida because it is

going to have an impact. They are going to readapt and they are

going to start bringing in their drugs through Puerto Rico and Florida. That is what is going to happen. You do not have to be a brain

surgeon to figure that one out. We just need more resources in

Florida and Puerto Rico to counter this problem.

INS simply does not understand the issue, and I have personally

met with Doris Meissner to try to explain this to them, but they

insist that the drug problem and the illegal alien problem are two

separate problems and they are to be treated separately. Well let

me tell you something, 95 percent of all the drugs coming through

Puerto Rico are being brought in by illegal aliens, Colombians and

Dominicans. And Dominicans are using Puerto Rico as the entry

point to get into the eastern border of the United States to run the

drug laundering operations of the Colombian cartels. If we do not

wake up that reality and start closing down that border they will

continue to operate on the mainland of the United States because

the effect of not sending resources down to Puerto Rico—besides

the tremendous social problems it creates in Puerto Rico—is that

all the drugs wind up in our mainland continental States. And that

is the effect of not giving Puerto Rico the Federal resources it needs

to fight this war.

I feel that the armed forces need to play a bigger role in this war.

I mean, when during 1999 alone, we were able to seize 1,200

pounds of cocaine within the territorial area of the largest naval

base outside the continental United States, there is something

wrong. 1,200 pounds of cocaine we seized in 1999 alone in Roosevelt Roads. Not inside the base, but inside their buffer zone, inside the area that protects their base. That to me is a clear sign

that we need to talk to the armed forces about how they are going

to help us in this specific war.

ONDCP is going to report to you next month that they have been

extremely successful—and they have—in reducing coca plantations

in Peru and Bolivia by 50 percent—very important. That is very

impacting, a 50 percent drop in coca cultivation in Bolivia and

Peru—very impressive. What they may not tell you is that they are

now growing it in Colombia, simply moving to Colombia. By the

end of March 2000, we will have the ROTHR radar, Relocatable

Over-the-Horizon Radar, on line from Puerto Rico. That radar is

65

going to give us the ability to know exactly where in Colombia the

cartels are performing their operations, their cultivations, their

cooking as it is better known. What are we going to do with that

information? We do not have the resources to do anything with it.

It seems the Colombian Government, which is trying very hard to

help, does not have the resources. We need to start thinking about

what we are going to do with that information. It is going to be

very valuable information. We are going to be able to know every

aircraft that takes off from the jungle in Colombia to make a drop

off outside Puerto Rico or any Caribbean island. How are we going

to address that information? How are we going to get down there

and respond to that information? The capabilities are not there

right now.

Like I said, if we get these resources, we will turn this thing

around—we will, for the good of the people of Puerto Rico, for the

good of the people in Florida, for the good of the continental United

States where these drugs are winding up and killing our youth. We

continue to spend a huge amount of our State budget in this war.

Our next step, this month we are going to put out a request for

proposal for $20 million worth of x-ray machines to be able to close

down the use of our marine cargo container facilities, which is a

huge gap that we have in closing down that border. The Government of Puerto Rico is going to put up the money to have the

equipment to x ray those containers. I need to say that the help

of the U.S. Customs Service has been invaluable in helping us put

together the technical aspects of what we need in equipment to

close this problem down. We are going to put up the money, we are

going to do it. We are going to start x raying containers and you

are going to see what a huge difference that is going to make, because the amount of cocaine that fits in a container—every time we

catch one it is thousands of kilos of cocaine. So we need to close

that down. We are going to put up the money and with the help

of U.S. Customs we are going to get it done. If we are going to be

at war, then by God, give us the equipment, give us the resources

and we will make you proud like we have done in so many other

conflicts that we have participated. Just give us what we need and

we will close it down.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Agostini follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Attorney General, for

that very thorough analysis of the problem.

I would like to introduce all the members of the committee who

are here. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen just came in a minute ago. Mr. Mica

is here. He chairs a subcommittee that deals with this problem on

a regular basis. Mr. Barr who has been very active in this area.

Mr. Barcelo who represents Puerto Rico, and Mr. Ose, and, of

course, our counsel is here as well, Jim Wilson.

Let me start off the questioning. Jim, we need to start the machine. You said that you have seven Federal courts down there and

only six judges, and you said there is a huge backlog and the administration for 7 years has not filled that seventh court. You also

said you need two more Federal judges and two more magistrates.

Now those two more Federal judges, are those in addition to the

seven?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. So you would need nine. So there should be three

more—three vacancies still, if we give you—if we get two more?

Mr. AGOSTINI. We have one Federal court and in that Federal

court——

Mr. BURTON. But you have seven——

Mr. AGOSTINI. We have seven positions——

Mr. BURTON. Right.

Mr. AGOSTINI [continuing]. Of which six have been filled, but one

has not been filled.

Mr. BURTON. But you need two more?

Mr. AGOSTINI. We need two more in addition. We would like to

have nine. If we had nine, we could manage the criminal and the

civil docket.

Mr. BURTON. OK. Now you said that they have eight Blackhawks

down there in the National Guard. If those were activated for drug

interdiction and the resources were there to keep them flying over

the borders of Puerto Rico and the sea around Puerto Rico, would

that be a sufficient number?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes, that would be. We would need to get at least

four FLIR equipment. To properly use them——

Mr. BURTON. For looking down, heat sensitive?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Right. But eight would be more than enough. But

we would need the capability also for those helicopters to be able

to be stationed in other countries where we’ll be gathering intelligence if we really want to be effective in shutting down the borders.

Mr. BURTON. So you’re talking about taking some of the helicopters and placing them in strategic points around the Caribbean

besides in Puerto Rico?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. OK. You said you needed more go-fast boats. Are

those—I don’t know much about those inflatable boats. Do you

know the cost of those? Do you have any idea? Maybe the DEA can

tell us.

Mr. AGOSTINI. A go-fast inflatable boat is about $150,000 to

$175,000.

Mr. BURTON. And how many of those would you need?

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Mr. AGOSTINI. I believe the Coast Guard now has nine active cutters in the Caribbean. They need one for each.

Mr. BURTON. So they need about nine of those?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. OK. And you said that you need more INS agents.

You said there’s 40 down there now. How many do you need?

Mr. AGOSTINI. About 160 I would say.

Mr. BURTON. About four times that many?

Mr. AGOSTINI. At least.

Mr. BURTON. That figure that you gave that 95 percent of the

drugs coming into Puerto Rico is through illegal aliens, that seems

like an extraordinarily high number, but you are certain that is the

case?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes, because when you find United States citizens

being caught bringing in drugs they are normally very small

amounts, and normally it is from the mainland United States

bringing marijuana into Puerto Rico.

Mr. BURTON. So it is coming from the United States back into

Puerto Rico?

Mr. AGOSTINI. That is why it is such a small amount. The large

amount, where the money is, is the huge loads of cocaine and heroin coming into Puerto Rico and then making it to the mainland

United States, and that is being done by aliens.

Mr. BURTON. Once an illegal alien gets into Puerto Rico and gets

a ticket on an airplane, there is no way to catch them really, is

there?

Mr. AGOSTINI. There is not.

Mr. BURTON. I mean, our Customs people do not pay any attention to the airports—— Mr. AGOSTINI. They do not really have any jurisdiction. But what

we are doing is, there is an agent now right after you go through

the metal detector machines, and if a person fits a profile they ask

a couple of questions. And through that, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has said that we are able to—if they fit

a certain profile—ask questions and if they do not answer the right

questions, then investigate whether they are in the country legally.

So we are having some success there, but that is not close enough

because a lot of them get through.

Mr. BURTON. OK. Could you explain for the committee the pattern of smuggling that is used by the cartels through Puerto Rico

and the Caribbean corridor.

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes, I can. There are probably people here that

are better qualified than I am to do that, but I will try that. There

are basically four routes of the Caribbean corridor. There is the Jamaica-Cuba-Bahamas corridor; there is the Haiti-Dominican Republic; there is the Puerto Rico-United States-Virgin Islands and

then there is the eastern Caribbean corridor. That makes up, up

until 1997, one-third of the drugs coming to the mainland United

States. The largest one being Haiti-Dominican Republic. That was

15 percent. I suspect that is up now tremendously. The problem is

that when the numbers are analyzed, only 6 percent is really going

directly from Colombia to Puerto Rico-United States-Virgin Islands.

But the truth of the matter is, a very large amount of the drugs

being brought into Haiti and the Dominican Republic are also makVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00079 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing it into the United States through Puerto Rico, and that’s where

the numbers may be a little deceiving. We need to take a hard look

at that. That is why we need to close down harder on the Puerto

Rican border.

Mr. BURTON. I will have some more questions later.

Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. I was interested in the pattern of drug movements and

also those involved. You said you had many illegals, accounting, I

guess, for 95 percent of the drug trafficking. How are they getting

in? You said at night they are coming in? They are not coming into

your ports and airports, they are coming into other locations, is

that correct?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes. There is a very large illegal alien trade from

the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. They use these 30-foot

wooden boats, which do not reflect on our radars, with a large outboard engine. They are very difficult to detect. They run at night

without lights, and a stretch of 90 miles, they can do in 5 or 6

hours, even less if the ocean is not rough. So they will run from

the eastern end of the Dominican Republic to the western end of

Puerto Rico, that 90-mile stretch. Or there are a few islands— uninhabited islands off the coast of Puerto Rico where they will

drop off aliens. Now what the illegal alien runners discovered was

that it was more profitable to run drugs. So on these small vessels,

besides putting people to bring them over, they put in drugs, and

they are using the same mechanism to bring them in.

Mr. MICA. Well, I participated with Mr. Hastert when he chaired

the subcommittee that dealt with drug policy. We held hearings— in fact, one was on a Coast Guard cutter, I think, in the bay in—— Mr. AGOSTINI. In San Juan Bay, yes.

Mr. MICA [continuing]. San Juan. Trying to put back the war on

drugs, most people do not realize it was basically closed down by

the Clinton administration. In 1993 they cut the Coast Guard by,

I think, about 50 percent of their funding and staffing in your area.

Most people do not realize the Coast Guard is also responsible for

the area around Puerto Rico. We are basically approaching 1992

levels if you translate dollars from 1992 to 1999.

You talked about the military. They took the military out of most

of the interdiction. You also described the Colombian situation. Mr.

Hastert—in fact, some of us trounced through the jungle with him

in trying to start with a few small bucks, the eradication campaign

which is now somewhat successful. But as you said, the traffic did

move to Colombia. Again, we have a failed policy there where we

never allowed the resources to get through, even the most recent

$300 million that Congress appropriated. I understand your frustration. You have to understand some of our frustration, because

we have tried to put Humpty Dumpty back together again and it

is very difficult once it has been knocked off the wall.

With INS you said you may need as many as three times the resources. Mr. Barr asked us to hold a hearing in his district and he

had 40,000 illegal aliens in the Dalton-Atlanta area, just north of

Atlanta, I believe it is. And we found that we have almost doubled

the budget for INS from about $1.8 million to—I think it is about

$3.2 billion—$1.8 billion to $3.2—and we have gone from about

18,000 to I think over 30,000 some employees in INS. We heard the

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same statistics in Atlanta that there were, I think, the same number or a couple fewer in the Atlanta area in INS.

Mr. AGOSTINI. INS has the largest budget of the four law enforcement agencies that are dealing with this problem, by far the largest budget. Do not get me wrong, the people from INS that are in

Puerto Rico work very closely with us and they are very committed.

It is just that they are not getting the resources from their central

office. It is a problem of resources not going down there.

Mr. MICA. I think maybe our subcommittee will do a hearing just

on where the allocation of the personnel are, because it is astounding. We have appropriated vast sums of money, we have almost a

50 percent increase in personnel and I cannot find them.

Mr. BARR. They are not in Georgia.

Mr. MICA. They are not in Georgia. They are not in Florida either. I just met with our HIDTA folks in central Florida and they

had exactly the same complaint. So we will pursue that. I appreciate you bringing that to our attention.

And of course, bringing the military back into the effort I think

is also very important. Our military are on patrol and active in any

event protecting the country, but they did play an important part

under the Reagan-Bush administration and we need to get them

back. The latest statistics just handed me from the December 1999

GAO report, says the DOD’s level of support to international drug

control efforts has declined significantly since 1992. The number of

flight hours has declined from 46,000 to 15,000 or down 68 percent

from 1992 to 1998. So this confirms what you are saying. We have

additional information the number of ship days declined from 4,800

to 1,800, a 62 percent decline over the same period.

Our committee and subcommittee are committed to getting the

military back in and we think they can play an important role as

they have done in the past. We appreciate you calling that to our

attention.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Mica, before I yield to Mr. Barr, let me just say

that perhaps we could get members of the committee to send a letter and publicize it to the administration, pointing out these deficiencies and maybe force the issue a little bit.

Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your leadership and that of Mr. Mica on these issues and I appreciate you calling this hearing and allowing me to participate.

Mr. Attorney General, while you were giving us your oral testimony, I was cheating a little bit and reading your written testimony, which is every bit as eloquent, if not more so, than your oral

testimony. I was particularly impressed with some of the steps that

Puerto Rico took under your leadership, and your colleagues in the

government, to do what you could to really seriously address the

drug problem, as you have indicated today. It strikes me that it is

very similar to what some other public officials have done, such as

Mayor Guiliani in New York; he starts with the basics and concentrates on the basic, sort of grassroots policing. You focused on

education and local policing and manpower and training.

Is there anything that you could, just very quickly tell us, based

on your experience and some of the procedures and policies you implemented in Puerto Rico that helped turn—that have helped start

78

turning the problem around, that could perhaps be applied federally in terms of looking at resource allocation? I know you have indicated a couple of them and you have also indicated—I think you

alluded to this and you address it very specifically in your written

testimony, that the enemy out there, whether it is Fidel Castro,

whether it is the Colombian cartel, they watch what is going on,

the same as criminals here in the mainland watch what is going

on with local police and DEA. They see where they are putting

their resources and they react to it.

Are there any lessons that we could perhaps apply at the Federal

level that have been successful under your leadership in Puerto

Rico?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Well, I am very impressed with the level of training that the Federal Government provides to its agents and law enforcement people at the Federal level. I think that makes a huge

difference and we have taken that at the local level and really capitalized on it. Puerto Rico now has the only law enforcement college

accredited by the middle states. So when a policeman graduates

from that academy in Puerto Rico, he has a college associate degree. So we are professionalizing the police force. And that is something that under the HIDTA program happens a lot. Every week

we get lists of training capabilities available, not only for the Federal law enforcement agencies, but for the State law enforcement

agencies. And if the Federal Government could take the lead in

providing these training resources to the State police, and paying

for them, because right now it comes out of our HIDTA budget so

we are limited in the amount of training that we can give, and

then again only to the people involved in HIDTA, in our HIDTA

operation. If you could expand that to all the police force, all law

enforcement at the State level, that would make a huge difference,

I think, in the capabilities of allocating the limited resources we

have.

Now the drug dealers have a very big advantage over us. They

get on the Internet and they know every penny that we are going

to spend fighting them and where we are going to spend it. We

have limited budgets, they have unlimited budgets, they have all

our information. So it is really hard allocating resources, especially

when you do not have all the resources you need.

Mr. BARR. As we have touched on here, it is particularly troubling under the current administration in a couple of areas. One

such area is the INS, even though we in Congress have appropriated—authorized and appropriated huge increases in INS moneys, they are not getting out to where they are needed, and that

was the subject, as Mr. Mica said, of some field hearings we had

in my district in Georgia.

I am also concerned, as is Mr. Mica and as was reflected in a December 1999 GAO study entitled ‘‘Assets DOD Contributes to Reducing the Illegal Drug Supply Have Declined Since 1992.’’ It is not

just a small decline in several areas that they indicate. In one case,

in terms of the number of flight hours, it declined 68 percent, the

number of ship days 62 percent. So these are not just minor blips

or adjustments, these are major decreases.

If I could, Mr. Chairman, just ask one question. You mentioned,

and I was particularly interested in the fact that under Puerto Rico

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law electronic surveillance is not lawful, contrary to Federal law,

that within the bounds of, for example, Title 3 intercepts and court

supervision and so forth, electronic surveillance is a tool that is

available to Federal law enforcement. Therefore, what you are saying, I think, is those cases that rely to any extent whatsoever on

evidence gathered through electronic surveillance have to be investigated, prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney and the Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Has that, in light of a Federal law that I opposed, yet not

withstanding that it went into effect in 1998, that seems to make

Federal prosecutors possibly liable for involving themselves in legitimate Federal cases involving electronic surveillance if that electronic surveillance would be unlawful under State law—has that

presented any problems that you are aware of?

Mr. AGOSTINI. No, it has not so far in Puerto Rico that I am

aware of. The truth of the matter is that in the investigative side,

the State law enforcement agencies are very active and what we

do is we get PIN registers and Title 3s through the Federal prosecutors and we help investigate and monitor, put the case together

and then it needs to be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Puerto Rico has grown tremendously

in the last 5 years, but the Federal judges remain the same. So

there is just no way they can keep up with the amount of cases.

Now it is not—if it were a law in Puerto Rico that prohibited electronic monitoring, we would have changed it a long time ago, but

it is the Constitution. It is the Constitution that in 1952 was approved by this U.S. Congress that prohibits that kind of surveillance.

Mr. BARR. Thank you very much. If you do notice any problems

in that area, let us know, as a result of this 1998 law.

Mr. AGOSTINI. Absolutely, sure.

Mr. BURTON. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I

thank the committee again for coming down to south Florida.

I was interested in the explanation you gave of the different drug

patterns, the flow, and I know you have been discussing that in the

questions as well. You had mentioned several different access or

several different patterns of drug flow. Were there four that you

had mentioned, or how many?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes, four.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. If you could go through those again, and I

am interested in the one that also mentions Cuba as one of the—

I do not know if that was in relation to Jamaica.

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes, the Jamaica-Cuba-Bahamas is one corridor.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. How do those flow from those islands to

Puerto Rico?

Mr. AGOSTINI. I believe the representatives from Customs and

DEA that are here today are probably better positioned to answer

those questions as I am only directly involved with the Puerto Rico

and eastern Caribbean.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. What are the other corridors that you had

quickly gone over?

Mr. AGOSTINI. The Haiti-Dominican Republic corridor; the Puerto

Rico-United States-Virgin Island corridor and the eastern Caribbean corridor.

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Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. And do you suppose that 10 years ago, Puerto Rico would not have been listed as one of the corridors? Has this

been a problem that has really become a crisis in the last 10 years?

If so, when do you think that change took place? Also, what factors

do you think have contributed to the role that Puerto Rico unfortunately enjoys now of being one of the transit points of these corridors that you mentioned? Is it that our enforcement has increased

elsewhere and then they know that they have this open border that

they can exploit? Is it that you lack the financial resources and the

drug traffickers know that? What factors do you think have gone

into putting Puerto Rico in the prominent place that it is now?

Mr. AGOSTINI. I think we need to go into a little historical fact

finding to properly answer your question. Initially, drug trafficking

was a trade conducted through a southwest border with Mexico.

That is the way drug trafficking was conducted in the late 1950’s,

1960’s, early 1970’s. And then resources—this Congress started

sending resources to the southwest border and they started closing

down that border. So they started using water equipment to get

into the Texas, New Orleans area and little by little moving to the

Florida peninsula.

Using the Florida peninsula developed the Caribbean corridor,

the Bahamas, Florida, Cuba. And then resources started late

1970’s and 1980’s into Florida and the Bahamas, huge amounts of

resources. That started closing down that corridor. So they adapted

again and they moved to the Caribbean. That was in the late—that

was actually early 1980’s, mid-1980’s.

What they discovered in Puerto Rico was that Puerto Rico was

better than they ever thought because Puerto Rico had no representation in Congress, none to say that would be seeking funds

to fight this problem. And then again, even if they were, there was

no vote, there was just a voice. Once they were inside Puerto Rico,

they were inside the Customs territory of the United States, so

they could use commercial means to transport their drugs into the

mainland United States. And third, the Government of Puerto Rico

back then was totally unprepared to confront this problem and did

not do much to attack it. It was not until 1993 when the tide

turned, when Governor Rossello and Carlos Romero Barcelo were

able to call the Federal Government’s attention to this problem. Resources commenced to flow, HIDTA, Puerto Rico was named to

HIDTA. The Governor induced huge amounts of money into our

local law enforcement agencies, he doubled the police force, doubled

their salaries, gave them resources, established the Police Academy

which is now a college, professionalized the police force. All these

things came together in about 1995 and then we saw this turnaround. I mean 30,000 pounds of cocaine in 1 year by our HIDTA

only is quite impressive.

So we are seeing the change. And we are on the road to change,

but if we keep sending resources to the southwest border alone and

we do not help Puerto Rico and Florida, they are just going to readapt and come our way again. I mean not that they are gone by

any stretch of the imagination, it is very active. But that is what

we need to do.

These people adapt very, very easily and very quickly and we

need to stay with them.

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Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. And just one more question. You would say

then that the problem became worse 10 years ago, you had mentioned the 1980’s, mid-1980’s?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Fifteen years ago.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Fifteen years ago. And if you could say three

things that you would most desperately need—you mentioned

Blackhawk helicopters, you mentioned more agents, more judges.

What three items, if you had to prioritize?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Agents, air and marine assets and Federal judges.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, it is a pleasure to

have you here.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Attorney General, I want to make sure I understand something. When you talk about these corridors, the four which you

identified; one of them just kind of peaks my interest and that is

the Haiti-Dominican Republic corridor that at the east end of the

Dominican Republic puts the drugs 90 miles from Puerto Rico.

Now my recollection serves that we spent over the past 5 years

somewhere on the order of $3 or $4 billion in Haiti in this nationbuilding exercise and yet, I do not see a—you would think that

given that kind of investment in Haiti on the part of the United

States, you would see a correlative or corroborative connection to

some reduction over that period of time in the drug flow from west

to east, ultimately into Puerto Rico and yet you told me that is not

happening.

Mr. AGOSTINI. It is not happening.

Mr. OSE. Why?

Mr. AGOSTINI. My impression is that it has actually grown and

there are people here that are going to be testifying before you who

are probably better qualified than I am to answer that question.

But my impression is that the development of a civil Government

in Haiti has not addressed the law enforcement problems that exist

there, that the Colombians have the ability of spending huge

amounts of money also in Haiti, buying their way into huge stash

houses down there where they then redistribute their drugs. And

that problem is not being addressed the way it should.

Now you are talking—addressing that problem in Haiti is a very

expensive, very labor-intensive proposition. I suspect that doing it

ourselves is probably getting in over our heads.

Mr. OSE. You are suggesting that the policy of our involvement

in Haiti has been a failure as to the drug problem.

Mr. AGOSTINI. Absolutely.

Mr. OSE. Has there actually been any focus within our policy on

Haiti as put forth by the administration and State Department on

the drug problem?

Mr. AGOSTINI. I would imagine that there is, but then again, U.S.

Customs and DEA are probably better qualified to answer than

question than I am.

Mr. OSE. Well, then we may well go over this subject again. Mr.

Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. The gentleman yields back his time. Mr. Barcelo,

welcome.

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Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate

and thank you for the invitation to allow me to participate with the

panel. And I just want to congratulate you for holding this hearing,

I think it is very, very important and definitely the most important

issue in Puerto Rico is the crime issue. Although we have accomplished many things, we are still not happy with what we have and

we want to improve it a lot more.

I want to congratulate the Attorney General for his extraordinary presentation today. I think it was very, very eloquent and

very informative. We are sorry to see that you are not going to be

with us any more, we really are.

I wanted to touch base on a couple of things and I wanted to just

briefly go through history to make sure that people also know how

long we have been dealing with this. I was elected mayor back in

1968 and in 1969 and 1970 I became aware of the drug problem

that we had in Puerto Rico. Since then, I started coming to the FBI

in Washington, to the United States Attorney’s Office, the Attorney

General, trying to get a task force put together in Puerto Rico. I

was not able to do that for my 8 years in office, and I visited both

the FBI and the Department of Justice many, many times.

Then finally, when we had the Pan American Games in Puerto

Rico, we did such a good job on the security of those games, that

then the President sent—Ambassador Carter was his name—and

he said what would you like, the President wants me to offer you

something that we can do for you, you were so successful with the

security. I said let us have a task force in Puerto Rico for the drug

interdiction and for organized crime and for terrorism.

Finally, a task force was put together but it was not adequately

funded. Then after—at that time, I was already Governor. Then

when I lost the elections, the communication between the local

Puerto Rican agencies and the Federal agencies was disrupted.

They were not trusting each other any more, particularly the Federal agencies were not trusting the people in the Justice Department in Puerto Rico, nor the Police Department because leaks were

coming out. So the whole task force fell apart. After 1993, the High

Intensity Drug Trafficking Area efforts have come about and they

have done a tremendous job. I have been asking for something like

this for many, many, many years and people were overlooking the

situation in Puerto Rico. It was starting to get more and more serious all the time.

So I am happy that a lot is being done, but as you say, a lot still

needs to be done.

I have some figures that were given to me by your office that

says that in the Mexican corridor last year, 1998, 44 percent of the

cocaine that was transported was seized, whereas in the Caribbean

corridor, only 11 percent of the cocaine that was transported was

seized. I think those are very, very telling data. Am I correct on

that information?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes, you are, and these, I need to make clear, are

estimates, our best estimates that we can come up with, but those

numbers are correct, yes.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. And then the other thing that you mentioned was that now, there used to be—3 out of 10 murders used

83

to be drug-related and now even though we have reduced murders

substantially, but now 8 out of 10 murders are drug-related.

Mr. AGOSTINI. That is a very precise statistic, yes.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Since a lot of the drugs are coming in,

and as you mentioned there is the Dominican cartel and the Colombian cartels are controlling the drug traffic, how many of those

murders do you know, what percentage of those murders were committed by illegal or undocumented aliens?

Mr. AGOSTINI. It is a significant percentage but the truth of the

matter is that the largest percentage is by Puerto Rican organizations. Because of our effectiveness in taking out complete organizations, drug organizations, and creating vacuums, that vacuum will

try to be filled by various other organizations, so what happens is

that they start shooting each other out to fill that vacuum. And

that is what is happening, that is why it is drug-related murders

that we are seeing, 80 percent of the murders.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Another problem that we have, we have

strict gun control laws in Puerto Rico, but there are a lot of illegal

guns. I have not heard you discussing that and obviously the illegal

gun traffic also affects—the drug groups, the cartels and the gangs

are heavily armed and we see them when the police go in to do

something, sometimes they have superior arms to the police.

Mr. AGOSTINI. Yes, that is a huge problem. We are finding—and

this is an ATF statistic—that 80 percent of the illegal weapons that

are being brought to Puerto Rico are being brought from Florida.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. So there is a two-way connection.

Mr. AGOSTINI. It is so easy to purchase weapons in some of the

States that anybody—they buy 20–30 weapons in different places

and then they put them altogether and bring them to Puerto Rico

and sell them off.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. They probably send them through containers.

Mr. AGOSTINI. Containers or they are using Federal Express to

get them down here or they are using other commercial means to

get them to Puerto Rico.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. So as you leave us now as the Secretary

of Justice in Puerto Rico, what would be your recommendations as

to what should be emphasized on in the next years?

Mr. AGOSTINI. Well, I think I have expressed already the three

areas that I think are the most important. We need to have response capabilities. If we put all these resources out there to gather

the intelligence and we cannot respond to that, it is as good as not

having it. And we are spending huge amounts of money in radar

and I am asking for the armed forces to give us more intel and we

are asking for helicopters to gather more intel and if we cannot respond after we have all that intelligence, then we are not doing

anything. And another thing is we need to be able to prosecute all

these cases.

Mr. Mica asked a question a little while ago and I expressed to

him one of the things I think the Federal Government should be

doing. There is a second thing that comes to mind. One of the successes we have seen in Puerto Rico in having the Federal law enforcement agencies work together is because of the limited resources and because we can maximize that through the funds of

84

the HIDTA. And what I have become perceptively inclined to think

is that the way in which the Federal law enforcement agencies are

measured every year to provide them with their budgets creates a

situation where they try to not share information with one another.

Customs does not want to give information to DEA, DEA does not

want to give it to FBI because then what happens is that FBI

claims that they broke this case and that is the way they are measured.

So what is happening is that because they are fighting each

other to get their fair share of the budget, they are trying to keep

their information so that they can be measured through that information. And I think it is a very unfair system, because I think they

are all being very effective, they are all working very hard and

until they start sharing all their information, they are not going to

be all as effective as they can be. That sharing of information is

occurring in Puerto Rico, that is why we have the best intelligence

center in the whole nation and that needs to be exported somehow

to the rest of the nation.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Thank you very much.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Barcelo.

Mr. Attorney General, I want to thank you very much for coming

up here. We will take the information that you have given us and

we will try to draft a letter to the parties that ought to be addressed, the President and the Secretary of State and the head of

DEA and others, and ask them why there has been cuts in the

funding for these various areas and why there is not more appropriations being made for the things that you have mentioned. And

we will go through those and enumerate those and I will send you

a copy of that letter.

I really appreciate you being here, we appreciate the fine job you

have done as Attorney General, we are going to miss you down

there, but I am sure we will see you again in the future.

Mr. AGOSTINI. I am sure you will.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much.

We will now go to our second panel of Mr. Ledwith, the Chief of

Foreign Operations for DEA; Mr. Vigil, Special Agent in Charge of

the Caribbean Division of DEA; Mr. Varrone, who is the Executive

Director of Customs.

That is all the panelists we have, the three? OK, very good.

Because we want to get your sworn testimony, would you all rise

and raise your right hands, please?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much, be seated.

I presume you each have an opening statement. If not, we will

go to questions, but we will start with Mr. Ledwith and we will go

right down the line.

85

STATEMENTS OF WILLIAM E. LEDWITH, CHIEF OF FOREIGN

OPERATIONS, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION; MICHAEL S. VIGIL, CHIEF AGENT IN CHARGE, CARIBBEAN

FIELD DIVISION, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION;

AND JOHN C. VARRONE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS, EAST, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE

Mr. LEDWITH. Mr. Chairman and members of the full committee,

thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Drug Enforcement Administration concerning drug trafficking in the Caribbean.

I will provide a general overview, with particular focus on Cuba.

Special Agent in Charge of our San Juan office, Michael Vigil, who

follows me, will concentrate on Puerto Rico.

I have a written statement and with your permission, I wish to

submit it for the record, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Without objection.

Mr. LEDWITH. The Caribbean has long been an important zone

for drugs entering the United States and Europe from South America. The drugs are transported through the region of both the

United States and Europe via a wide variety of routes and methods. Maritime vessels are the primary means used by traffickers to

smuggle large quantities of cocaine through the Caribbean to the

United States. Small launches with powerful motors, known as gofast boats, bulk cargo freighters and containerized cargo vessels are

the most common conveyances for moving large quantities of cocaine through the region. Drug traffickers also routinely transport

smaller quantities of cocaine from Colombia to clandestine landing

strips in the Caribbean via single or twin engine aircraft and air

drop cocaine loads to waiting land vehicles and/or maritime vessels.

Compared to cocaine, heroin movement through the Caribbean is

limited. Almost all of the heroin transitting the Caribbean originates in Colombia. Couriers generally transport kilogram quantities of Colombian heroin on commercial flights from South American to Puerto Rico or the continental United States. They sometimes make one or two stops at various Caribbean islands in an effort to mask their original point of departure from law enforcement.

The Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement [IACM], in

which the DEA participates, provides estimates on the cocaine tonnage transitting through various countries including Jamaica,

Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and Cuba. From July

1998 through June 1999, the IACM estimated that approximately

110 metric tons transitted through these countries. Of this amount,

approximately 54 metric tons or 49 percent of the total that is estimated, transitted Haiti and 32 metric tons or 29 percent of the

total transitted the Bahamas. During this period the IACM estimated that 1.85 metric tons or 1.7 of the total transitted Cuba.

The Caribbean region continues to play an important role in the

transportation of cocaine from South America to Europe also. Cocaine is transported to Europe through the Caribbean primarily in

commercial container cargo or concealed in medium to large merchant vessels. Spain is the primary original destination of this cocaine. Colombian drug traffickers prefer forming alliances with

drug traffickers in Spain, where there is no language barrier and

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Colombian drug traffickers can move about with more anonymity

than in other European countries. The Netherlands and Belgium

are other focal points currently used by Colombian drug trafficking

organizations to distribute cocaine in Europe.

Containers are loaded with cocaine in South American ports. The

cocaine is sometimes concealed in the merchandise itself but, more

often, in false compartments constructed within the containers. The

containers are often transshipped through various ports in South

America, Central America and the Caribbean while en route to

these European ports. While Spain has remained the primary initial destination of the cocaine, recent seizures indicate large cocaine shipments were destined for ports in the Mediterranean and

northern Europe as well.

Large quantities of cocaine also are clandestinely loaded aboard

medium to large merchant vessels in the Caribbean.

Countries in Europe are experiencing an increase in drug above

and a concomitant increase in the flow of cocaine from South America. Over the past 10 years, cocaine seizures in Europe have increased dramatically, indicating an increase in demand. In 1988, a

total of 5.7 metric tons of cocaine hydrochloride was seized in Europe. By 1997, the total had risen to over 40 metric tons. Demand

has driven the price of cocaine in Europe to levels even above those

found in the United States today. In 1998 the price range for 1

kilogram of cocaine sold in the United States was between $10,000

and $36,000. During 1998, the average price of a kilogram of cocaine in Spain was $41,000. The price disparity between Europe

and the United States has provided a significant incentive for Colombian drug traffickers to expand their marketing efforts to Europe as well as the United States.

The island of Cuba lies in a direct air and maritime path from

South America to Florida. While the Government of Cuba’s performance in interdicting narcotics has been mixed, the Cuban Government has recently strengthened agreements with several other

governments. Cuban authorities occasionally have arrested individual drug traffickers. Historically, however, the Cuban Government

has not responded aggressively to incursions by these traffickers in

the Cuban territorial waters or air space. Cuba has argued that it

lacks ‘‘the naval means’’ and other resources to patrol all of its air

space and territorial waters. At the same time, it does not routinely

permit U.S. interdiction assets to enter its territory.

Drug traffickers continue to use Cuban waters and air space to

evade United States interdiction assets. Go-fast boats from Jamaica routinely travel just inside Cuban waters to avoid contact

with United States enforcement vessels. Traffickers also use small

aircraft to transport cocaine from clandestine airfields in the

Guajira Peninsula in Colombia through Cuban air space. Cocaine

may then be air dropped and later retrieved by go-fasts that take

the drugs to the Bahamas for further transshipment to the United

States. It should be noted that in 1999, the number of these suspected drug flights over Cuban territory has declined, compared to

the increase that was noted in 1998.

According to Cuban police reporting provided to the Colombian

Government, Cuban law enforcement has made occasional arrests

of drug couriers. The majority of these couriers were transporting

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kilogram quantities of cocaine to European countries, although occasional deliveries were made to traffickers operating in Cuba.

Cuban authorities have reported to the Colombian authorities only

limited instances of heroin couriers traveling through Cuba.

Commercial vessels, which transport cocaine from South America

to Europe also may load legitimate cargo in Cuban ports. These

vessels transit other Caribbean, Central American or South American ports.

In addressing the role of Cuba in the international drug trade,

DEA must rely on international media sources, as well as other foreign law enforcement agencies, for much of our information regarding drug arrests and seizures by Cuban authorities. Since DEA

does not have a presence in Cuba, we cannot independently corroborate much of the reporting on alleged Cuban involvement in

drug trafficking.

The December 1998 seizure of 7.254 metric tons of cocaine in the

Colombian port of Cartagena is one example of drugs apparently

destined to transit Cuba which has received a great deal of attention. The Colombian National Police found the cocaine sophisticatedly concealed in compartments within maritime shipping containers. The containers were manifested for shipment to Cuba. DEA

and other U.S. counterdrug agencies have been aggressively and

meticulously pursuing the investigation of this cocaine shipment.

At this point in our investigation, we have no information that suggests that this particular shipment was destined for the United

States. The information we do have, which we are attempting to

independently corroborate, indicates that this shipment was destined for Spain.

Investigations by the Colombian National Police, the DEA Bogota

Country Office, the DEA Madrid Country Office, the Spanish National Police and the Cuban Federal Police to date have not developed direct evidence of the ultimate destination of the cocaine.

Drug trafficking organizations generally do not ship multi-ton cocaine shipments by a specific route or method without first testing

the pipeline. Information provided by the Cuban Police to the Colombian National Police indicated that the same companies involved with the shipment seized in Cartagena made at least four

previous shipments of containers with hidden compartments. In

each of these four shipments, containers that originated in

Cartagena were shipped from Cuba to Spain.

Information also provided by the Cuban Police to the Colombian

National Police indicated the Cuban Police searched the premises

in Havana of businesses associated with the Cartagena seizure.

Cuban Police reports to the Colombian Police the discovery of four

containers that appeared to have been outfitted with false compartments. The four containers bore the serial numbers of containers

previously shipped from Cartagena through Cuba to Spain. None

of the agencies investigating the seizure have been able to obtain

direct evidence that any of the containers in the four shipments

contained cocaine.

DEA is vigorously engaged in a comprehensive investigation of

all aspects of this seizure. We are cooperating extensively with authorities in Colombia and Spain. Special agents from DEA headquarters are assigned to the Cartagena seizure investigation. A

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senior supervisory special agent is assigned the oversight of the investigation and is coordinating the compilation of all information

involving Cuba.

My office is also working closely with our offices in Colombia and

Spain to review all existing documents, assist in ensuring all previous leads are followed, and in developing any new leads. I want

to thank the committee for the information you provided, including

audio tapes and transcripts. I assure the committee that all information derived from these sources will be factored into our investigation.

A priority of DEA is to obtain independent corroboration of all

information and evidence acquired in this investigation. This will

include working to corroborate all foreign police reports to the

greatest extent possible. All of the reports are being reviewed by

the headquarters intelligence research specialists assigned to this

investigation.

Last month, DEA coordinated a visit to Colombia and Spanish

authorities. Spanish authorities, Colombian authorities and special

agents from DEA met to review evidence and to discuss sources

and methods for developing new information and evidence regarding the alleged drug trafficking between Colombia and Spain.

In any investigation, the DEA does not rule out any possibility

until the investigation is concluded. As new information is developed, the investigative direction is always subject to change.

The primary focus, after the information is obtained, is to develop evidence that can be used in criminal prosecutions and corroborate evidence of meet evidentiary standards.

While I cannot comment on the details of an ongoing investigation in a public forum, I assure you that DEA continues to expend

every effort on the investigation of the Cartagena shipment.

I will gladly answer any questions you may have.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Vigil.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ledwith and Mr. Vigil follows:]

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Mr. VIGIL. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the full

committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the

Drug Enforcement Administration regarding Puerto Rico. With

your permission, I wish to submit my written statement for the

record.

Mr. BURTON. Without objection.

Mr. VIGIL. As you have heard from Mr. Ledwith, the Caribbean

ia a major transit zone for drugs entering the United States from

South America. Within that area, Puerto Rico provides a particularly significant link between South America and the continental

United States. The island is singular in the opportunities it provides for traffickers as well as the challenges it creates for law enforcement.

More than ever, international drug trafficking organizations utilize Puerto Rico as a major point of entry for the transshipment of

multi-tons of cocaine being smuggled into the United States. Puerto

Rico has become known as a gateway for drugs destined for cities

on the east coast of the United States. Puerto Rico’s 300 mile coastline, the vast number of isolated cays, and 6 million square miles

of open water between the United States and Colombia, make the

region difficult to patrol and ideal for a variety of smuggling methods.

Puerto Rico is an active Caribbean sea and air transportation

thoroughfare. The island boasts the third busiest seaport in North

America and 14th busiest in the world, as well as approximately

75 daily commercial airline flights to the continental United States.

This presents an attractive logistical opportunity for drug trafficking organizations. The sheer volume of commercial activity is the

traffickers’ greatest asset. Criminal organizations have utilized

their financial capabilities to corrupt mechanics, longshoremen, airline employees, ticket counter agents as well as government officials and others whose corrupt practices broaden the scope of the

trafficking.

Only 360 miles from Colombia’s north coast and 80 miles from

the east coast of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico is easily

reachable by twin engine aircraft hauling payloads of 500 to 700

kilograms of cocaine. The go-fast boats make their round trip cocaine runs to the southern coast of Puerto Rico in less than a day.

Today, cocaine and heroin traffickers from Colombia have transformed Puerto Rico into the largest staging area in the Caribbean

for illicit drugs destined for the United States market.

The open use of the Caribbean as a narcotics transshipment center has created a public safety crisis in Puerto Rico and DEA must

assign resources to the island to address this threat. Although this

is necessary, we have had continuing difficulties retaining Federal

law enforcement personnel in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Few personnel from the continental United States are willing to accept a transfer to Puerto Rico, and those who do often want to

leave soon after arrival. Such quality of life problems as the high

cost of living, limited availability of appropriate schools for dependent children and the high incidence of crime have contributed to

early turnover and family separations.

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As a result, DEA has in place a variety of incentive packages for

special agents, diversion investigators and intelligence analysts relocating to Puerto Rico.

While these have proven to be a partial solution, DEA has developed the following proposal to address the retention issue:

No. 1, a tax exempt educational allowance to assist DEA employees in sending dependent children to DOD or private schools.

No. 2, a housing allowance or significant stipend for both special

agents and support personnel to allow for the purchase of housing

in safe areas or guarded, enclosed communities.

No. 3, an extended assignment bonus for remaining in place after

completion of the initial period of service.

No. 4, home leave of 5 days annually, not tied to tour renewal.

The next one is salary tax relief with taxes to be based upon the

home of record rather than the current requirement that they pay

both Federal and Puerto Rico hacienda taxes.

And finally, an amendment to the Soldier and Sailor’s Relief Act

to allow voting via absentee ballot.

Since fiscal year 1997, DEA has increased the special agent resources to the Caribbean. In that timeframe, a total of 48 agents

have been added to the Caribbean field division, 43 of which are

currently assigned to Puerto Rico. The remaining agents have been

assigned to regional offices within the Caribbean field division, including Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad and also Santo Domingo in the

Dominican Republic. In our fiscal year 2000 appropriations, DEA

received an additional 17 positions, which includes 11 special

agents and $2.4 million for drug enforcement operations in Puerto

Rico as well as funds to enhance quality of life issues as noted

above.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would thank you very much for your

effort in obtaining those resources for Puerto Rico, because they are

sorely needed and we can use those in expanding our operational

parameters.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Vigil, we understand that there

have been some real problems with the agents in Puerto Rico because of safety as well as the other issues that you mentioned.

Mr. VIGIL. That is correct.

Mr. BURTON. We will try to see if we cannot have the subcommittee correspond with the appropriate agencies to see if we can solve

some of those problems for you because we do need to keep good

agents down there.

Mr. VIGIL. Thank you.

There are——

Mr. BURTON. Oh, go ahead, do you have more of your statement?

Mr. VIGIL. Yes, I have a couple more pages.

Mr. BURTON. Oh, I am sorry, I thought you were finished.

Mr. VIGIL. There are presently 94 special agents constituting six

enforcement groups assigned to the Caribbean Field Division. Five

groups are earmarked for specialized enforcement initiatives. They

are as follows: one high intensity drug tafficking area task force;

two additional task forces; a money laundering group and an airport group. Each group possesses expertise in a specific domain

and fully exploits it to thwart the traffickers. This combination results in highly effective drug enforcement investigations and prosVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00107 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ecutions. These investigations have led to the initiation of several

enforcement operations, such as Operation Columbus and Genesis

which have culminated in numerous arrests and significant seizures which resulted in the dismantling of several drug trafficking

organizations operating in the Caribbean.

The transit of illegal drugs through Puerto Rico creates unique

challenges to law enforcement. DEA is aggressively pursuing the

drug trafficking threat to Puerto Rico and working to improve the

ability of DEA personnel assigned to the island in confronting this

threat.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before

this committee. I appreciate the interest you and the subcommittee

have shown in DEA’s drug enforcement efforts in Puerto Rico. At

this time, I would be happy to answer any questions you or the

subcommittee members may have.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. We are going to withhold questions until we have heard from everyone. I will now recognize John C. Varrone who is Executive Director of Operations at

Eastern U.S. Customs Service. Welcome, sir, and you are recognized.

Mr. VARRONE. Good morning, Mr. Mica.

I would first like to start by thanking the chairman, Mr. Burton,

for his kind comments.

Mr. OSE. Would you move that closer, please?

Mr. MICA. As close as you can get it.

Mr. OSE. Eat that thing. [Laughter.]

Mr. MICA. They do not want to miss a word. [Laughter.]

Mr. VARRONE. Good morning, Mr. Mica.

I would first like to thank Mr. Burton, the chairman, for his kind

comments about the men and women of the Customs Service in

their anti-terrorist activities up in Port Angeles, Washington and

in Vermont. The recognition on behalf of the committee is important and I will carry that back to Washington and pass it on to the

commissioner that you did recognize those individuals.

Mr. Chairman and other members of the committee, it is my

pleasure to have the opportunity to be with you here today to talk

to you about the important issue of drug smuggling, and in particular smuggling in the Caribbean, and the overall enforcement mission of the Customs Service.

I currently serve as the Executive Director of Operations, East,

within the U.S. Customs Service’s Office of Investigations. In this

capacity I am responsible for the investigative operations of seven

Special Agent in Charge offices on the East Coast of the United

States, including our operations in the Caribbean.

The Customs Service is the primary law enforcement agency

with responsibility for the interdiction of drugs in the arrival zone.

In addition to our responsibilities in the arrival zone, the Customs

Service through our air and marine interdiction assets also provides significant assistance to other domestic and international law

enforcement agencies who have responsibilities in both the source

and transit zones.

I realize that this committee is primarily interested in Cuba

today, but I would like to briefly describe the border threat that we

face in the entire Caribbean.

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As the committee is aware, it is estimated that approximately 40

percent of the cocaine destined to the United States enters our

country through the Caribbean. In fiscal years 1998 and 1999 respectively, the Customs Service seized 20,673 and 20,492 pounds of

cocaine in and around Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Our intelligence analysis and enforcement operations now indicate that private aircraft are used to conduct air drops in the transit zone to

a variety of vessels. The areas where we have seen this activity

most frequently have been in the waters off Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.

One of the current areas of increasing threat for Customs is

Haiti, where the smuggling by coastal freighters presents both an

inspectional and investigative challenge. The political instability in

Haiti combined with their lack of marine law enforcement capabilities has meant that drug smuggling organizations have been able

to exploit the absence of law enforcement and have been able to operate there with relative impunity.

I have two charts that will illustrate the current threat we face

in the non-commercial maritime arena in the Caribbean. These

charts are a summary of the confirmed and suspected non-commercial maritime smuggling events which were detected during calendar years 1998 and 1999 in three areas of particular interest to

the committee—Jamaica-Bahamas, Puerto Rico-Virgin Islands and

Haiti-Dominican Republic. The noticeable difference between these

two charts is that the flow of cocaine in the non-commercial maritime environment has increased by approximately 15 percent.

I would like to present to you how the Customs Service views the

threat presented by Cuba in the area of drug smuggling. With limited anecdotal evidence, our intelligence analysis and enforcement

experience has led us to believe that Cuba plays a minimal role,

if any, in non-commercial smuggling. Smugglers on occasion use

Cuban waters and air space to thwart end game drug interdiction

operations. We believe drug smugglers are acutely aware of the

lack of operational coordination and law enforcement exchange between the United States and Cuban Governments and accordingly

exploit the situation by circumventing our interdiction efforts.

As you have heard in previous testimony on this subject, radar

track data indicates that in 1999, there was a decrease in air

tracks transitting Cuban air space. I have brought with me four

additional charts that will illustrate that change.

As you can see from the first chart, in 1998, there were 34 confirmed or suspect tracks that that transitted Cuban air space. I

would like to pause here and just briefly describe what we consider

confirmed or suspected. We consider that not just our radar tracking, but a secondary source that confirms that there was an asset

there or that was a smuggling attempt there. Whether we were

successful at interdicting that or not, we consider that a smuggling

attempt.

In 1999, the number of confirmed or suspected tracks that

transitted Cuban air space declined to 11. The last of these tracks

occurred just last week. On December 29, a plane was tracked as

it flew over Cuban air space to an air track location outside Cuban

territorial waters. The go-fast vessel that received the drugs was

tracked to the Bahamas where the crew was arrested after they

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ditched what was believed to be approximately 500 pounds of cocaine.

Returning to the charts, the third and fourth chart illustrate the

air track data for Haiti during that period. These charts show a 25

percent increase in tracks over Haiti.

Our overall assessment is that drug smugglings are using Cuban

waters and air space when it is in their interest, particularly in situations where it enables smugglers to avoid drug interdiction efforts.

As you are aware, Customs agents have debriefed cooperating defendants who have given us some insight into the role that Cuba

has played in their drug smuggling operations. The information

provided by cooperating defendants largely supports our characterization of Cuban waters and air space as a place used by smugglers

as a safe haven from drug interdiction forces. One example of this

type of cooperating information is that which was provided to Customs debriefers in 1999 by a Colombian transportation coordinator

who we arrested in 1998.

I believe that the report of this debriefing has already been provided to the committee. The general description of this cooperator’s

information is that smugglers use Cuban waters and air space to

conduct air drop operations because they believe they are safe from

United States drug interdiction operations. The source further stated the air drops are completed—excuse me—that after air drops

are completed, smugglers stage in Cuban waters until they are

sure law enforcement assets are not in the area before they depart

for their final destination. This particular cooperator indicated that

while drug smugglers may transit Cuban air space, it is not necessary to coordinate with or seek permission from Cuban authorities.

It should be noted that this cooperator’s description of air drop

operations inside Cuba has been corroborated by surveillance operations conducted by our Customs P–3 aircraft.

I would like to take a few moments to describe for the committee

how the Customs Service has tried to respond to the Caribbean

threat and some of the successes that we have achieved. Customs

has committed a significant law enforcement presence in the Caribbean. Our Office of Field Operations has 209 Customs inspectors

and canine officers assigned to the islands of Puerto Rico, St.

Thomas and St. Croix. The Office of Investigations has 82 special

agents assigned to the island of Puerto Rico and 8 more special

agents assigned to St. Thomas.

The Customs Service has dedicated nine aircraft to the Caribbean air branch; three tracking aircraft, three helicopters and three

twin engine fixed wing aircraft. We have also dedicated a total of

41 vessels to the Caribbean. I should note that this represents 30

percent of all the vessels operated by the Customs Service. These

vessels include 22 interceptors, 7 patrol craft, 11 utility craft and

1 blue water craft. Using all of these resources, Customs interdiction operations have been responsible for numerous successes.

In March 1996, the Customs Service initiated Operation Gateway

in an effort to insulate Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin

Islands and the surrounding waters and air space from drug smugglers. This multi-year operation was a natural extension and exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00110 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pansion of Operation Hardline, which had focused on the southern

land border and southern tier of the United States.

More recently, the Customs Service and other law enforcement

agencies have undertaken several operations to address both the

air and maritime threats in the region. One of these, Operation

Two Dozen, was a pulse and surge type operation whereby the Customs Service, Coast Guard, DEA, U.S. Army and Bahamian Police

coordinated all source intelligence and responded with enforcement

operations accordingly. The focus of this operation was to interdict

vessels and aircraft smuggling into the Bahamas and south Florida. It was in effect during February and March 1999.

During the four phases of the operation, drug interdiction patrols

were conducted for a total of 13 days. These patrols resulted in the

seizure of 2,060 pounds of cocaine, 850 pounds of marijuana, the

seizure of 3 vessels, 1 aircraft and arrest of 40 individuals.

Last, I would like to briefly describe three recent enforcement examples which I believe will provide you with a sense of the enormous challenge facing the U.S. Customs Service.

To give you a sense of the physical threat confronting our officers, I will briefly describe a smuggling example which occurred on

March 26, 1999 when a vessel attempted to elude Customs agents

by colliding with our vessel. Agents were forced to fire rounds at

the suspect vessel to disable the engine. When the five crew members were arrested, they were all wearing face masks and bulletproof vests. No weapons were recovered. The Coast Guard did recover 1,900 pounds of cocaine that the crew had jettisoned during

the pursuit.

In specific response to the increasing threat from Haiti, the Customs Service has led a multi-agency enforcement operation called

River Sweep, which focuses on Haitian coastal freighters attempting to smuggle drugs, principally cocaine, into the United States.

Since its inception in 1998, this operation has resulted in the seizure of 8,256 pounds of cocaine, 129 arrests, the seizure of 12 Haitian coastal freighters, $1.5 million in currency, and the recovery

of 19 stolen vehicles.

In just the last 90 days, Customs has seized 1,740 pounds of cocaine from Haitian coastal freighters on the Miami River and $1

million suspected drug proceeds from our outbound interdiction

program.

On November 14, 1999, in our most recent cooperative effort,

Customs, FBI and DEA agents in St. Thomas seized 4,672 pounds

of cocaine discovered aboard the motor vessel Adriatik which was

stopped and searched by the Coast Guard based upon a successful

lookout.

I should also note that this past Saturday, Customs aviation assets participated in a tracking and later detention of Ly Tong, who

overflew Cuba after departing from the United States in a rented

plane. The Customs Service air and marine interdiction and coordination center in Riverside, California was able to track Mr. Tong

from the time he departed Miami until he returned.

I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to provide the Customs Service’s perspective on this important issue. I

have tried to present to you a brief overview of the operational environment which our front line employees confront every day. We

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are always proud to share the experience, expertise and accomplishments of our dedicated officers who make many sacrifices and

frequently place themselves in harm’s way on behalf of the citizens

of the United States.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to testify before you

and the committee today. I will be glad to answer any questions

you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Varrone follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Varrone. We do appreciate very

much your candor and your dedication. I think all of the agencies

that are dealing with the drug trafficking deserve accolades because there is a great deal of risk involved and you lay your lives

on the line on a regular basis, and we do appreciate that.

One of the things that concerns me is the politicization of the

drug problem. The Cuba issue, Mr. Ledwith, that you talked about,

the information, much of the information that you received came

from Cuban authorities as I understand it.

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir, some of it came to us from Cuban authorities.

Mr. BURTON. Well, the Cuban authorities, we had a tape that I

was going to subpoena from DEA that we showed yesterday. That

tape showed a man who landed his plane in Cuba and he said he

had engine troubles, he got false documents from the Cuban Government saying that there were engine problems and that is why

he force landed there. He was carrying drugs, cocaine. And the

Cuban Government was complicitous because they were lying

about why he landed in Cuba. Mr. Sierra, in the Prensa Latina

said that the 7.2 metric tons, or 7.25 metric tons that was coming

out of Colombia was destined for the United States.

Now some people in DEA and others have said well, the Cuban

official was saying that the drugs were coming but were going to

Spain and not to the United States. Then we heard that that was

not even going to go to Cuba, it was going to go to another location

and then go to Spain. You hear all kinds of things like that. But

the fact of the matter is from government officials, our government

officials, we have been told that what Mr. Sierra said was an accurate statement that he made. He made that statement and the only

shipment of that size that was going to Cuba during that time period or through the Caribbean during that time period was this

particular shipment. This did not come from DEA, it came from another government agency that is very reliable.

I hate to see political statements made by any official of our government, DEA or any others, that is not really accurate, when we

put members of the various agencies under oath like we did you

today, and I fully presume that you did tell the truth to the best

of your knowledge. But the fact of the matter is the information

that we have from other agencies is that that 7.2 metric tons definitely was the only one of that size going through the Caribbean

at that time or scheduled to go through the Caribbean at that time.

There had been several other shipments of that type to Cuba, not

just 4 but as many as 7 or 8, and if you add all that up, it could

amount to as much as 50 or 60 metric tons of cocaine going into

Cuba.

You said I believe in your opening statement that the amount

going to Europe was 40 metric tons. If the information we received

is correct, more than that was going into Cuba from Colombia on

seven ships that transitted it. We have been told by DEA that usually when somebody is sending a shipment of that magnitude, that

they have planned that and done that before, they just do not send

seven metric tons of cocaine in unless they have a pretty good idea

it is going to get to its destination.

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But let us assume the worst or the best, let us say that it was

not going to the United States, that it was going to Spain. The fact

of the matter is, Cuba is a major drug transit point in the Caribbean. You said 49 percent of the drugs goes through Haiti, the cocaine goes through Haiti; you said 29 percent goes through the Bahamas—49 percent of the total 110 metric tons goes through Haiti,

29 percent you estimate goes through the Bahamas and only 1.7

metric tons goes through Cuba. This one load was 7.2 metric tons.

And from other sources, we believe there were at least seven shipments like that, that is 49 metric tons. So I do not know where you

came up with this 1.7 metric tons, but I would like for you to tell

us.

Mr. LEDWITH. This is the estimate provided by the Interagency

Assessment of Cocaine Movements, which DEA is a participant. We

are not the author necessarily of these figures. These are the figures that the interagency community produces for their assessment

of cocaine shipments, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Yes, sir.

Mr. LEDWITH. It is not solely derived from DEA figures.

Mr. BURTON. No, I understand. But when you make a statement

like that, you are speaking for a very important agency, one that

does great work and I am not here to criticize you because I think

you guys risk your lives, like I said to Customs agents, I do not

think I would like to do that.

But the fact of the matter is there is multiple shipments going

out of Colombia, according to our sources, many of those sources in

our government, not through DEA, other sources. I am not at liberty to tell you those because they have given us information they

do not want us to talk about. They were talking about the jealously

between agencies, I suppose this is part of it. But they told us that

this 7.2 metric tons was definitely going to Cuba and that that was

the only ship with that amount or shipment of that amount that

was going through at that particular time, it had to be going to

Cuba and Mr. Sierra said it was going to be destined for the United

States. Seven of those shipments we believe were made during that

time, that year, which is 49 metric tons. And I cannot believe that

one agency of our government would indicate that kind of a quantity is going through Cuba and this consortium of this agencies

that you are talking about says that only 1.7 metric tons goes

through there.

One of the concerns that we have—and I hope my colleagues will

bear with me for just a second—one of the concerns that we have

is that we passed what was called the Helms-Burton law. I was one

of the authors of that bill. It was to create a very strong embargo

against Castro to end the last Communist dictatorship in our hemisphere. All the other countries have been democratized. The administration did not want to sign that law, but because two airplanes

were shot down by Russian MiGs that were owned by the Cubans,

the President then negotiated with me and Senator Helms and others and he did sign the bill. Now they are trying to weaken the embargo and they are trying to normalize relations with Cuba and

one of the things that flies in the ointment is Cuba being a major

transit point of drugs. And so information we are getting about

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litical goals of the administration. And I think that is very unfortunate because the drugs are coming into Cuba. We believe a large

part of those are destined for the United States and kids are dying,

people are being addicted for life.

The heroin, I do not know how much heroin is going through

Cuba, if any, but in Baltimore, MD right now, 1 out of 17 people

in Baltimore, MD are addicted to heroin and one of the council

members there says he believes it is as high as 1 out of 8. It is an

absolute epidemic. And so I believe the administration and our

agencies ought to be very forthright with us and tell us where the

conduits are.

So I believe that you are accurate with Haiti, I think that is a

major conduit, I believe the Bahamas are a major conduit, and I

believe our Attorney General from Puerto Rico was accurate when

he said that we need to put more resources into places like the

Caribbean and Puerto Rico.

But to say that Cuba only had 1.7 metric tons of cocaine going

through there when one shipment was 7.2 metric tons and another

agency of our government says it definitely was going to Cuba is

a misrepresentation. And I am not saying it is because you are misrepresenting it, maybe the information you got was not accurate.

But I believe that as much as 50 metric tons are going through

Cuba and for some political reason, maybe to normalize relations

with Cuba, that is being kept under cover.

If you have a comment, I will let you comment and then I will

yield to Mr. Mica.

Mr. LEDWITH. Sir, I can only presume that the agency that you

referred to that provided you with that information is a participant

in the Interagency Cocaine Movement Assessment and I would be

very happy to work with you or members of your staff to make sure

that those figures are incorporated.

I can only provide you what—this is not DEA’s paper, as I say,

this is the IACM’s paper. It is an interagency effort, it is not based

solely on DEA’s statistics, it is agreed to by the interagency community before publication.

Mr. BURTON. Yes, sir.

Mr. LEDWITH. So I can only tell you I would be out of place to

provide you with any other statistic.

Mr. BURTON. Well, what we will do is I will try to find out if I

can provide you with the information we have and perhaps that

can be put into the mix.

Mr. LEDWITH. And we will be very happy to incorporate that, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Ledwith.

Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Let me just followup, if I may, Mr. Ledwith, with some

questions on the same seizure that the chairman was referring to,

the 7.3 metric tons. I thought I read in your report the Cuban Police gave to the Colombian National Police indicated a search of the

premises and they also found four containers that appeared to have

been outfitted with false compartments. This is in addition to the

7.3 metric tons.

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir, that is correct.

Mr. MICA. So again, I think the chairman was raising a very

valid point. Now whether this is headed for Spain or the United

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States, you are still talking about an incredible volume of cocaine

transitting through Cuba; is that correct?

Mr. LEDWITH. If these facts as reported to us by the Cuban Police

are accurate, sir; yes.

Mr. BURTON. It says none of the agencies investigating this have

been able to obtain direct evidence that any of the containers in the

four shipments described above contained cocaine; is that correct?

But I was told at the hearing that we conducted in November that

there was residue, whether it was planted or—do we know whether

there was residue in those?

Mr. LEDWITH. There was a dog, cocaine sniffing dog that alerted

on one of the containers and that gave rise to the residue remark.

There was not actual cocaine recovered in the sense that it could

be used in an evidentiary manner. A cocaine alerting dog alerted

to it.

Clearly we are concerned, sir, DEA is extremely concerned with

any utilization of Cuba for trafficking. Our concern also is for Europe. One of our concerns would be the incredible strength that can

be generated both economically and corruptive potential to gangs

in Colombia by sale of cocaine to Europe either.

Mr. MICA. If the chairman is correct—and excuse me for interrupting, I do not have a lot of time on this—but if the chairman

is correct and we had a 7.3 metric ton and we had three or four

containers that may have also been used in shipment, we are talking—again, the chairman has got to be close to correct, simple

math would bring you up in the 40–50 metric ton range. The entire

amount of shipment for Europe was somewhere around 40 metric

tons.

Mr. LEDWITH. That was what was seized, sir.

Mr. MICA. Yes, seized, exactly. This is a phenomenal amount.

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. I was somewhat skeptical before I held the first hearing until we started getting evidence on this, and it appears that

Cuba, is in fact, a major transit route. Now, whether it is coming

to the United States, we cannot confirm, but we know it is a transit route.

The second thing is, did DEA recommend to the administration—

now the President and the administration put a list out of major

trafficking countries and identifies them. Did DEA, to your knowledge, recommend to the President that Cuba be placed on this list?

The hearing we held was right after the President did not put

Cuba on this list. What was the DEA’s recommendation, to your

knowledge?

Mr. LEDWITH. Sir, I do not have immediate knowledge of it. We

make recommendations to the Department of Justice, which are incorporated in a deliberative process.

Mr. MICA. Well, based on the information you have, would you

not think it would be a candidate to be placed on that list?

Mr. LEDWITH. It is not a recommendation that I am able to

make, sir, at my level. Quite honestly, it is not something for me

to do. Based on the information that we are developing, it is certainly something that should warrant a close look.

Mr. MICA. Is this case closed?

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Mr. LEDWITH. No, sir, it is not, as to the 7.254 tons, sir, it is

being actively and aggressively pursued. You can take my word for

it, I am not going to mislead anyone on this issue. And it will be,

with a certain element of luck as is involved in any investigation,

will be successfully concluded in the foreseeable future.

Mr. MICA. If I may, let me shift over to Customs for a second.

I went down to the southern Caribbean, the area actually around

the Cuban coast and flew in one of the Customs planes, the military planes. We witnessed ships, old container ships and commercial vessels, zig-zagging in and out of the Cuban waters. Is that

still pretty much the pattern of activity using Cuban waters as a

refuge for people who may have illicit cargo.

Mr. VARRONE. As indicated by the air tracks; yes, sir, the air

tracks and our marine operations, we believe that they use Cuban

waters as a staging area.

Mr. MICA. We also looked at the go-fast boats, some of those were

being produced in Jamaica on the coast. Has that operation been

closed down or are they still producing the go-fast boats there?

Mr. VARRONE. I do not know if that particular operation has been

closed down.

Mr. MICA. Where are they producing the go-fast boats?

Mr. VARRONE. I do not know.

Mr. MICA. You do not know. Well, I was briefed on that and they

told me it was on the northern coast, they even told me that the

engines for the go-fast were being purchased in the United States,

and we are tracing that back, and being purchased by a Bahamian

who was involved in organizing some of the traffic through the Caribbean area. Is that—does anyone have knowledge of where we

might be on that?

Mr. VIGIL. I might be able to answer that. You know, there is

still production being conducted of Yolas, what they call Yolas.

They are somewhat go-fast boats. However, it is very difficult to

shut down the entire operation, quite simply because a lot of people

use that as fishing boats and they use that in terms of livelihood.

They are not only used for drug smuggling operations. We do have

several ongoing investigations in Jamaica in terms of individuals,

drug trafficking organizations that do use go-fast boats, but again,

they are not entirely used for drug trafficking activities or enterprises.

Mr. MICA. Last thing, Mr. Chairman, and I would like an update

on that whole situation and also whether the individual who was

identified, who was the Bahamian ring leader, if he has been

brought to justice and whether they are still producing most of

them in Jamaica.

Mr. Chairman, we heard numbers of personnel here, 209 in 1982

I guess. Can we get some historical perspective on the number of

Customs personnel? I do not know whether you have those figures

available, what we had 4, 5, 6, 7 years ago versus what we have

now. We heard a little bit about INS, but I want to know about

Customs personnel in Puerto Rico and also the Virgin Islands area

that you discussed.

Mr. VARRONE. Can we submit those to you, sir? I do not have

those numbers with me.

Mr. MICA. Are we up, down or what?

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Mr. VARRONE. The numbers are static right now.

Mr. MICA. Static to what, a year ago, 2 years ago?

Mr. VARRONE. It has been between on board and what the table

of organization states, anywhere between 66 and 80 special agents,

82 is what I think the number is. It fluctuates. We have similar

problems as DEA and our other Federal agencies do with retaining

staffing because of conditions transferring people to Puerto Rico,

with incentive packages. We are actually working on a package

right now in Washington that will try to parallel some of the incentives that DEA and other Federal agencies have.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, if we could insert in the record at this

point a historical description of the personnel for Customs, I would

appreciate that.

Mr. BURTON. Without objection, we will do that. And I would like

to have maybe that from DEA and the other agencies as well. If

you could give us some perspective over the last say 10 years, it

would help us a great deal.

Mr. Barr.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Ledwith, what we consider artificially low estimated cocaine

flow through Cuba that the chairman was discussing with you and

I think Mr. Mica also previously, you have indicated that in your

view that reflects a consensus opinion, I suppose, of the IACM.

DEA does not agree with those artificially low assessments, does it?

Mr. LEDWITH. We were a participant in establishing those, sir,

but clearly we are in the process of re-assessing those based on

information——

Mr. BARR. Did DEA file a dissent to those low figures?

Mr. LEDWITH. I could not answer that, sir. I do not believe DEA

filed a dissent to these figures as published. I believe these are a

year or two old, as is the general nature of making these assessments also, sir. So I would have to make a determination as to today’s DEA opinion, if you will, sir, on the reliability of those numbers.

Mr. BARR. If you carry some weight with Mr. Marshall, who will

have confirmation hearings hopefully early in the year, would you

urge him to be a little more forceful in these meetings?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARR. I would appreciate that.

You indicate in your testimony that, quote, to date—well, let me

not put in quotes what ought not to be. On page 5 of your testimony, you indicate that there are a number of agencies, including

DEA that continues to investigate very thoroughly the 7.3 ton cocaine seizure in Cartagena and you state that ‘‘to date, have not

developed direct evidence of the ultimate destination of the cocaine.’’ Does that mean that it may have been destined for the

United States, you just do not have any evidence yet to say conclusively one way or the other that it was or it was not?

Mr. LEDWITH. That would be correct, sir, we do not have direct

evidence that would indicate a definitive location that that was

going to.

Mr. BARR. So DEA cannot, based on all of the evidence thus far,

rule out the United States as being the ultimate source?

Mr. LEDWITH. Based on direct evidence, that would be correct,

sir.

Mr. BARR. Where then did the President get his evidence that he

stated publicly on November 10, ‘‘their judgment remains that

Spain and not the United States was the intended final destination.’’ And the ‘‘their judgment’’ that he is referring to is our intelligence agencies. Where did he get that information?

Mr. LEDWITH. It is DEA’s position to this point, sir, that we do

not have direct evidence. We have indications that it was headed

to Spain but we do not have direct evidence at this point.

Mr. BARR. So the statement of the President is not supported by

DEA.

Mr. LEDWITH. I would not be able to say that, sir. I would only

be able to answer—I certainly cannot——

Mr. BARR. If I said is the following statement, Mr. Ledwith, consistent with evidence of DEA, ‘‘their judgment remains that Spain

and not the United States was the intended final destination.’’ You

could not agree with that, could you?

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Mr. LEDWITH. No, sir, I would not say that. I would say that at

this point, that is an accurate representation. Our indications were

that it was headed to Spain. Clearly, we do not yet have direct evidence, but there is a significant difference between indications the

way the investigation is developing at this point, and direct evidence.

Mr. BARR. Like we were saying a little bit earlier, you are sort

of backtracking now. Maybe that is my fault for trying to pin you

down. Heaven forbid that we should try and pin people down.

I do not think the problem is yours, but I think what you are trying to do is support a political judgment that the President has

made that is a wrong judgment, that is not supported by the facts.

I understand the predicament that you are in. You are not a policymaker.

Mr. LEDWITH. No, sir, I am an operator, I have 31 years as an

operator, not a policymaker.

Mr. BARR. The one thing that I have always respected tremendously in DEA is your law enforcement. You operate on the law

and on the evidence and the investigations and you take them

where they lead you. What we have been witnessing and I think

this is what the chairman was referring to a little bit earlier, what

we are witnessing is sort of a bastardization of that process now

for apparent political reasons, the judgments being made at the

White House, at the top policy levels, that are not supported by the

best interests and the best evidence of law enforcement, and that

is disturbing to us.

We see reports such as the one in October 20, 1999 in the Miami

Herald of meetings between—meetings in Cuba of top level drug

traffickers. We have reports that—and I would appreciate your

view on this—what is the status of the draft 1993 indictment of

Raul Castro and others, including the institution of the Cuban Government itself for drug trafficking?

Mr. LEDWITH. I have limited knowledge of that. My understanding of it, it was referred back to the Department of Justice in

Washington and not acted upon. I would not be the expert person

that could speak to that particular issue. That is my understanding.

Mr. BARR. Have you ever seen a copy of that draft indictment?

Mr. LEDWITH. I have not, sir, no.

Mr. BARR. Does it exist? One would presume that it does.

Mr. LEDWITH. It would be a presumption on my part, sir, but I

would presume it exists.

Mr. BARR. On my part too.

Mr. Chairman, I think we might want to take some steps, either

through subpoena or other means, to obtain a copy of that because

it is another indication—U.S. Attorneys, Mr. Martinez having been

a very distinguished U.S. Attorney, do not draft indictments based

on will of the wisp information. Even though it is a draft, a draft

indictment prepared by a U.S. Attorney’s office, including one with

such a distinguished record of drug prosecutions as the Miami U.S.

Attorney’s office, draft an indictment based on very substantial evidence, and I think the fact that this indictment was drafted indicates that there is very substantial evidence, even as far back here

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faced, that Cuba has been intimately and very vigorously involved

in drug trafficking in and of itself as well as as a transshipment

point. So I would appreciate it if we could make some efforts to obtain a copy of that draft indictment.

Mr. BURTON. We will. I think with your acquiescence, we will

send a letter to Attorney General Reno asking for this draft indictment. If they are not forthcoming, I will be happy to issue a subpoena to try to get that for us.

Mr. LEDWITH. Mr. Chairman, might I respond for a moment to

one of Mr. Barr’s questions, please?

Mr. BURTON. Sure.

Mr. LEDWITH. I would just like to say for the record that DEA

is an apolitical agency and if we had evidence, direct evidence or

if we had indications that that load was headed to the United

States, the 7.2 ton issue that we are speaking of, I would be standing before you here saying that that is the case. Irregardless—— Mr. BARR. I have no doubt that that is the case.

Mr. LEDWITH. I would come here before you and say, despite

what anybody else may be saying, it is our position that if we had

those indications or evidence that it was headed to the United

States, as to that particular 7.24 or 5 ton seizure. We are not a political agency and quite honestly, sir, I am not a very political person. I am here to tell you the truth as best we can see it, and that

is what we are doing.

Mr. BARR. I appreciate that and I know that is the case from my

personal experience as a U.S. Attorney with DEA, and since then

as a Member of Congress. The problem I think is where you have

an administration that does not take that view. They may not ask

the questions because they do not want to hear the answer that

you might give them. The President I think—I do not know, Mr.

Chairman, did he ever meet with Mr. Constantine on these matters? I think there has been testimony that he just never even

asked for briefings, so that therefore, they can make statements

like this one in November that have no basis in legitimate evidence

or fact, and DEA is not often given the opportunity to participate

and provide that objective evidence that you and your colleagues

would. But that is not your problem, that is a problem at a higher

level that we have to face.

Mr. BURTON. Let me just say to my good friend, Mr. Ledwith

from DEA before I yield to Mr. Ose, that I had some of the officials

from DEA into my office along with one of the people that was involved in DEA’s activities in Latin America and Colombia and

there was some discussion between DEA and the White House

about this shipment and one of the individuals—I think there was

some misrepresentation of it. I am not sure whether it was because

there was pressure put on them or what, but I think there was

some misrepresentation, and so I think that one of the things that

everybody ought to ask is why would Rogelio Sierra, who is a

spokesman for the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, say that

7 tons of Cuban-bound cocaine seized in Colombia was destined for

the United States? He says or they are now saying that that was

a mistake, he was talking about another shipment that was going

through the Caribbean that was destined for Spain. But the other

agency I talked about said there was no other shipment close to

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that size during that time period. So it appears as though Mr. Sierra and the Cuban Ministry down there was trying to cover their

derrieres after he had a slip of the tongue that got in the paper,

Prensa Latina.

But I do not want to belabor the point, you are going on with

your investigation and I hope you will keep us informed and I appreciate—I know we have put you on the spot today and I apologize

for that, I think that you have handled yourself very well.

Mr. LEDWITH. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I want to express my appreciation to Mr. Varrone

and his many colleagues at the Miami International Airport. I had

a very interesting 3 hour visit with them when I came in on Sunday night. We actually——

Mr. BARR. You were not detained for 3 hours, were you?

Mr. OSE. I was not detained—thank you, Mr. Barr——

Mr. BARR. You might want to clarify that for the record.

Mr. OSE. I was actually invited to witness or watch their operations and in the course of that 3 hour period, they were able to

detain one person on a wants and warrants check for stalking, another person for a nominal amount of marijuana they were bringing in on their person and then one of the rovers on the Customs

floor, by sight, picked out a guy that was packing 8,000 pills of

Ecstacy headed to the South Beach area for retailing. Mr.

Varrone’s colleagues, man, they just picked him out and it was just

a thing of beauty to watch. [Laughter.]

Mr. BARR. Based on tangible, articulable evidence. [Laughter.]

Mr. OSE. Listen, you are the attorney, I am just sitting here telling you what I saw. They just nailed the guy and it was a thing

of pleasure to watch. So my compliments to you and your colleagues.

I want to go back and clarify something, Mr. Ledwith. On your

testimony here, if I understand the dilemma we are facing here, it

is that this chart on page 2 refers to estimates of cocaine headed

to the United States and the dilemma that we have as it relates

to this 7.2 metric tons is that DEA judged that to be going to

Spain, so it was not included in this chart.

Mr. LEDWITH. And I appreciate you pointing that out, sir, that

is accurate.

Mr. OSE. Is that accurate? We heard testimony yesterday and I

have heard it here a little bit today about that not being—that 7.2

metric ton container being not the only—I cannot even talk right

now. Not the only container that was considered to have been

shipped, just on the basis that being that that volume or amount

of cocaine would not be shipped through a channel that had not

been tested, for instance.

Mr. LEDWITH. That is a very accurate assessment. The traffickers

would not risk a quantity of that size and magnitude until they

had tested the pipeline with smaller shipments. They would build

to that size shipment, because the risks are enormous.

Mr. OSE. I was doing some math up here and I have lost the

numbers, but it is somewhere on the order of half a billion dollars

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worth of cocaine. I may be off by an order of magnitude, but that

number—— Mr. BURTON. The 7.2 metric tons?

Mr. OSE. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. It is $11⁄2 billion.

Mr. OSE. $11⁄2 billion. Well $500 million or $11⁄2 billion, that is

a heck of a lot of cocaine. I want to make sure I understand, that

while that 7.2 metric ton shipment, in DEA’s opinion, was destined

for Europe, there is evidence, logical or otherwise, to suggest that

other shipments had gone down that delivery channel, if you will,

previous to that, headed for both Europe and possibly the United

States?

Mr. LEDWITH. You could say that, sir. We cannot say with any

kind of definitive answer exactly where those other shipments

went. We can say that there were certainly, in our opinion, other

shipments, because they would not risk that amount of drugs without testing that system. There is evidence that there had been at

the very least four prior shipments.

And Mr. Chairman, as Mr. Ose points out, I apologize, but the

1.7 reference was to drugs that could be definitively said were

going through Cuba toward the United States and I believe that

thus this 7 ton shipment might not have been part of those numbers and that is the mathematical problem that you mentioned earlier. But yes, sir, there would have been other shipments.

Mr. OSE. Through Cuba, destined somewhere.

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. In the opinion of DEA.

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. All right. Do the organizations that push that kind of

volume traffick in both Europe and the United States?

Mr. LEDWITH. Absolutely, sir.

Mr. OSE. All right. Have you run into any drug trafficking organizations recently moving that kind of volume to both Europe and

the United States?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. OK. Through Cuba?

Mr. LEDWITH. No, I cannot say through Cuba. When you asked

me have we run into organizations shipping those kind of

volumes——

Mr. OSE. I understand. Let me rephrase my question. Have you

run into any—have you recently run into any drug trafficking organizations shipping that quantity of drugs through Cuba to either

Europe or the United States?

Mr. LEDWITH. No, sir.

Mr. OSE. You have in December 1998, the 7.2 metric tons came

from an organization headed toward Europe.

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. In the DEA’s opinion. But there has been no similar

conclusive position on DEA’s part of a similar shipment headed

through Cuba to the United States?

Mr. LEDWITH. To this point, no, sir, we do not have any.

Mr. OSE. And you have a number of ongoing investigations, I am

confident of. Do you have a number of ongoing investigations in

this regard?

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Mr. LEDWITH. We do, sir. We are constantly examining those

issues from our respective offices in the Caribbean and South

America and the United States. To this point, I can say that we

do not have evidence of organizations shipping enormous loads of

cocaine both to Europe and the United States through Cuba. I do

not have that at this time.

Mr. OSE. My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. If you need more time for questioning, we will come

back for another round.

Mr. Barcelo.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank Mr. Ledwith and Mr. Vigil and Mr.

Varrone for the job that you are doing in Puerto Rico and I think

everyone is very impressed and very happy with it.

I would like to ask Mr. Vigil something about when you discussed the problems in the security of the agents in Puerto Rico.

What were you referring to because I would like to know and see

how I could be helpful, if any, in helping that issue.

Mr. VIGIL. I appreciate the question. I was feeling kind of abandoned here, Mr. Romero-Barcelo.

Mr. OSE. Just wait, Mr. Vigil, we will get to you.

Mr. VIGIL. The security issues are, as you know, there is a high

crime rate in Puerto Rico. Obviously it has gone down significantly

as a result of the efforts not only at the Federal level but at the

State level. One of those, you know, deals with street crime. We recently had an individual that was at a business and there was an

armed robbery attempt that occurred and the individuals that conducted the assault put a gun to his head.

Several months ago, we had an individual that was on his way

home, his vehicle broke down and he had to walk about a mile to

his residence, came back with his wife, told his wife, look, stay in

the car, if anything happens, drive away from the area. He starts

to work with the vehicle’s battery and sure enough not more than

5 minutes had elapsed when a vehicle pulled up and an individual

exited the vehicle and approached him carrying a hand gun and he

demanded money. At that time, his wife started to move away from

the area and the individual points the weapon at her and he happened to be armed, pulled out his weapon and fired two shots. One

of the bullets struck the vehicle that he was in and the other one

struck him on the left side of his chest. Later, the suspect reported

to a hospital in the immediate vicinity and he was given emergency

treatment. He died a few minutes later.

The same individual some time back was at an ATM machine

and there was an attempted robbery.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. The same agent?

Mr. VIGIL. Same agent. There was an attempted robbery, he fired

several rounds and struck the suspect. Did not kill him, but I think

there were about three bullet impacts.

I have had a group supervisor whose home was invaded by several individuals carrying weapons, his entire family was put on the

floor and held at gunpoint and eventually he was able to wrestle

one of them and they fled the area.

So those are the type of things that are encountered. As Mr. Attorney General Fuentes Agostini stated, we do estimate that about

133

80 percent of the homicides that occur in Puerto Rico are drug-related. Obviously we are undertaking measures at the Federal level

with other agencies and also in cooperation with the Puerto Rico

Police Department and the Attorney General to address a lot of

these violent organizations. As you are well aware, we assisted you

in the Agalateo project, we eliminated a very significant drug-trafficking organization that engaged in wholesale violence and had

complete control of that area.

So there are security and safety issues that we are concerned

with. Obviously, we are working in a combined effort to try and address those, not only with the agencies themselves, the law enforcement agencies, but also with the local prosecutors as well as with

Federal prosecutors.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Are you doing any recruiting, active recruiting in Puerto Rico for agents?

Mr. VIGIL. We do a tremendous amount of recruiting in Puerto

Rico. Obviously the Spanish language is very important, so we

focus very heavily in terms of minority recruiting. I would venture

to say that the vast majority, you know, we have gotten a tremendous amount of excellent recruits out of Puerto Rico.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Because I was going to suggest that if you

need any help on organizing any kind of special programs in the

colleges or universities, I would be very glad to sit down with you

and sit down with the president of the Higher Education Council

and the secretary of education and discuss that and see any special

courses that could be prepared so that the students would feel that

they would have an opportunity at least to try for positions in the

DEA or Customs or the Coast Guard or whatever.

Mr. VIGIL. I appreciate that and we will sit down and discuss

that. We do actively engage in recruitment, the recruitment process, at the universities. We attend job fairs and obviously we do a

lot of recruiting from the Puerto Rico Police Department and other

agencies. You know, at the same time, they are engaged as task

force officers in our task forces.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Thank you very much. My time is up.

Mr. BURTON. Let me just make a couple more comments and ask

a couple more questions of Mr. Ledwith.

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Told the Miami Herald that the Colombian drug

traffickers had held a meeting in Havana on at least one occasion.

And you said that Cuba’s counter-narcotics efforts have been

mixed. It seems to me—we had testimony yesterday from two people who used to be involved with the Cuban Government. One of

the fellows was in the Department of the Americas, his wife was

the daughter of one of the people that were executed, a Colonel

that was executed with General Ochoa. So they were very, very

high up in the government and they went into great detail about

Castro’s activities with narcotics and how they gave bags of money,

splitting it up in the Interior Ministry, which is their intelligence

agency, giving half to Castro and half to the others. And when he

eliminated these people, then Castro could get all of it, and much

of this was drug-related.

So we have a lot of evidence that shows that Castro has been involved in the drug trafficking. This meeting, which has been talked

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about by Mr. Mazelli with leaders of the drug cartel meeting in Havana on at least one or two occasions would indicate that Castro

was giving his stamp of approval or getting something for that

meeting. He knows everything that is going on in Cuba, according

to every source we have talked to. They have block captains watching people who are dissidents, who get upset with the Castro government, in almost every block or every other block, just like the

Communist set up in the Soviet Union years ago to watch people

who were potential problems for the government. And many of

those people have been incarcerated and thrown into prison for indeterminate periods of time. So Castro knows what is going on. He

is involved, deeply involved, in watching everything to protect his

regime.

Now Mr. Mazelli says that on two separate occasions, or at least

one occasion, the leaders of the cartel have been in Havana. How

can we say that the Cuban Government’s cooperation is mixed, if

they are actually having drug cartel members there for meetings,

and we know that drugs are transitting Cuba? And how can we believe them when they say that drugs were going to a different area

or that the dogs were sniffing—the police there said that dogs were

sniffing canisters and finding Spanish money in them and remnants of cocaine—how can we believe them?

Mr. LEDWITH. Sir, we cannot.

Mr. BURTON. Well, then how do you verify that and how do you

say that there is mixed—— Mr. LEDWITH. When I say that there is mixed reviews, I am in

the very awkward position of defending Cuba’s actions in the drug

war, which I do not believe that Cuba has done everything that

they possibly can in any fashion and I have so testified. If we look

at the diminished tracks coming across Cuba that my colleague

from Customs pointed out this morning in his testimony, I do not

for a minute feel that that is a result of their fear of Cuban interdiction efforts. I feel that it is solely a result of a logistical change

and it is easier to go someplace else. The Cubans have not effectively patrolled their waters, their air, nor have they assisted us

in the methods that I feel they should assist us. It is a closed community. It is, as you mentioned earlier, sir, a very restrictive environment. We do not have anybody stationed there, nor are we able

to go there and effectively operate. And if we went there, I am not

sure we could believe what they told us.

Mr. BURTON. Well, let me just say regarding them patrolling

their waters, and I am just saying this for the record because I

think it is important to be in the record of this hearing, the March

13th tugboat containing women, children, they washed them off the

decks, they drowned them all, they killed them all. If they can patrol and watch people leaving Cuba trying to get to freedom in the

United States, if they can shoot down two unarmed aircraft and

send up MiGs to intercept people that are flying into Cuban air

space, they sure as the dickens can watch people going in and out

of Cuban waters, participating in the drug trade.

Mr. Mazelli also described a situation where the Cuban Government was facilitating—in his opinion, facilitating drug shipments

by not arresting these men when they were there. So I think during that time period when he was talking to the Miami Herald, he

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was saying very clearly that he thought Cuba was very

complicitous and involved.

Mr. Varrone—oh, excuse me, did you have something?

Mr. LEDWITH. We have on many occasions heard from undercover

contacts that the crooks feel very comfortable meeting in Cuba,

they feel that they will be completely free of United States surveillance, intervention, T–3s or any varieties of technical interceptions

because of the very nature of Cuba. I think that would be an accurate statement.

Mr. BURTON. Let me end my questioning here real quickly to Mr.

Varrone. Has the Customs Service received any reliable intelligence from drug traffickers in recent months that Cuban authorities do not bother you when you are moving drugs through the island?

Mr. VARRONE. Yes, sir, we have heard that from a variety of

sources. The credibility of sources are always in question, the

sources that we have heard it from are cooperating defendants who

are pending sentencing and the amount of credibility that you can

give to that is always—— Mr. BURTON. But it is not one source, there are a number of

sources?

Mr. VARRONE. We have heard it from more than one source; correct, sir.

Mr. BURTON. OK. My staff has been told by Customs agents in

Miami that as much as 98 percent of the drugs coming into the

Port of Miami get through undetected, is that correct?

Mr. VARRONE. I do not believe that is accurate, sir.

Mr. BURTON. You think it is much less than that?

Mr. VARRONE. I think we are more effective than that; yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. OK. All right, I guess the only other thing is what

does the Customs Service need to do to be more effective in stopping the drugs at the Port of Miami and in Puerto Rico? If you can

give me a generic answer to that, is it more money, more agents,

what?

Mr. VARRONE. Well, we have H.R. I think it is 1833 that Senator

Mica has—I am sorry, Congressman Mica has sponsored. [Laughter.]

Mr. OSE. I will vote for that.

Mr. BURTON. Did he pay you to say that? [Laughter.]

Mr. VARRONE. Which is a resource request for the service. Our

resources have been static and I know particularly in the Miami

area that they have been static and I believe that they could use

more people and the production that we get from our people is very

high. So I think that would be very helpful.

Mr. BURTON. I will co-sponsor the bill and see if we cannot help

you out.

Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I have a couple of questions as we start

this second round here. Mr. Ledwith, how long have you been in

your position?

Mr. LEDWITH. I have been the Chief of International Operations

with DEA since May of last year, sir.

Mr. MICA. Are you familiar with any of the DEA operations in

Haiti?

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Mr. LEDWITH. Somewhat, sir.

Mr. MICA. I am absolutely baffled by the situation that has developed here. It looks like Haiti is becoming a major conduit in

drug trafficking. Is that a correct assumption?

Mr. LEDWITH. I think that would be an accurate statement, sir.

Mr. MICA. Because we have spent $3 to $4 billion in nation-building. We have spent an incredible amount of resources in trying to

build the judicial system there and the governmental system. Is the

DEA working with their officials? Do we have a specific drug program in Haiti working with their officials that you can relate?

Mr. LEDWITH. From the headquarters perspective, sir, we are

currently involved in a series of meetings at the Washington level

to try and replicate Operation Bat which is a helicopter interdiction

program that has been quite productive and successful in the Bahamas, and we are attempting to put together the resources to

bring such a mechanism to Haiti.

But I would like to defer to Mr. Vigil if I may, sir, who has the

responsibility of immediate oversight of Haiti and I would ask

Mike, if he would——

Mr. MICA. I would really like to hear that because I cannot think

of any nation in the western hemisphere in which we have put

more resources and more U.S. attention and had a bigger failure,

and now to find out that it is the major conduit. And the description that we had from the former Puerto Rican Attorney General

of drugs coming into Haiti, being transported across to the Dominican Republic. And when you get through with Haiti, can you tell

us what is going on with the Dominican Republic, a supposed ally,

a good friend. We have also assisted that country, but could you

describe what is going on, what the problems are?

Mr. VIGIL. Let me begin by saying that there are significant

problems, as we are all aware of, in terms of Haiti, the lack of political and economic infrastructure plays a very important role in

the fact that a lot of Colombian and Dominican drug trafficking organizations have moved into the area and are using Haiti as a

major transshipment point.

Mr. MICA. OK, we know that. What are our programs?

Mr. VIGIL. Well, we have several programs.

Mr. MICA. What are we doing, why are they not working?

Mr. VIGIL. Well, the thing is that right now we have a program

at the Port-au-Prince airport and we work very closely with the

BLTS. The BLTS is the counter-drug arm of the Haitian National

Police. They have had some success there.

Mr. MICA. What about maritime?

Mr. VIGIL. And then we also have a maritime task force also at

Port-au-Prince.

Some of the other programs that we have developed there along

with the Customs Service, we initiated a binational operation between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, approximately 1 year

ago. I thought it was a tremendous success in the fact that we were

able to bring two countries together that have had so much conflict

and strife during the past several decades. The operation was a tremendous success, we garnered a lot of arrests and seizures, but the

arrests and seizures were not the predominant focus or operational

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objective. What we were trying to do is get them to exchange information and work with one another.

Subsequent to Operation Genesis, the Haitians arrested the wife,

son and brother-in-law of Heriberto Coneo, who was a major drug

trafficker. They did not have venue in Haiti, so they worked out an

agreement with the Dominican authorities and they drove these individuals to the border near Malpas and turned them over to the

Dominican authorities.

Later, the Haitians requested assistance from the Dominican

Government in terms of an individual that was responsible for several homicides and the Dominicans responded, arrested this individual boarding an American Airlines flight in Santo Domingo

headed for New York. They again drove him over to Malpas and

turned him over to the Haitians.

Recently, we conducted Operation Columbus, which was a multinational operation involving 15 countries, to include Venezuela, Colombia and Panama, which are to me the countries that greatly impact on what we do in the Caribbean. Haiti participated in that operation and they arrested what I consider to be a very significant

Haitian trafficker by the name of Edmond Noel, who owns several

businesses in Haiti. They also executed a search warrant at a residence belonging to two individuals that are the subject of an investigation here in the United States and they seized 275 kilograms

of cocaine, seized the residence which is estimated to be valued at

over $2 million and several thousands of dollars of weapons, luxury

vehicles and what-have-you.

What they are doing now are what I consider to be embryonic

steps, but they are undertaking what I consider to be significant

strides in comparison to what they did in the past. We have opened

the doors to the international arena in terms of this country and

I think that they have responded rather well. I think that they lack

the resources, they lack the training and unfortunately we have a

police force that up to a year ago was about 6,000 strong and now

probably has dwindled down to about 5,000.

We have also implemented a program which we call Unicorn, it

is the Unified Caribbean Online Regional Network and this is a

computer data base system that links over 20 some odd countries

and allows them to exchange information with one another. So I

look at these types of initiatives as very significant in terms of the

implementation of a comprehensive regional strategy and Haiti is,

you know, playing a strong role in this implementation.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I would like to get more information from

the agencies and we will have additional questions after the hearing. Just one final thing, if I may, if my colleagues will indulge me.

This report that we have from the GAO just within the last couple of weeks here says according to the Southern Command, the

command can only detect and monitor 15 percent of the key routes

in the overall drug trafficking area about 15 percent of the time.

That is pretty low coverage of the huge Caribbean area.

Then while I was home, some of the headlines in the central

Florida papers announced the closing of the Aerostat program,

which is located off of our Gulf coast and they said that other

Aerostats are being closed down.

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I do know that we have some, what is it, over the horizon radar

coming in place. Can Customs tell me, or DEA, what kind of coverage we anticipate; one, with the close down of Aerostats, and also

with the information given us by the commander of Southern Command here.

Mr. LEDWITH. We will defer to our Customs colleague I believe

regarding air tracks.

Mr. VARRONE. Mr. Mica, I have not seen that report. Those are

all DOD assets and as you know, we only operate one Aerostat, we

only have one Aerostat left.

Mr. MICA. Are you going to keep that one?

Mr. VARRONE. I believe so, at least in the short term. I cannot

describe the technological presentation of the radar and what areas

we cover and what we cannot cover. I have with me Bill Daley from

our aviation unit, who may be able to give you some insight if you

would like to hear from him, or we could submit some answer to

you.

Mr. MICA. I do not think he has been sworn, has he?

Mr. VARRONE. No, sir.

Mr. MICA. We do not want to get into that then. But what I

would like to do is get an assessment from Customs and DEA

about this entire matter of coverage and how we should approach

it, maybe your recommendations, and then what is going to happen. I think these Aerostats are under the Air Force’s jurisdiction,

but they are coming down and there is a great concern in Florida

and some of the other areas where they have had coverage in the

past. So I would like your perspective on that, if you would submit

that for the record.

Mr. VARRONE. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. Did you want to comment before I yield?

Mr. VIGIL. I would like to make a comment, not necessarily on

the Aerostats, but I think more importantly is the fact that on occasion we do have adequate detection and monitoring assets in the

Caribbean, and I am talking about ROTHR, P–3, and what-haveyou. But I think more important is the fact that we need to address

response capability and I think Mr. Fuentes Agostini very appropriately brought up the fact that we need some Blackhawk helicopters, we need that response capability because otherwise, we are

going to be able to detect, but we are not going to be able to interdict those drug loads. And that is a major problem that we have.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, they opened themselves up to a question here on the Blackhawks. Why can you not have an interagency

agreement to utilize the National Guard helicopters? Do you lack

the O&M funds or has that been discussed? Someone said we had

half a dozen or so National Guard helicopters sitting in Puerto

Rico——

Mr. BURTON. Eight, I think.

Mr. MICA. OK. Not being utilized. What is the problem with

that?

Mr. VIGIL. Well, the thing is that we are working on developing

this type of response capability as we speak. The problem with the

helicopters belonging to the National Guard—and we have conducted several meetings, with a multitude of agencies, to include

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the National Guard there—the funding that they are being provided is strictly for military readiness.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, maybe we could do a letter from the

committee. They have eight of these Blackhawk helicopters sitting

down there, they have had discussions and nothing seems to be

getting done, and then we have a request from Puerto Rico, maybe

the delegate could join us in this—— Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Sure.

Mr. MICA [continuing]. To get those things done.

Mr. BURTON. Well, the Attorney General, I think when he spoke,

I think we did talk about that and you may have been out of the

room. We ought to do that.

Mr. MICA. But I think the committee should do something immediately and we will bring in the National Guard Commander or

whoever it takes, and others, and I am certain we could find the

resources to get those things activated.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. I will be happy to join in the efforts.

Mr. BURTON. Why do we not have the staff give us all of the

agencies that ought to be contacted and we will write a joint letter

from Mr. Barcelo and the committee.

Mr. MICA. And maybe conduct a meeting as soon as we get back,

to bring them together. I would like to request that, if I could.

Mr. BURTON. Why do we not see if we can do that.

Mr. VIGIL. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Ose has to catch a plane and so I hope you will

all bear with us while we let one of our newer members go, because

I do not want him to have his wife all angry with him by not being

home tonight.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, you are very kind.

Mr. BURTON. Of course.

Mr. OSE. I want to followup on an earlier question that I asked

and that is, it was directed to Mr. Ledwith regarding these containers. It would seem to me that based on what we have heard today,

that containers for volume transactions—I mean I cannot even

stand talking about this in normal business language—for this

kind of drug poison to get shipped over in this kind of volume,

some of the producers have gone to containerized shipments. We

have established that they sent one container at least to Cuba.

Have they sent other containers to other countries? Have other

containers been sent under similar circumstances to other countries, for instance, Mexico.

Mr. LEDWITH. By this particular organization, sir?

Mr. OSE. Or any similar one.

Mr. LEDWITH. Certainly containerized cargo is probably the best

method of shipping drugs, if that is what you are asking. This particular organization, we have found records that indicate at least

four prior containers were shipped through Cuba to Spain, if you

are speaking to the particular organization involved in the 7.2 ton

shipment.

Mr. OSE. E.I. Carib.

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. OK.

Mr. LEDWITH. That organization had definitely utilized containers previously and in fact, four of the containers allegedly found by

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the Cuban National Police with hidden compartments, those serial

numbers, backtracking of the shipping documents regarding the serial numbers, indicated that those very containers had previously

been shipped from Colombia to Cuba to Spain.

Now if we are speaking of in general, are other containerized

cargo methods being utilized to ship drugs, absolutely.

Mr. OSE. Did E.I. Carib engage in shipment of containers to

other countries besides Cuba?

Mr. LEDWITH. It does not—our records at this point do not indicate that; no, sir, their particular shipment of containers that we

have found already—now I may be incorrect at this point and I will

find out for you and report to the committee, my immediate information is that as to the shipments involving the company are in

Cuba and in Spain.

Mr. OSE. So E.I. Carib, what we have is evidence that E.I. Carib

sent a container from Colombia to Cuba and at that point the container was in effect arrested.

Mr. LEDWITH. Actually, sir, the containers never left Cartagena

with the drugs in them.

Mr. OSE. OK, so the Colombian National Police seized it.

Mr. LEDWITH. The 7.2 ton seizure took place in Cartagena, Colombia.

Mr. OSE. OK.

Mr. LEDWITH. And the documents indicated that they were to be

shipped to Cuba.

Mr. OSE. Do the lading numbers on the various containers indicate that once containers went to Cuba, did they go in a variety

of directions or only on to say Spain? Did they go from Cuba to

Mexico or Cuba back to wherever? Was it just a singular destination point on these containers?

Mr. LEDWITH. With the E.I. Carib, one container—our record

check indicates one container went on to Mexico. The other containers in question went from Cartagena to Kingston, Jamaica to

Cuba to Spain. That is the shipping route they utilized.

Mr. OSE. And that was the lading that was indicated on the 7.2

metric tons?

Mr. LEDWITH. That is correct.

Mr. OSE. On this other container that went to Mexico—— Mr. LEDWITH. It went from Cartagena to Kingston, Jamaica to

Cuba to Mexico.

Mr. OSE. Now we have heard testimony today about Mexico

being one of those countries through which a significant amount of

these narcotics are shipped into the United States. Is it possible

that one of these prior runs, for instance this container from

Cartagena to Jamaica to Cuba to Mexico contained drugs?

Mr. LEDWITH. It is certainly possible.

Mr. OSE. The four containers that were identified as having false

compartments, was one of those four the container that went from

Cartagena to Kingston to Cuba to Mexico?

Mr. LEDWITH. No, it was not. The four containers with the hidden compartments were alleged to have continued on to Spain.

Mr. OSE. OK, and they were the property of E.I. Carib?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes.

Mr. OSE. Now is E.I. Carib still in business?

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Mr. LEDWITH. I think it closed as a result of this investigation.

Mr. OSE. And E.I. Carib was engaged in shipping transactions

with a company called Plastico Royal based in Havana?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes.

Mr. OSE. Who owned Plastico Royal?

Mr. LEDWITH. Herrera and Royal.

Mr. OSE. Herrera and Royal were individuals?

Mr. LEDWITH. They were individuals who had the company in

Havana.

Mr. OSE. They were the corporate agent?

Mr. LEDWITH. They were part owners, if you will with the Government of Cuba.

Mr. OSE. What part of ownership did they hold?

Mr. LEDWITH. I believe they held 49 percent while the Cuban

Government held 51 percent.

Mr. OSE. So the Cuban Government held 51 percent ownership

in a shipping company—excuse me, a receiving company, Plastico

Royal, that was receiving containers that according to evidence

that the Colombian National Police provided contained 7.2 metric

tons of cocaine destined, in this case, for Europe, according to the

DEA analysis.

Mr. LEDWITH. That would be correct.

Mr. BURTON. If the gentleman would yield briefly. We covered

this a little bit yesterday. There were two Ministry of the Interior

officials that pretty much ran the company, they watched everything that went in. They made—the lady in charge in the Ministry

of the Interior made a call to Cartagena saying where is that shipment. She did not find out about it. She made a call to one of the

people who was also a minority stockholder in Spain saying where

is that shipment. So they were very, very concerned about that

shipment because they knew it contained the cocaine, I believe. I

mean I do not know why else they would be so anxious to get a

shipment that contained 7.2 metric tons of cocaine. And the Ministry of the Interior’s past history shows clearly that they were involved in getting bags of money from various sources and splitting

it up between Castro and other agencies, and ultimately when General Ochoa was killed, Castro could get it all.

And they even went into detail yesterday as to how the money

was spent. One was for a health facility for the upper crust in

Cuba.

So just to flesh out what the gentleman was pointing out, the

Ministry of the Interior down there, they were the ones pulling the

strings on those drug shipments.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you being so much more eloquent and briefer than I could have been, so I appreciate you

doing that.

I do want to emphasize one point. I did not come to politics 5

years ago or 10 years ago, I came to politics last January and I

came to politics from business. And I can guarantee you, I held 51

percent of every partnership I ever held because I was going to control the checkbook. And the concept is no different in Cuba for

those who seek to line their own pockets than it is in the United

States amongst those who seek to engage in legal business. If you

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control 51 percent, as the Cuban Government did in this instance,

you control what happens in that company.

Mr. Chairman, I regret I have to go. This is by far the most interesting field hearing I have been involved in and I appreciate the

opportunity to participate.

Mr. BURTON. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Ose. We will miss

your eloquence and I hope you make your plane. Tell you what,

give your wife our regards.

Mr. OSE. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The evidence that you all have just been talking about, Mr.

Ledwith, when was this developed, when was this information

known? It was known to DEA quite awhile ago, was it not?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARR. Prior to November 10 of last year?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes. He is in charge of the investigation, so pardon

me——

Mr. BARR. Who is he?

Mr. LEDWITH. Toby Van Breesen, he is the senior supervisory

agent who is handling this from the headquarters perspective, so

I just want to make sure that I am accurate in my representations

to you.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

Has this information been given to the White House?

Mr. LEDWITH. I would not know. I have never even been to the

White House.

Mr. BARR. You would hope that it would have been.

Mr. LEDWITH. Through channels, I would have to say yes, sir.

Mr. BARR. The reason I asked on November 10 is that is the date

on which the administration makes this big public pronouncement

that, you know, there is essentially no evidence linking Cuba to

any of this, it all has to do with Spain or something.

Mr. Vigil, you lost me a little bit ago and I wanted to make sure

that I understood what you said. You were talking about Haiti.

Mr. VIGIL. Correct.

Mr. BARR. And I think you said, and I jotted this down, that

Haiti is playing a strong role in the implementation of a regional

strategy.

Mr. VIGIL. Regional strategy, right.

Mr. BARR. I presume you mean a strong negative role?

Mr. VIGIL. No, a strong positive role.

Mr. BARR. Well, then I am confused. I mean we have seen Customs information here today which I presume you do not dispute,

that Haiti has been—and we have heard other testimony that Haiti

is becoming a significant, a very significant player, in transshipment of drugs from South America into the United States,

there is rampant corruption in Haiti. I think there is something

like 8,000 supposed law enforcement officers that U.S. taxpayers

have paid for training down there. It is my understanding that few,

if any, of those have ever performed any real law enforcement activities, they are just padding payroll. Yet a significant number

have been, over the last 4 years since we have been involved down

there, have been dismissed for corruption.

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What is there positive? I do not see anything positive in all this.

What is there that you see is so positive about this situation?

Mr. VIGIL. Well, let me say this. I do not dispute the fact that

there is endemic corruption, the fact that they need additional

training, the fact that Haiti—— Mr. BARR. Do you think the U.S. taxpayers ought to put more

money into training? I mean we have seen no positive results at

all so far.

Mr. VIGIL. Well, let me continue, if you will.

Mr. BARR. Well, answer that question first though, I mean do

you think we ought to throw good money after bad?

Mr. VIGIL. Well, I think that we need to structure the way that

we do training, I think that we need to structure a lot of the resources that we provide to Haiti. Again, you know, I do not question the fact that Haiti is the hot spot in terms of the Caribbean

in terms of drug trafficking activities going through that country.

What I am alluding to is the fact that in the past, there was nothing done in Haiti in terms of counter-drug efforts. Now we are seeing what I consider to be positive steps, an embryonic state, if you

will, in terms of enforcement activity, the fact that they are willing

to participate and coordinate drug trafficking investigations and

operations with other countries I think is a positive note.

Obviously we are not there yet in terms of 100 percent readiness,

100 percent response, 100 percent in terms of their operations and

what-have-you. But the things that I am seeing there are much

more positive than what I saw, let us say, even 5 years ago. So I

take those things in a positive light and hopefully we can

buildupon those to further operations in Haiti and other areas.

What I look at in terms of the Caribbean is I do not look at, one

particular country, I look at regional strategies, I look at cooperation, I look at building institutions where we can attack a lot of

these significant organizations that do not only operate in Haiti,

but they operate in a multitude of other countries. Unless we get

these countries to work with one another, we are pounding sand.

Mr. BARR. We are. When you look at Mexico and the former head

of DEA, Mr. Constantine, who I have tremendous regard for, was

very blunt about it, probably the only top level policymaker in the

administration who was honest about this, we are pounding sand.

We are not getting cooperation, there is endemic corruption in Mexico, we know it is in Haiti, other countries as well. So there is no

strategy, I do not think, for dealing with this.

While I salute your optimism in saying that after 4 years or 5

years and billions of dollars, we finally have an embryonic effort

and that is tremendous. You know, as stewards of the public

money, we do have to look at it perhaps a little more realistically

and question, you know, why should we want to throw more money

at this when several billion dollars and several years of so-called

nation building has yielded at best an embryonic effort. That is

what troubles us, as Members of Congress with responsibility for

the taxpayer money.

And here again, I know that it is not DEA that is the problem

here, the problem is a policy that just throws money at these situations for political gain. You know, invading Haiti, of all places, invading Kosovo, and so forth. Lord knows how many billions of dolVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Feb 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00147 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\69521.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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lars and years we are going to be involved over there and maybe

5 years from now we will have an embryonic effort over there.

And I think this is one reason why over the last 10 years or so,

and I think it was if memory serves me properly exactly 10 years

ago that General Noriega was arrested and unfortunately that may

have been sort of, you know, the real high point of our international effort. And since then, although we were able to get the

Escobar organization partially as a direct result of Noriega demise

and information that we get, we had Operation Polar Cap and several in the late 1980’s, very, very successful efforts. Since then, I

do not think we can say that. Yes, maybe we see embryonic successes in a couple of these places, but when you look at the problems that we see in Mexico and the lack of willingness of this administration to take any steps to really rectify that, I think we

have an overall very serious problem with drug policy on the international side. And part of that is reflected, as I know you all are

aware, in the budgets of this administration.

It is my information—I think these figures are correct—that of

the total $5.4 billion for interdiction, treatment and prevention programs, over 85 percent of that goes to treatment and prevention.

And, you know, while that may be very important, one I think really has to question the amount of money, because that is being

taken out of source country efforts, efforts that you all could be

using I think to much greater advantage. I just think that you all

are not getting the resources that you need. I think Mr. Vigil and

Mr. Varrone and Mr. Ledwith, if you were making policy, we would

see a lot better results than with the folks that are, we would see

more than an embryonic effort. Because I do not think the DEA,

if they were in charge, they would stand for these sort of results

that we are seeing, billions of dollars, you know, just thrown down

the drain. I wish all that money had—well, we do not need to get

into that. I just think you all are doing a tremendous job, but it

is the policy of this administration in particular that really is holding you all back, and that is why for the last 10 years on the source

country effort, we have seen such problems. And we are all aware

of the problems with Colombia in terms of this administration just

refusing to abide by even our laws in getting them the money and

the equipment that the Congress has mandated. It is very distressing. But this hearing today, as Mr. Ose said before he left, is very

enlightening and I appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Barr.

Do you have any concluding questions or comments?

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of

questions.

I just heard the Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico telling me

that the helicopters, Blackhawk helicopters that are in Puerto Rico,

eight of them, that they need the night vision equipment. I do not

know how you call that, it has a special name.

Mr. VIGIL. Yes, the FLIR, forward looking infrared.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. FLIR, forward looking infrared equipment, that they need four of them, right?

Mr. VIGIL. It is for nocturnal operations.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. It is only that there have been arrangements made to get the equipment and now all of a sudden the

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equipment that was all set to be sent to Puerto Rico is going to be

sent to the Bahamas. Do you know anything about that?

Mr. VIGIL. [Shakes head.]

Mr. BURTON. When we send that letter, Representative Barcelo,

what we will do is we will include in there the question and the

request for the night vision equipment, so that the helicopters will

have that. If we can get them operational.

Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. OK, thank you, that is what I wanted to

mention.

Mr. BURTON. We really appreciate you coming in from Puerto

Rico, along with the Attorney General.

I had one last question. Mr. Ledwith, you had indicated that

there was a shipment that went to Mexico, do you have the dates

on that?

Mr. LEDWITH. I can provide them to you, sir, I do not have them.

Mr. BURTON. Would you provide that for the record? We really

would like to have that.

You do not know, was that before the Spanish transmission of

drugs or was it after that? The gentleman back there may know.

Mr. LEDWITH. It was before.

Mr. BURTON. It was before. If you could give us the dates on

that, we would really appreciate it.

I wish we had time, we had former Chairman Larry Smith, a

former Member of Congress back there, who headed the International Narcotics and Terrorism Task Force for what, 6 years,

Larry?

Mr. SMITH. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. And he has given us some information which we

will put in the record regarding some of the problems that we have

had at State Department in getting to the bottom of this, and

Larry, we really appreciate you bringing that to our attention.

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate you coming down to my former district.

I have had many hearings right here in this room too, and we appreciate you being here and taking up this very important subject,

especially to Florida.

Mr. BURTON. Well, thank you, buddy, and time has been good to

you, you look good.

I would like to now make a couple of closing remarks for the

record.

We have heard a lot of testimony over the last 2 days and I think

we have all come away with a better understanding of the issues

surrounding drug trafficking in the Caribbean. What I have heard

has only increased my belief that Fidel Castro is neck deep in drug

trafficking in the United States and Europe.

I would like to insert into the record the first section of this book,

which is factual, it is called ‘‘Castro’s Final Hour’’ written by Andres Oppenheimer. Mr. Oppenheimer’s description of the Ochoa

case is very enlightening and is directly relevant to what we have

been talking about here yesterday and today.

[NOTE.—The information referred to, ‘‘Castro’s Final Hour, The

Secret Story Behind the Coming Downfall of Communist Cuba,’’ may be found in committee files.]

Mr. BURTON. We have seen on video from the DEA that Castro’s

government was involved in drug trafficking throughout the 1980’s.

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We have also heard from a variety of sources that Castro’s government, including his own brother, Raul Castro—and we are going to

subpoena that draft indictment, as you requested—were also involved in drug trafficking throughout the 1990’s.

The Customs Service currently has a very reliable witness and

maybe more than one—I think you said more than one—who says

the Cuban Government is not an obstacle to transporting drugs to

the United States.

My staff has conducted a year long investigation into the 7.3

metric tons of cocaine shipment which everyone agrees was going

to Cuba. Unfortunately, the Clinton-Gore administration has used

the DEA as well as every other agency in this government to prove

this shipment was headed to Europe instead of working from the

assumption it was coming to the United States, a decision clearly

rooted in politics rather than based on facts.

The bottom line is Castro was involved in drug trafficking in the

1980’s, and as we have shown over the last 2 days, his government

remains deeply involved today. This is a well-established pattern of

drug trafficking, a pattern that the Clinton-Gore administration

should not, but chooses to ignore. In their effort to normalize relations with Castro, the administration has ignored many relevant

facts.

I would like to insert into the record—and this came from the

FBI—a current list of 60 dangerous fugitives who have sought and

received refuge from Castro. They run all the way from Robert

Vesco to murders and drug traffickers and every other kind of ilk

you can think of—60 of them that they are hiding out in Cuba

today.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. Remember, Cuba is on the State Department’s list

of nations who sponsor terrorism. This FBI list contains, as I said,

murders, drug traffickers, hijackers and others. The old phrase

‘‘birds of a feather flock together’’ was never more fitting. Curiously, the Clinton-Gore administration continues to make every attempt to normalize relations with Castro, despite his well-documented egregious human rights abuses, Cuba’s inclusion on the

terrorist list, Castro’s harboring FBI’s most wanted fugitives and

the Castro government’s involvement in running drugs. These normalization efforts are confusing and in my opinion, shameless, even

to fellow Democrats like Senator Robert Torricelli and Representative Bob Menendez, both very prominent Democrats.

While the Clinton-Gore administration is always easy to jump at

a moment’s notice into a conflict that does not directly impact

American national security such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti or East

Timor, it is clearly unwilling to protect our American school children from a direct assault by drug traffickers coming through

Cuba. Lacking a balanced and coherent counter drug strategy, the

administration has chosen to fight the war on drugs by treating the

wounded. They have taken a great amount of the money that was

used for drug interdiction and eradication and are using it for education and treatment of those who are already wounded by drugs.

They prefer to allocate its scarce counter narcotics budget resources

on treating the addicted rather than a balanced approach which includes fighting drugs at their source before they reach American

streets and school yards, along with these treatment programs.

This is a policy debate we will continue to raise during the budget

process this next year.

With that—and I know you have had a tough time today, fellows—I want to thank all of you for coming out and testifying. I

think you did a good job.

I also want to thank Mayor Diaz and the Sweetwater Police Department. You have all been very, very helpful. I want to thank our

staff, you did a great job in putting all this together. Had a few

glitches, but nothing significant. And I want to thank my colleague,

Congressman Diaz-Balart and his staff for hosting us in his district.

And with that, no further business being on the docket, we stand

adjourned.

[Whereupon, the hearing was concluded at 12:36 p.m.]

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