Castro death-plot defendant charged in drug case

By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

One of the seven Cuban exiles charged in Puerto Rico with plotting to kill Fidel Castro has been arrested in Miami in a major cocaine-smuggling case, Drug Enforcement Administration officials said Monday.

The two cases are not linked, although DEA wiretaps that led to the drug charges against Juan Bautista Marquez also intercepted his talks with Castro-plot defendants, other officials said.

Marquez, 61, and six other exiles were charged with plotting to kill the Cuban president after the U.S. Coast Guard in Puerto Rico found two sniper rifles hidden in a Miami-registered yacht in October 1997.
365 kilos of cocaine

He was arrested again last week on a seven-count indictment accusing him of importing 365 kilos of cocaine, conspiracy to import up to 2,000 kilos and money laundering, said DEA spokeswoman Pam Brown.

Also arrested by the DEA-led Southeast Florida Regional Task Force, based in Fort Lauderdale, were: Marquez's son, Juan Alberto, 26; Robert A. Alfaro, 27; Sergio R. Sigler; and Arturo L. Abascal, all from Miami-Dade County. Six others are to be indicted in the same case later this week.

DEA officials said the 365-kilo shipment was intercepted on the high seas in December. Undercover agents arrested Marquez and the others last week as they delivered what the suspects believed were parts of the load.

Marquez owns a boat rental business in the Mexican resort of Cancun and a small farm in Panama, according to court records in the Puerto Rico case.

DEA officials confirmed that wiretaps were used in the drug case beginning in June 1997 -- four months before Marquez's arrest in Puerto Rico -- but declined further comment, saying the tapes were sealed under court order.

But a knowledgeable law enforcement official not with the DEA said the wiretaps had captured Marquez talking to another exile about the yacht Esperanza both before and after his arrest in Puerto Rico.

Those portions of the tape relating to the boat trip have been turned over to the FBI, which has jurisdiction over anti-terrorism cases, the official said. FBI officials in Puerto Rico could not be reached for comment.

DEA officials said that after Marquez was arrested in Puerto Rico, they notified federal prosecutors on the island that he was under investigation in the Florida drug case.

That set off a brief investigation to determine whether the alleged Castro plot was in fact a cover for a drug-smuggling operation, but that proved wrong, law enforcement sources said.

DEA officials said the case dates back to a money laundering investigation of a Broward person begun in spring 1997, which quickly led them to focus on Marquez.

Wiretaps put in place that June expanded the circle of suspects, said DEA officials, and later showed the group was coordinating and transporting loads of cocaine being smuggled into South Florida.

The decision by the Coast Guard to search the Esperanza as it sailed near Puerto Rico in October 1997 was ``purely coincidental'' and not related to the DEA's watch on Marquez, officials said.

Arrested with Marquez aboard the Esperanza were Angel Alfonso Aleman, 57, of Union City, N.J.; Francisco Secundino Cordova, 50, of Marathon; and Angel Hernandez Rojo, 64, of Miami.

Alfonso blurted out during the arrests that the guns were his and that he had been on a mission to kill Castro during a summit of government chiefs a few days later on the Venezuelan island of Margarita.

Charges expanded

A federal grand jury in Puerto Rico later expanded the charges to include the attempted murder of Castro and three new defendants: Jose Antonio Rodriguez, 61, a Miami lumber dealer; Jose Antonio Llama, who owned the yacht Esperanza and is a director of the Cuban American National Foundation; and Alfredo Otero, 62, another Miami lumber dealer.

Court records in Puerto Rico show that Marquez, who was free on bail, received permission to visit his business in Cancun in December. A woman who identified herself as the maid in his house there said he had returned to Miami about Dec. 30.

Marquez's arrest Jan. 14 came just two days after the seven Puerto Rico defendants won a motion to move their trial to Miami, where attorneys believe jurors may be more sympathetic to the anti-Castro cause.

Prosecutors last week filed an appeal against that ruling by Judge Hector M. Laffitte.