Mexico probes drug lord's links to Cuba

Published Tuesday, September 9, 1997, in the Miami Herald

Mexico probes drug lord's links to Cuba

By ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
Herald Staff Writer

Amado Carrillo Fuentes
MEXICO CITY -- Mexican authorities are investigating classified reports that Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the world's biggest drug baron until his accidental death July 4, spent considerable time in Cuba and lived in a government guest house there.

Well-placed Mexican law enforcement officials told The Herald that this country has asked the Cuban Interior Ministry for information on Carrillo Fuentes' activities in Cuba. A Mexican letter to that effect includes questions about addresses and two telephone numbers in Havana that Carrillo Fuentes reportedly called frequently from abroad, they said.

``There is a government protocol house in Havana's Vedado neighborhood where he may have lived,'' a top official of Mexico's attorney general's office said in an interview. ``We are trying to confirm that with the Cubans.''

Attorney General Jorge Madrazo has not yet publicly confirmed the Mexican information request, but conceded in a television interview scheduled to be aired here next Sunday that ``I'm sure we will have the collaboration of the Cuban government'' in the investigation into Carrillo Fuentes' activities on the island.

Madrazo added that, days before his death, the drug lord traveled from Chile to Havana, and from there to Mexico City, according to a transcript of the Multivision network program Punto de Partida obtained by The Herald.

Mexican investigators learned of the alleged presence of Carrillo Fuentes in a Havana protocol house from at least one informant who was a member of Carrillo Fuentes' Juarez drug cartel, and spent time with his boss in Cuba, officials say. The Cuban Foreign Ministry did not return calls to confirm or deny the report.

The alleged presence of Carrillo Fuentes in one of the residences that the Cuban government reserves for foreign VIPs has fueled three major theories within Mexican and U.S. intelli
gence circles:

That Carrillo Fuentes, who traveled to Havana under an assumed name, may have conducted drug trafficking operations in the Caribbean from there, such as dropping cocaine cargoes from the air near the coast of Cancun. The Mexican beach resort, only minutes away by air from Cuba, has been a major center of cocaine transshipments by the Juarez Cartel.

That Carrillo Fuentes, under his assumed name, fooled Cuban officials into believing that he was a legitimate Mexican businessman seeking to make investments in Cuba, and thus got special treatment from the government. The drug lord, in turn, may have used the opportunity to launder drug dollars in a cash-starved country that asks few questions about the source of foreign investors' funds.

That Carrillo Fuentes had a second wife and a 2-year-old daughter in Cuba, whom he visited regularly, but had no business activities -- legal or illegal -- on the island. The drug lord's Cuban daughter is named Martita, officials say.

``It is known that he had a second family there, which he visited with some frequency,'' Mexico's anti-narcotics police chief Mariano Herran Salvatti conceded recently to the Televisa network.

No answer yet

Some political analysts speculate that Herran Salvatti's recent reference to Carrillo Fuentes' stay in Cuba may have been a subtle way of putting pressure on the Cuban government to respond to Mexico's query. The Mexican letter to Cuba's Interior Ministry was sent more than a month ago, and has not yet been answered, they say.

``Herran's statement was highly unusual,'' says Jorge Fernandez Menendez, a well-connected political analyst with the daily El Financiero. ``He specified that Carrillo Fuentes spent time in Cuba, and did not say whether or not the Cuban government was collaborating with the Mexican investigation.''

Officials at Mexico's attorney general's office say such delays are normal in international investigations. Others note that, under President Ernesto Zedillo, Mexico has strengthened ties with the Cuban regime, and the two countries have excellent relations.

Speculation on Cuba's role

Cuba's role in the drug trade has been the subject of widespread speculation, especially since the Fidel Castro government's 1989 execution of four high-ranking military officers on charges of drug trafficking. Many Cubans believe executed Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, a hero of the Angola war, could not have run drug operations without a green light from Castro.

U.S. officials say there is no evidence that the Cuban government is involved in drug trafficking.

Thomas A. Constantine, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief, said last year that the DEA had verified at least 28 cocaine flights crossing through Cuban airspace over the previous two years, but added that the agency ``has no evidence that the government of Cuba is complicit in these smuggling ventures.''

The Mexican investigation into Carrillo Fuentes' activities in Cuba is part of a much wider probe into the drug lord's cocaine empire in several Latin American countries, including Chile, Argentina and Brazil. U.S. law enforcement agencies are following the same trail, amid early indications that it could uncover connections between the Carrillo Fuentes organization and political figures in several countries.

Carrillo Fuentes, whose drug empire may have made up to $150 million a year and was described by U.S. officials as the world's biggest drug organization, died in a Mexico City clinic as he was undergoing an eight-hour cosmetic surgery and liposuction operation to radically change his appearance. DEA officials say the U.S. agency has positively identified his corpse.

A secret offer

In January, he had made a secret offer to the Mexican government to help crack down on rival drug cartels, turn in half of his assets and abstain from selling cocaine in Mexico if he was allowed to continue his smuggling business to the United States without military persecution.

Around that time, the drug baron traveled to Santiago, the Chilean capital, to set up a business base there. He traveled by land from neighboring Argentina with forged documents identifying him as Juan Arriaga Rangel, Mexican and U.S. officials say.

In Chile, Carrillo Fuentes presented himself as a big investor. Through a Mexican associate, Manuel Bitar Tafich, he contacted former Chilean Ambassador to London Hernan Errazuriz, a prominent lawyer whom he asked for legal advice on real estate investments.

Soon, Carrillo Fuentes' front man Bitar Tafich had created several real estate investment firms, and opened at least one account at the local branch of Citibank to conduct its financial operations. Chilean and U.S. officials are now looking into whether Citibank was used to launder drug trafficking money, investigators say.

Throughout his South American travels, Carrillo Fuentes and his aides kept a high profile. As soon as he arrived in Chile, Bitar Tafich purchased seven Mercedes-Benzes, three BMWs and rented up to a dozen luxury homes for his boss, Mexican and U.S. officials say.