The man claiming to be a Cuban spy was a small-time courier who traveled to Miami four days a month and made money by bringing back cash and gifts to Cuba for exiles, according to his former landlord.

Percy Francisco Alvarado, who testified Thursday in Cuba that Cuban American National Foundation officials paid him to detonate bombs around Havana, would stay in a room in a Miami home and get visits from about 10 people a day.

They would bring radios, medicine or money. Alvarado, 49, would take them back to their families in Cuba for a price, said Ricardo Dellano, owner of the home in the 800 block of Northwest 32nd Avenue.

Alvarado had been shuttling between the home and his house in Miramar, Cuba, for about a year, staying for only four days at a time, Dellano said. The Miami homeowner allowed Alvarado to stay in the room for free, with the condition that he would deliver things back to Dellano's family.

Dellano last saw Alvarado four months ago, he said.

``People came here a lot, men and women,'' Dellano said. ``But he never talked about the foundation or anti-revolution or Castro. He was like a courier.''

CANF officials Thursday vehemently discounted Alvarado's claims that he infiltrated the foundation and received money to act as an undercover agent in Cuba.

``Where's the evidence?'' CANF spokeswoman Ninoska Perez said from Washington. ``We don't know who this person is. We've never heard of him. We have repeatedly said we are not involved in those types of activities.''

Alvarado, a native of Guatemala, had lived in Cuba since 1960.

Recommended to Dellano through a friend, he would show up in Miami late on the first Thursday of every month and stay through Monday, Dellano said.

In that span, people would come to see him throughout the day like clockwork, many of them by appointments, he said.

``He scheduled them very carefully, never two at a time,'' Dellano said.

Alvarado would receive $50 to $500 from people to take back to families, keeping some for himself, he said. Sometimes it was medicine, sometimes sandals.

When not meeting with people, Alvarado would go to the Opa-locka flea market to buy VCRs or watches to sell back in Cuba.

Dressed in shorts and sandals, Alvarado was thrifty, eating home-cooked meals and asking for rides to the flea market or airport because he couldn't afford cab fare, Dellano said.

He would watch soccer on television and go to sleep early, he said.

Once, when news of the Havana bombings came on television, Alvarado commented on how the ``damn terrorists'' were going to ruin his business.

``He didn't like to talk about politics,'' Dellano said. ``Soccer, women and making a buck, that's all he talked about.''

Herald staff writer Rick Jervis can be reached by e-mail at rjervis@herald.com