-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- An excerpt from Of Grass and Snow Hank Messick©1979 Prentice Hall ISBN 0-13-630558-X 190pps. – First edition -- ----- --Escandar, of course, was a friend of Hernandez-Cartaya, who was a friend of Dick Fincher, who was a friend of Bebe Rebozo, who was a friend of Richard Nixon, who once told John Dean he could get a million dollars in cash: "I know where it could be gotten," he added. "It is not easy, but it could be done."— ----- 11 THE SEARCH FOR MR BIG The natural tendency of the press to seek a "Mr. Big" in crime is offset to some extent by the reluctance of many investigators to cooperate in such a meaningful endeavor. The professional-be he a cop, a federal agent, a congressional committee staffer-is painfully aware of the problems that arise when one begins to approach the executive level of crime. If the target is really a big shot, he has to have important political and financial connections. It is safer, unless you have solid support for your organization, to suppress your hunter's instinct and play games instead with La Cosa Nostra. If, however, circumstances require some effort, it is simpler to credit an already established "star" who is unreachable anyway, a Frank Costello or Meyer Lansky, than it is to try to figure out the details of a new, emerging hierachy and hidalgo. All of which Rhode Island law-enforcement agencies discovered in August 1977, when a little mystery became a big one. The strange saga of "the rusty old fishing vessel" named Dorchester began on August 4, when a bird watcher spotted it off Beavertail Point in Narragansett Bay north of Newport, Rhode Island. Two days later it was still sitting there, so the Coast Guard was notified. Other agencies were informed, the press learned about the "mystery ship," and the forlorn old boat began receiving visitors. Colombian natives were aboard. Through an interpreter provided by a newspaper they told an intriguing story. The Dorchester, they said, sailed from Santa Marta, Colombia, with a new crew in July. None of the eleven crewmen knew each other-they were an hired individually by a Jamaican named Tony. According to Tony, the ship was going to Canada to be equipped with fishing gear. The crewmen were promised a return ticket home from Canada if they wanted it. Off Rhode Island a fuel leak developed. Tony, as captain, brought the ship into the landlocked bay-and left it there. He departed in a small skiff to get fuel and took with him all the ship's papers. It sounded suspicious. Customs and the Coast Guard searched the vessel thoroughly. Nothing exciting was found. Arrangements were made to tow the boat to a safe anchorage between Goat and Conanicut islands. One of the crewmen found the gas leak and fixed it, but no one seemed to know what to do next. On August 14, about 1:00 P.m., a blond, bearded young man appeared at Murphy's Marine in Newport and wanted to buy five thousand gallons of fuel for the Dorchester. Murphy told him he'd have to bring the ship to the gas pumps, since he lacked means to transport the fuel to it. The blond rounded up a local fisherman, Tom Collins, and he gave him some new hundred-dollar bills out of "a fat wallet." He was in a hurry, the stranger explained, with a plane to catch. Collins got clearance from the Coast Guard and boarded the vessel. When he asked the crewmen how they expected to pay for the fuel, they showed him a box filled with hundred-dollar bills, which, they said, they had found under their missing captain's bed. (It hadn't been there earlier when the ship was searched.) Collins estimated it contained $10,000. Before Collins could take the boat to Murphy's Marine, the Coast Guard rescinded its clearance and demanded the crew pay a $1,500 fine for entering U.S. waters without reporting to Customs within twenty-four hours of their arrival. Again the mysterious box was produced, the cash counted out, and refueling proceeded$3,000 worth. Collins piloted the boat out of the bay and was put off at midnight near the Brenton lighthouse. The Dorchester, he assumed, was heading back to Colombia. All very mysterious. Came Sunday night, August 14, and in the city of Warwick on the east side of the upper bay police were investigating some car thefts. While talking to suspects they learned there was "something going on with narcotics" at the Carlton House Motor Inn near the airport. A raid was mounted. In a downstairs room they found thirty pounds of grass, part of a larger bale. Upstairs in another room they found five men, four handguns, and keys to motel rooms in several adjoining communities. Business was brisk-even as they investigated, a car drove up with two people in it. The people had a briefcase containing $169,000 and eight ounces of cocaine. The telephone rang and someone asked if they could buy some grass. The police said yes, and when a car containing three buyers arrived, more arrests were made. On the person of one of the men arrested at the motel were papers indicating ownership fo[r] a $300,000 cabin cruiser named Wildcat. Investigation proved she had come up from Florida in July, and had been in the water on the day the Dorchester had been so fruitlessly searched. She was finally located at a marina in Falmouth. Agents who boarded her found a half pound of cocaine. Warwick police, meanwhile, were checking out another address found on their prisoners. It proved to be a rented house on a hill above the West Passage of Narragansett Bay. Elegantly furnished, the brick house also contained four 50-pound bales of marijuana and $196,000 in cash in a leather satchel stored in a closet. That brought the long night's haul to $365,000. Outside the house on a hill, an open parachute hung in a tree, apparently drying out. Three unopened parachutes were found inside. Eight more people were arrested, three of them as they attempted to crash a roadblock. Among those arrested at the Carlton House was Tracy W. Boyd, one of the "Smith Brothers" who had carried on the business after those pioneering partners, Derber and Steele, had been put out of action. An associate, Joel W. Jenison, of Fort Lauderdale, was identified as the blond man who had arranged to refuel the Dorchester and send her on her way. The presence of Boyd, identified by Florida authorities as "one of the biggest," sent off shock waves. Nothing comparable had happened in the area since Charles "King" Solomon brought in bootleg booze by the boatload in Prohibition days. But a bigger shock was waiting. Without giving details, police revealed they had also found "a ledger sheet" listing the names of Robert Vesco and Meyer Lansky along with amounts "in the millions of dollars." Vesco was a financial supporter of Richard M. Nixon, and, in 1978, a fugitive from federal indictment. Lansky was the aging survivor of Prohibition, the alleged financial brains of the old mob, the "chairman of the board" of organized crime. A perfect pair. >From Florida authorities came congratulations to Warwick police for "stumbling onto the bones of the marijuana trade into the United States." Mutual information was exchanged, and promises of coordination and cooperation in carrying on the probe were made by everyone involved. In reality, the document bearing the names of Vesco and Lansky wasn't part of a ledger but rather consisted of some handprinted notes in numbered sequence on a sheet of legal-size yellow paper of the type used by lawyers. Florida authorities said privately the document looked like jottings a grand juror might make while listening to a witness testify about his career in crime. If so, there wasn't much doubt about the identity of the witness. The name William Herschell, slightly misspelled, was at the top of the page. Herschell, a former fireman, was an associate of Tracy and Darrell Boyd in the drug business and made a reported $15 million before going to prison for five years. Apparently he talked freely to a grand jury and was rewarded with a shorter sentence for his cooperation. Item (1) seemed to connect the Boyds to the witness beyond doubt: First meet when he gave trace 68,000 Prev. gave darrel 20,000. Item (5) may have referred to John Steele: Threaten to have S killed Item (7) was intriguing: Told of crossbow incident Item (8) was cryptic: told of brother and how he got killed (KNOCK) Item (9) was grim: had guy in jail killed found hung had 70 pull on his ankles strong back Item (10) referred to the international scene: boat trips to Belize And Item (11) referred to Vesco and Lansky: $ to Vesco 6 million he picked up. w/shrimper (Lansky) "Curier" beat up. The next items referred to a "buddy" in Ormond Beach, a lobster operation, a country club in West Palm Beach, some stock sold short. Then came item (18): trip to Pennys brag of Pen digging hole to burry people Items (19) through (23) referred cryptically to trips to the Cayman Islands, testimony in court, letters of credit, alligator poaching, and "Marine bank." Then came the last two items on the page: (24) old man died (25) MacArthur Dairy Were these final listings a reference to the death of Charles McArthur, founder of McArthur Dairy, at his home near Lake Okeechobee in 1973? His much younger wife, Nadean, was convicted of first-degree murder, but the case was overturned on appeal. At issue was not only her freedom but her share of McArthur's $14 million estate. Why this case should be of interest to drug smugglers was a minor mystery in itself. If, as suspected, the twenty-five notes referred to Herschell's grand-jury testimony, then, presumably, there wasn't any official mystery at all—other than, of course, how Tracy Boyd in Rhode Island came into possession of the information. The fact that no one in a position to know what the notes were all about came forth to explain wasn't surprising. Both Vesco and Lansky have been investigated by many federal grand juries, and, despite an occasional indictment, neither has yet spent a day in federal prison. Seemingly, the two men are protected by a thermostat that clicks on whenever the heat readies a certain level and cools everything down. Lansky was an associate of Lepke back when that old-timer was importing heroin from Asia, and he was very close to many Cuban gangsters who took up residence in key hemisphere cities after the fall of Batista. His age—he was born in 1902—seemed to suggest he was no longer active in any racket, but he had always been a genius in money matters, and narcotics, more now than ever, was big money business. That Vesco's name would come up in grand-jury testimony seemed possible in view of the record. Born in 1935, son of a Detroit auto worker, the dapper brunet with the tiny moustache broke into the financial news in 1965 when he merged some electronic firms to create International Controls Corporation in New Jersey. By 1968 he had enough confidence and contacts to donate $50,000 to Nixon's successful campaign for President. He used Donald Nixon, the brother of Richard, as his conduit. In 1970 he penetrated the corporate walls of Investors Overseas Service, the giant international mutual fund complex founded by Bernard Cornfeld, and the SEC accused him of looting it of $224 million. When the Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation, Vesco turned to his political friends for help. Separate meetings were held with Attorney General John Mitchell, that stern advocate of law and order, and with Secretary of the Treasury Maurice Stans. Vesco promised to contribute $250,000 to Nixon's second campaign. He waited, perhaps deliberately, until the time passed when the contribution could legally be kept private. Stans and Mitchell kept it private anyway, and returned it when Vesco threatened to disclose it himself, but both were indicted on charges of influence peddling and perjury. By the time the case came to trial, however, Vesco—also a defendant-was long gone, and the men were acquitted. At the same time the effort to stall the SEC was made, a DEA probe of Vesco's alleged role in a hundred-kilo heroin conspiracy was abruptly terminated. Allegedly Vesco had agreed to supply $300,000 to finance the caper. The deal collapsed—officially, anyway-when three federal agencies withdrew their undercover agent, Frank Peroff, shortly after he reported Vesco's involvement. The episode made headlines when disclosed by Wallace Turner of Th e New York Times in 1973, but nothing came of it. The fall of Nixon did not stop Vesco's activities or end his influence. In 1974 he made a deal with none other than Mitchell Werbell III to buy Werbell's entire stock of silenced machine guns. The sale fell through when Werbell was unable to get an export license. The two men then reached tentative agreement to build a submachine gun factory in Costa Rica, the Central American country to which Vesco fled with his embezzled millions. The Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee probed the Werbell-Vesco arms deal and delved into Vesco's past relations with the DEA. They discovered that back when Nixon was in power, two DEA wiretap specialists flew from Los Angeles to New Jersey and "swept" Vesco's home and office for electronic "bugs." Considered curious also was the fact the DEA had somehow managed to "lose" most of its Vesco file. Committee staffers gleefully prepared to hold hearings and looked forward to grilling such witnesses as Werbell and "Lt. Col. Conein," but, abruptly, the matter was dropped without explanation. Staff members say they don't know why, but somehow they aren't very convincing. Florida investigators proved just as cagey after they finished congratulating their colleagues in Rhode Island. When pressed, they admit discovering in some fashion that Vesco's money helped start a North Miami company which advertises it builds "hiperformance boats." Customs Service agents can attest to that. The high-powered, 40-foot ocean racers are popular with drug smugglers. Three were seized in 1977 at different times and places, and they had consecutive serial numbers. Number 00914 was captured coming into Biscayne Bay with seven thousand pounds of grass. Number 00915 had just been unloaded when taken, and there hadn't been sufficient time to vacuum up the telltale seeds from the deck. Number 00916 was spotted one night in lonely Card Sound below Turkey Point while it was being cleaned of marijuana. A helicopter stayed above it while two Customs agents came out in a Boston Whaler and chased it up on the beach. No one claimed the third boat, so Customs took title. The sleek racer became a welcome addition to the fleet, a reminder of Prohibition days when federal agencies captured many of their ships from "rummies." Politics in Costa Rica proved more trouble for Vesco than the big case in Rhode Island. In June 1978 a new President won election on a campaign promise to throw the rascals out. Specifically he meant Vesco. The world's richest fugitive began wandering once again. By way of contrast, when Lansky was thrown out of Israel in 1972, he came home to Miami Beach, beat three pending indictments, and began walking his Tibetan Shih Tzu, Bruiser, on Collins Avenue as if he had never left. As powerful as he is, Vesco isn't slick enough to match that. Not yet, anyway. Lansky, after all, has been around a lot longer. 2 Fisher Island was an accident. Back in Theodore Roosevelt's day, the U.S. Corps of Engineers dug "Government Cut" across the southern end of Miami Beach to permit access by oceangoing vessels to Biscayne Bay. The little blob of land left isolated was named after Carl G. Fisher, the man who developed the main island into a resort. William Vanderbilt bought Fisher Island and built an elaborate mansion upon it. A number of smaller houses for guests, servants, caretakers, were constructed as well as several one-room, one-bath cabanas. Vanderbilt had little time for his island, and it changed hands repeatedly while a succession of caretakers struggled to keep the estate safe from vegetation and vandals. Great expectations for the property were based on the belief that eventually a bridge would be built connecting it to the mainland. When that happened, the 213 island acres would become valuable indeed. In 1968 90 percent of Fisher was owned by Fisher's Island, Inc. Stock was tightly held by Charles "Bebe" Rebozo, Richard M. Nixon, and a group of bankers and businessmen associated with George Smathers, that handsome Florida politician who had presidential ambitions and was known as "the senator from Cuba." Nixon, who became buddies with Smathers and Rebozo back when he was just a congressman-on-the-make, began buying shares of Fisher's Island, Inc., in 1962; by the time he became President he owned 185,891 shares. They cost him one dollar each. He sold his stock for two dollars a share in 1969. Early in 1972, four nephews of Bebe Rebozo lived on the island, ostensibly as caretakers. Fred, Mike, Donny, and Steve Rebozo enjoyed themselves. Home was the former servants' quarters, and there, in their spare time, they made candles. In the center of the island, according to informants I interviewed, marijuana grew in a quarter-acre plot which was well tended. Fred and Mike worked on their 50-foot yacht, Enterprise, and convoyed "a steady stream" of attractive young ladies back and forth from Miami. The role of counselor or den mother to this rather far-out group fell to Manolo Sanchez, valet to the President of the United States. A refugee from Cuba, Sanchez and his wife, Fina, were introduced to Nixon by Bebe Rebozo, and remained close to the Rebozo family. On the President's frequent visits to Key Biscayne, Manolo renewed his friendship with the nephews, and on one occasion bailed one of them out of jail. Official files tell what happened next, but the picture is incomplete in many respects. The identity of a confidential source first developed by the Customs Service must remain a secret. For our purposes we will call him Angelo. In Guadalajara, Mexico, in April 1972, Angelo was approached by two individuals and recruited to skipper a vessel from Tampico, Mexico, to Miami. For this task he was to be paid $5,000. Angelo, having nothing better to do, accepted, and in obedience to instructions, came to Miami, where he was met by the four nephews of Bebe Rebozo. They took him to Fisher Island and cleaned out a cabana for him to live in. Alberto Argomaniz appeared and informed Angelo he was to outfit Fred's boat, E nterprise, take it to Tampico, pick up a load of marijuana, and return same to Miami. Financing for the operation would be provided by the mysterious group for which Alberto was spokesman. Two weeks were required to install two new diesel engines. During that period Alberto made frequent visits and became chummy with Angelo. His organization, he explained, had been smuggling drugs for several years and was always looking for suitable parties to work the transportation end. They hoped to smuggle in fifty to eighty kilograms of "Mexican brown" heroin every month in addition to grass and snow. If Angelo wanted the job on a regular basis, he would be paid $40,000 per trip. Taking part in the discussion were two Cuban males called Gallego and Willie. The latter was later identified as Ramio GarciaColinas. The Enterprise seemed seaworthy after a shakedown cruise, so Angelo started for Tampico with Fred and Mike on board as crewmen. After five days at sea mechanical trouble developed about 120 miles northeast of Yucatan. A Danish freighter happened along and took the Enterprise in tow until a Coast Guard cutter took over and hauled the disabled vessel into Key West. Alberto flew down for a conference, and it was decided Angelo would return to Guadalajara pending repairs to the Enterprise. The Rebozo boys were unhappy with the delay, so they rented a houseboat and headed out to sea. Apparently they were not good navigators, for they ended off the western tip of Cuba, where the boat sank. The youths were rescued but had to lay low for a while since the owner of the houseboat was unhappy for a time. In October 1972 Angelo returned to Miami accompanied by an undercover Customs agent. Their mission was to learn more about the organization for which Alberto Argomaniz labored. Among other things, they discovered that Alberto was a business associate of State Senator Richard Fincher, who, in turn, was a business associate of Bebe Rebozo in the group owning Lummus Island. One scheme to link Fisher Island with the mainland called for a causeway to be built from the Port of Miami to tiny Lummus Island and on to Fisher. "I am a very close friend of Bebe Rebozo," said Fincher when asked. But what did all that have to do with the narcotics business? The question went unanswered. Meantime, in June 1973, the Miami Herald reporte d that "Michael Rebozo, the twenty-five-year-old nephew of President Nixon's confidant, G. G. (Bebe) Rebozo, was sentenced to a year in jail for possession of narcotics." Specifically, for possession of "almost a half pound of cocaine." On December 13, 1976, the folks at Blue Ridge Farms in the southwest section of Miami weren't too happy with their neighbors, despite the approach of Christmas, upon discovering that their very own Dempsey Dumpster was full of plastic bags. Suspecting the folks at King Spray Service, a half block away, were responsible, the manager of Blue Ridge called police. The cops tore open some of the "foreign" garbage bags to look for clues to their ownership and found, instead, some marijuana residue: sticks, seeds, etc. Informed of this development, Sergeant James Rider of the DCPSD's narcotics section sent detectives to the scene. The total residue in the bags added up to four and one-half pounds, indicating the original quantity must have been a ton or more. Also found were a lot of papers of various kinds. On one page of notebook paper were figures indicating multimillion-dollar marijuana deals with the bulk of the profit clearly marked for the "Boys." Greatly intrigued, Rider conferred with his immediate boss, Lieutenant C. D. Skelton, and ordered a full-scale probe. There were almost too many leads to run down, most of them coming from the treasure trove in the dumpster. One of the papers recovered from the dumpster was an American Express application form filled out in the name of David Dawson. On the form his occupation was listed as an accountant for the firm of Fincher, Argomaniz & Dawson, Inc. Corporation checks showed that the principals in the corporation were Richard Fincher, Alberto Argomaniz, and John Dawson. The mailing address listed was 4310 S.W. 75th Avenue, the location of the King Spray Service near the dumpster. Fincher was no longer a state senator, having quit public life when newspapers headlined his affinity for gambling junkets and his friendship with organized crime figures. Ostensibly, he was an Oldsmobile dealer, but investigation disclosed a wide variety of interests. It also revealed that in 1970 he had been under close scrutiny as part of Operation Eagle. Eagle, it should be remembered, was the first case to establish the existence of a Latin organization in narcotics. Efforts to learn more about it were stymied when one of the leaders, Juan Caesar Restoy, was gunned down after he tried to swap information for freedom. Informants in the Cuban community had told BNDD in 1970 that Fincher had been especially close to Restoy. He was also said to be "in tight" with Mario Escandar; and with Manola Reboso, an up-and-coming politician. Other informants in 1970 linked Fincher, Escandar, and "Kaki" Argomaniz. Kaki was identified as Enrique Argomaniz, half brother of Alberto and Honduran consul in Miami in his spare time. His full-time job was South American consultant for Fincher Motors. Those 1970 investigations also disclosed that Escandar and Fincher, along with Don Vincente Iniesta, formed a corporation to handle franchise rights to automobiles and auto parts produced by a Spanish firm dealing in sports cars. Federal agents in 1970 assumed that something other than auto parts would be imported. Listening in on that illegal wiretap-thanks to John Mitchell—they heard Escandar say he was going "to the factory" to arrange a shipment of something, which they presumed to be drugs. They tailed him and weren't surprised when he drove straight to Fincher Motors and spent seventy-five minutes talking to Kaki Argomaniz. Since Eagle there had been other contacts, other associations, by Fincher with gamblers, drug smugglers, and politicians. None added up to proof of anything, and perhaps there was some reluctance about investigating too closely a man with important political connections. In any case, Fincher was officially dean. Consideration was given to taking him before the Dade County grand jury, but when investigators recalled that then State Attorney Richard Gerstein was another friend of Fincher they dismissed the idea. Turning their attention to others in the corporation, Rider's men discovered that John Dawson was apparently not involved in the activities of Fincher, Argomaniz & Dawson, Inc. He was father of David and Guy Dawson, however, who apparently were active in the affairs, whatever they were, of FAD, as the corporation became known. David Dawson had no criminal record, but Guy had been convicted in 1976 on marijuana charges. The case had involved 2,700 pounds of grass which undercover DEA agents had purchased. Upon being arrested, Guy Dawson had boasted he wouldn't serve long in prison. He didn't; the sentence was six months. Upon learning that the DEA had seized ledger sheets in the 1976 bust, Rider's detectives borrowed them and called in a handwriting expert. He reported that the 1976 records were written by the same hand that wrote the financial notes found in the dumpster. While the identity of the writer remained unknown, the discovery definitely linked the 1976 case involving Guy Dawson to the current investigation involving FAD and David Dawson's application for a credit card. It was intriguing, to say the least. Alberto Argomaniz, the man who brought in the pilot from Mexico to captain the Enterprise, had been arrested in November 1975 at Kennedy Airport in New York. He was departing for Spain and had along a few grams of grass and snow for personal pleasure. He had also been busted in Tallahassee for possession of cocaine. He got off with probation when a police officer swore in court that Argomaniz had helped him make some narcotics cases. Only after the trial was over did authorities learn the officer's mother had been arrested in Miami for murder at about the same time Alberto was picked up with cocaine. Interestingly enough, the woman's legal defense was paid for by Argomaniz. FAD, Inc., the detectives discovered, owned controlling interest in King Spray Services, a lumber company, a dress shop, a plastic company, and was-as an official report put it—"associated with numerous 'dummy' corporations throughout the United States." There was some confusion at first between Alberto and Enrique Argomaniz, but upon separating the half brothers the officers ran down everything they could find on each. Since Kaki allegedly was employed by the National Bank of South Florida in Hialeah, a detective called the bank and asked to speak to him. "He isn't here," said an accented voice. "Try the WFC Corporation." And she gave them the number. It was the first mention of the World Finance Corporation. It was Jackpot! Touchdown! Eureka! It was Frustration! For the men of Jim Rider's section, it was a bit like picking up the tail of a garter snake and discovering it really belonged to a fire-breathing dragon. WFC literally was worldwide, a complex corporation maze of interlocking companies reaching from Miami to South America to the Middle East. Front man for this newly spun web was Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya. He learned banking in Cuba prior to Castro's appearance in the days when Lansky's gambling syndicate made Havana the center of an international financial conspiracy with money flowing to numbered accounts in Switzerland and Panama. Following Batista's defeat, he came to Florida and took part with fellow refugees in the Bay of Pigs disaster. When finally ransomed from Castro's pris on, he returned to Miami, but what he did for the next few years no one outside Little Havana seemed to know. As did federal agencies, the DCPSD had its share of Cuban informants and got its full quota of information on Latin conspiracies. By 1977 an estimated 504,000 Latins, 35 percent of the total population, called Dade County home. Miami was 55 percent Latin, and adjoining Hialeah-home of the racetrack-was 65 percent Latin. Even Miami Beach, which over the years had kept out all blacks, housed 10,000 Latins. Moreover the new citizens no longer thought seriously of returning to Cuba, although lip service to the Cause remained almost obligatory. On the other hand, the Latins had no intention of becoming Americanized, of being absorbed by another culture. Instead of learning English, they demanded that every student in the public schools be taught Spanish as well as English. Their way of life changed little, and if it included devotion to Santeria, the cult of machismo, and cocaine, well, the Anglos would have to accept it. One federal agent said that while an Anglo youth upon achieving independence wanted "wheels" above all else, a Miami Latin wanted a gun first and then a car. If true, this perhaps reflected the influence of the CIA which had been supplying arms and training to anti-Castro rebels for so long it seemed forever. And those who looked back to pre-Castro days could remember the time when every politician had his own private army, thus providing employment for youths of spirit. A new generation of politicians was emerging in Miami, taking advantage of the voting strength the Latin population made possible, and no one believed contact with the American variety would cause the Latin pol to change his ways. Operation Eagle in 1970 had for the first time shown that an international narcotics cartel could be dominated by Latins. It was shortly after Juan Restoy died that Hernandez-Cartaya organized World Finance Corporation, with headquarters in Coral Gables. Surveying its dizzy growth, one did not have to be an international banker to recognize that Hernandez-Cartaya had some very wealthy and powerful backers. All kinds of information came in from informants when Rider's section began investigating WFC. Supplying very good data was a member of the Watergate burglary team, a Cuban who had kept a low profile. It all added up to the fact that men with known backgrounds in narcotics had played key roles in the development of WFC. Founded in 1971, WFC began with five employees and total capitalization of $500,000. In 1972 it made its first important loan, $10 million to the Republic of Panama. Loan volume that year totaled $50 million and rose to $130 million in 1973. By 1976 its capital funds were in excess of $5 million, and its total resources were more than $100 million. International loans had reached the half-billion figure. Where did the money come from? In 1973 WFC established Union de Bancos, S.A.—Unibank, in Panama. In 1974 it opened offices in New York, Lima, Bogota, Caracas, Panama City, San Jose, Mexico City, Kingston (Jamaica), Madrid, and London. The WFC Corporation was formed in the Cayman Islands, the Switzerland of the Western Hemisphere, and another bank was established in Costa Rica, temporary home of Robert Vesco. To ride herd on the fast-growing empire, the WFC Group, Inc., was born in Delaware in 1974 to serve as an operating holding company. A year later, a syndicated loan of $100 million was made to Colombia, home of marijuana and port of departure for much of the cocaine manufactured in the several mountain nations. Strange stories were told about that loan. Some even suggested that Fidel Castro was behind it. In the same year, however, WFC looked to the Middle East, and in partnership with the government of Ajman, one of the United Arab Emirates, established the Ajman Arab Bank. Things were equally active on the home front. The Dominion Mortgage Corporation with the same Coral Gables corporate address as WFC, financed the construction of a private condominium, spa, and lounge in Las Vegas. It began developing a subdivision of expensive homes, purchased a private detective agency, built a $2 million professional plaza, and opened negotiations to buy several casinos. In Brownsville, Texas, on the border of Mexico, the Neo-Texas Development Corp oration—a WFC controlled company—spent $28 million on a country club-residential complex. Manager was Marcello Hernandez-Cartaya, father of the founder of WFC. In Las Vegas and in Texas there were allegations of narcotics activity by people involved in DMC's affairs. Names and dates were given, and the amount of cocaine entering Las Vegas alone was placed at 340 pounds annually. Internal Revenue Service agents told of receiving word of a million in cash being carried by courier from Las Vegas to Miami. They tailed the courier to WFC offices in Coral Gables. He entered the building with two suitcases; he came out empty-handed. In Brownsville the shrimp fleet was reported to be bringing in narcotics in vessels owned by WFC. Allegations galore, but no one had checked them out. The narcotics section of the organized crime bureau of the Dade County Public Safety Department lacked both manpower and money to do so. In July 1976 WFC bought 98 percent of the stock in the Pan American Bank of Hialeah for $3 million, and changed its name to the National Bank of South Florida. That is how Kaki Argomaniz got connected with the institution. Immediately, a tremendous flow of money began. In one day $12 million was deposited in cash. Most of it was in the form of ten- and twenty-dollar bills. Allegedly, the head cashier was instructed not to complete the usual forms, since the money was coming from WFC. One official of the bank was heard to remark that he operated a laundromat, not a bank. Federal bank examiners began checking early in 1977 and reported at least twenty-three occasions when large cash deposits were received without federally required documentation. Several bank officials were removed and one was shifted to another job within the WFC complex. The conclusion was obvious—but it wasn't proof. Investigators were as fascinated with the individuals surrounding Hernandez-Cartaya as with the assorted insurance companies, real estate companies, banks, and country clubs he seemingly controlled. There was Salvador Aldereguia-Ors. Allegedly he put up some of the money used to organize WFC, and at one time he was on the payroll at a salary of $70, 000. The man was well known in foreign capitals, and had contacts with various individuals believed to be big in the narcotics traffic. Duney Perez-Alamo, a CIA-trained explosives expert who had been involved with several terrorist groups, was building manager for WFC. Juan Romanach, said to be closely associated with the Santo Trafficante Mafia family in Tampa, was a director of one of WFC's banks. And, of course, there was always Mario Escandar of Operation Eagle fame. By April of 1977 it was apparent the investigation was too large, too complicated, to be handled by Rider and his men. The only hope was U.S. Attorney Robert Rust. Something of a maverick, Rust was one of Nixon's better appointments. He cut his teeth on Operation Eagle and was considered a gung-ho type who liked to work personally with investigators. Unfortunately he was a lame duck, awaiting replacement by the Carter Administration. Still, there was nowhere else to go. Rust responded as expected, calling in representatives of Customs, IRS Intelligence, the DEA, and FBI for a briefing on April 7. Those attending were impressed, but they soon reported their agencies were not interested. Only the FBI followed up, and it grabbed every scrap of information the detectives had garnered. Only later did Rider learn the FBI was investigating Aldereguia-Ors in a matter said to involve national security. Jacob Eskanazi replaced Rust, and he was not interested in investigating WFC—or, apparently, anything else. He held the view that a federal grand jury was a review body, that cases should be made by authorized agencies and brought to him for prosecution. Soon even the DEA was complaining, and the White House was asked to appoint a special prosecutor to handle South Florida drug cases. The Justice Department loyally defended Eskanazi. Cynics laughed—Eskanazi was simply following South Florida tradition. Rust had been the exception to the don't-rock-the-boat rule. For Rider the ultimate in frustration came when a high Treasury official came to Miami to make a speech and asked to meet the sergeant. IRS officials took the visitor to the isolated office west of Miami International Airport which had been assigned to Rider for security reasons. "He told me," said Rider later, "that WFC was a legitimate organization and that no money from narcotics deals left the country. It stayed here in our banks and was good for our economy. I couldn't believe it." Early in 1978 FBI agents arrested Aldereguia-Ors at the airport as he was leaving the country. They charged him with preparing a fake passport used by his boss, Hemandez-Cartaya, to escape from Ajman after the government of that tiny country became suspicious that the bank he managed there was being milked of millions. Eskanazi permitted a grand jury to indict both Hernandez-Cartaya and Aldereguia-Ors on charges of conspiring to use a false passport, and that was that. The FBI interest in WFC, it developed, had stemmed from their probe of the passport incident. Things got murkier and murkier. Dr. Emilio L. Aldereguia, a cousin, went on Salvador's bond, putting up personal property as collateral. On May 22 Dr. Aldereguia died when his new Cadillac crashed into Biscayne Bay on a dark night. Shortly thereafter Aldereguia-Ors vanished. Hernandez-Cartaya was ultimately acquitted. In June 1978 Rider received orders to wrap up his probe of WFC and turn to other things. Reluctantly, he obeyed. "We got a tiger by the tail," he commented, "and no one would help us." Perhaps the best commentary on the power of the Latin organization came when Mario Escandar got into trouble with the law again. The old sidekick of Juan Restoy in Operation Eagle had escaped prison thanks to John Mitchell's bungling in 1970. Facing in 1978 a sentence of life imprisonment for kidnapping a wealthy Cuban, he made a deal with the state attorney's office and got six months. Escandar, of course, was a friend of Hernandez-Cartaya, who was a friend of Dick Fincher, who was a friend of Bebe Rebozo, who was a friend of Richard Nixon, who once told John Dean he could get a million dollars in cash: "I know where it could be gotten," he added. "It is not easy, but it could be done." pps. 163-180 ===== 12 SECOND COMING June 6, 1968, and in California Robert F. Kennedy died, bullet fragments still in his brain. Across the country there was shock and sorrow, but in Fort Lauderdale the 600-plus seniors of Stranahan High School donned white gowns and prepared to graduate on schedule. The mood was somber in War Memorial Auditorium, where friends and families gathered to watch. There was silence as valedictorian Gary Alexander walked slowly to the center of the empty stage. Slender underneath the bulky robe, the youth wearing the golden cord of the honor student seemed preternaturally calm. He stood without fidgeting, unprotected by a rostrum, and in a flat voice devoid of emotion began reciting a poem by W. B. Yeats. Many in the audience turned to look at one another, unable to believe Alexander would, or could, forgo the conventional address of thanks and inspiration. It was unheard-of, almost subversive. Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold . . . Broward County, Florida, was an oasis of right-wing Republicanism in the sixties. One of the fastest growing areas of the nation, it attracted the wealthy elderly in search of peace and sunshine. J. Herbert Burke, a Democrat, was impressed by Goldwater sentiment in 1964, so he became a Republican, defeated a GOP stalwart, Edward J. Stack, in the 1966 primary, and went on to Congress in the fall. Two years later Stack was elected county sheriff, capitalizing upon Nixon's "law and order" campaign with his own slogan: Pin the star on Stack Bring law with order back. Stark didn't mention, of course, that the twice indicted outgoing sheriff was a Republican. All went smoothly for both Burke and Stack in the next few years. Burke, a stout, cheerful, "good ole boy" type found around many southern courthouses, made an undistinguished congressman. He voted for Nixon measures and displayed a certain skill in arranging foreign junkets for himself. Stack, on the other hand, a tall, silver-haired man who looked distinguished, kept his political fences mended and avoided newspaper exposes of the numbers racket such as had embarrassed his predecessor. He displayed a real ability to achieve favorable publicity that seemed to indicate he could keep the sheriff's post as long as he pleased. When in 1976 Stack suddenly switched from Republican to Democrat, the political pundits decided he planned to challenge his old adversary once more. Rumor grew rife in the winter of 1977-78, until it was a confirmed fact. The former Republican would beat the former Democrat, most observers agreed. Beat him easily. Burke, however, had learned a few things while in Washington, and had been there long enough to command certain advantages. Among other things, he was a member of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control headed by publicity-loving Lester Wolff of New York. Committee counsel was Joseph Nellis, who, on occasion, sent out Christmas greetings to his friends in franked envelopes. Well aware that marijuana was literally floating up on Broward's beach and that the Gold Coast had become the port of entry for almost all illicit cocaine, Burke suggested that at the right time a hearing should be held in Fort Lauderdale to explore the situation. If such a hearing showed that Sheriff Stack was doing little or nothing to combat the evil tide, well, that's the way the coke crumbles. As early as February 28, the Florida Department of Criminal Law Enforcement prepared a special report for the benefit of the committee's staff. The hearing was announced for early June. Anticipating trouble, Stack hurriedly set up an airport unit similar to the one that had proven so successful in Miami. Burke came down a few days early. On Friday, May 26, he worked late in his Fort Lauderdale office and then got himself arrested. According to Burke, he stopped at the Doll House on South Federal Highway for a manhattan. He noticed "a spacy guy wearing a loud sport jacket and continually sniffing." The man asked a "country type" where he could buy some drugs. All instincts alert, the crime-fighting congressman followed the two men for a mile. They stopped at the Clock Restaurant. Burke stopped also. He saw "a blue Buick with North Carolina plates" pull along the sports car containing the suspects. A person in the Buick "passed a packet containing a white substance to the men in the sports car." Burke rushed inside the Clock to report the incident. The Buick and the sports car split. Having done his duty, the congressman went back to his car. He couldn't find his keys, He went next door to the parking lot of the Centerfold Club, a joint featuring nude dancers. A police car drove up. Burke was hustled inside, taken south to Dania, and thrown in a cell. Having heard what happens to dissenters in a police state, Burke wrote out a full statement on the wall of the cell, listing his name and the exact time of his arrest. For some reason, about dawn next morning, he was released. Reporters arrived and he ate breakfast with them, pointing out the obvious: "If this can happen to me, it can happen to the little guy." It was a pretty good tale. The trouble with it was twofold: Every time Burke recounted his adventures, the details varied; and, moreover, no confirmation could be found. The police report of the arrest placed the congressman inside the Centerfold pinching the bottoms of nude girls. He was a frequent visitor, they said, and usually was loud and happy. This time he got disorderly and the manager called the sheriff's office. He was referred to Dania police because the nightclub was inside, if barely, the city limits of that town. Police officers said the congressman refused to leave and had to be taken out of the joint by force. There were retractions, amendments, revisions over the next few days as friends of Sheriff Stack snickered openly. The saga of the great narcotics investigator just wouldn't wash. Meanwhile, the matter was referred to the Broward grand jury as was customary when public officials were accused of wrongdoing. On June 9 the select committee met as scheduled. Stack appeared and delivered a long statement to the effect that local law enforcement was being overwhelmed by the international forces of evil and could do very little without massive intervention by the federal government. Burke agreed, and cynics chuckled. It was a rather drastic reversal for both men, who in the past had advocated less interference by the central government and more home rule. Well, times had changed, and principles had changed with them. No one had any questions for Stack. Burke shook his hand and the sheriff withdrew to receive the congratulations of his staff. Burke's arrest had neutralized his advantage. The committee took a moonlight boat ride around Fort Lauderdale's canals, allegedly looking at the estates of drug smugglers. Next day some of the members explored the Everglades, where cocaine and marijuana sometimes fell like rain. Chairman Wolff got in some good comments about the need for immediate action and promised to take the matter up with the White House when he returned to Washington. Several days later, the Broward grand jury returned three misdemeanor indictments against Congressman Burke. He was charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and tampering with a witness who, allegedly, he had asked to retract an unhelpful version of the affair. The indictments came after Burke refused two invitations to tell his story to the jury. He was too busy in Washington, his office announced. Sheriff Stack, playing it carefully, arranged to send the official summons to Washington to be served on the congressman. On the day it arrived, Burke departed for China, a seventeen-day junket to enable him to study drug problems in the Orient. Ultimately, Burke pleaded guilty to two charges and no contest to the third. He was fined. Stack easily defeated him in November. On his last day as sheriff, Stack promoted his chaffeur from sergeant to captain and went off to Washington. Next day, his successor rescinded the promotion. Burke had no comment. Meantime, Chairman Wolff demanded that the Navy and Air Force be thrown into the war against smugglers and that the DEA be greatly reinforced. "What we saw in Florida," said Wolff, "would be akin to a natural disaster." Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned . A natural disaster-for whom? For the real estate broker with choice waterfront property for sale? For dealers in fine cars—Cadillacs and Mercedes, Lincolns and Jags? For owners and makers of fast boats and rusty freighters? For stores selling high-fashion clothing, jewelry, and color television sets? For bankers, cops, dentists, attorneys, con men, and believers in free enterprise? A disaster for these and many others? Hardly. No longer did tales of "reefer madness" circulate. If "cokecrazed sex fiends" were running wild, the hookers on Collins Avenue and Biscayne Boulevard knew nothing of them. If blacks in Miami's Liberty City were dying of overdoses of H, they were being decently quiet about it. If high school kids were smoking grass and snorting snow, it wasn't worth a story in the newspapers. Indignation there was, but it was confined to officials of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, over an announcement that grass in Mexico was being sprayed with a highly toxic herbicide called paraquat. Allegedly, paraquat could cause fibrosis of the lungs. "For years," said one NORML official, "our government told us that marijuana would cause all kinds of terrible things to users. When research proved this just wasn't true, the government paid Mexico to make it true by spraying with a poison." Protests fizzled when it was learned that sugarcane crops in South Florida and elsewhere had been sprayed with paraquat as a matter of routine for years, with no obvious ill effect. The public thought it a big joke. A disaster? If the truth be told, the smuggling boom was good for Florida's economy-just as the Civil War and Prohibition brought prosperity to the Bahamas. The real disaster had occurred earlier; the distinguished congressmen were confusing effect with cause. Larry Berrin, an attorney for NORML, in high school when John F. Kennedy died, in college when marijuana became identified with protest, put it very well: ',The sixties were an incredible ten years. Young people were forced to make huge decisions about where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do. We had this terrible war that was just steamrolling us away and we lost a couple of leaders, great leaders, with whom young people could identify. There's no question that marijuana represented a symbol against the Establishment. When Richard Nixon became President, that added fuel to the fire. He believed the protesters out there were pot-smoking perverts, that reefer madness had infected our youth. He didn't think they were normal citizens who loved their country, and he made war against our generation of young people. We didn't have a choice as to when we were born or when we went to school. The thing with all its pain and heartache just happened." In short, a generation of politicians accustomed to regarding drugs as evidence of basic immorality on the one hand, or as instruments of a conspiracy by reds, yellows, or blacks on the other, believed its own propaganda, and tried to rally what it called the "silent majority" against confused and frightened children. A disaster? In every sense of the word. And ahead is perhaps an even greater tragedy. The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Gary Alexander was no closet intellectual, no natural do-gooder seeking idealistic solutions to man's eternal problems. He dated cheerleaders, competed mightily with his brilliant older brother, grieved silently when his parents divorced. The death of Kennedy only reinforced his prior decision to recite Yeats's somber poem at graduation, and all efforts by his teachers to dissuade him were politely brushed aside. On one hand a youth with brains, good looks, and health, the future before him-yet already bitter, without faith, pessimistic. Six years later: 1974. At 3:00 A.M. the Coast Guard cutter Diligence spotted the Maya, a sailing vessel, in the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti, and ordered it to stop. The persons on board refused to obey. The Diligence received permission from base to fire a warning shot come daylight, but at 5:00 A.M. the persons on board were seen jettisoning plastic bags containing a white substance. Then they began pouring gasoline on the deck. At 5:05 the five persons aboard the Maya set their boat on fire and abandoned ship. The Diligence picked up the persons on board and tried to put out the fire, but the engine of the Maya had been left engaged. The Maya sank about 6:40. Seven bags of marijuana were hauled aboard as evidence and thirty-nine other bags were sunk by gunfire. According to the official report: "The five POB were placed under arrest for conspiracy to import marijuana into the U.S. and felonious destruction of the boat by arson. They were: Allen J. Aunapu, Gary Alexander, Scott Arrand, Jack Latrove, Margaret B. Karsh." Aunapu was a former Fort Lauderdale High School football star, the grandson of a pioneer family. Latrove and Arrand, with Alexander, were graduates of Stranahan High. Only the woman was from Miami. The father of Aunapu was quoted by the press: "You raise kids the best you can but they grow up to be men on their own. What makes them take part in something like this, I'll never know. I just don't understand it." Surprisingly, Alexander and his classmates beat the rap. The Hovering Vessels Act had not been rediscovered, and a federal judge dismissed the charges on the grounds "no crime took place within the border of the U.S." On March 5, 1975, Alexander was one of eleven arrested while unloading marijuana from two boats docked in the St. Lucie River in Martin County, Florida. Appeals took three years. Early in 1978, almost a decade since the day Robert Kennedy died, the Valedictorian went off to prison. A disaster victim? You'd better believe it. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. Many things contributed to the development of organized crime syndicates in this country, but perhaps three factors were paramount: 1. The opportunity for quick wealth provided by the passage of unenforceable laws-Prohibition. 2. A loss of personal values as Wilsonian idealism gave way to belief in the rewards of business, which, in turn, was shattered by the stock market crash of 1929. 3. The economic depression that followed the crash and created a situation where bootleggers had cash and bankers and businessmen lacked credit. History, of course, repeats itself in broad patterns. One wouldn't necessarily expect the events of the twenties and thirties to be repeated in all detail in the seventies and eighties. Yet two of the three basic conditions listed above have been repeated, and the third one is confidently predicted for the near future as this is written in the summer of '78. Consider: The narcotics traffic has created opportunities for wealth far exceeding anything made by the rumrunners of Prohibition, and the opportunity stems in part at least from the existence on the books of unpopular and unenforceable laws. Disillusionment with government has perhaps never been as widespread. The lies told by bureaucrats with a vested interest in creating a Drug Menace were compounded in the sixties, and climaxed by Watergate in the seventies. Once a localized aberration, confined to the generation of students, distrust and cynicism now pervade the body politic. And, if the experts know anything, an economic depression is just around the corner. Why, then, should history not repeat itself and a new generation of gangsters emerge to take up the banner of easy money as it falls from the dying hands of the old ones? The ethnic minorities will be different, perhaps, with blacks and Latins assuming the roles played earlier by Italians and Jews. There will be added emphasis on the bribe, but the bullet will remain the weapon of last resort. It will be harder than ever to tell where legitimate acts of free enterprise end and illegitimate acts of free enterprise begin. Corruption will be more sophisticated and even more persuasive. Does it have to happen? Is it inevitable? It is likely, yes, but it could be avoided. If Americans will use their cynicism wisely, selectively, intelligently, a different picture could be painted. We might begin by deciding to get the truth about the drug industry. Certainly science can provide answers; we have no need to rely on old wives' tales and legends. Is marijuana less harmful than tobacco? If it is, let's quit putting people in jail for smoking grass while contenting ourselves with printed warnings on cigarette packs. Is cocaine less harmful than alcohol? If it is, let's conduct a campaign to substitute snow for booze. Is heroin really a killer? If so, let's find out why people use it and eliminate the need. The DEA seeks to solve the drug problem by eradicating the supply. And what happens? Stop poppy production in Turkey and the Mexicans start planting it. Persuade the Mexicans to destroy the poppy fields, and the ethnic Chinese make plans to export the product of the Golden Triangle. Wouldn't it be better to eradicate the demand? Shouldn't we spend our tax dollars on our own people to help them find better lives instead of bribing foreigners to curtail crops? In short, a new era of organized crime might be averted if the profits, the extraordinary, fantastic wealth generated by the drug traffic, could be shut off. There are good men in the DEA, in the Coast Guard, in Customs. They do their best to enforce laws that have their basis in ignorance, greed, and fear. They see their job as a struggle between good guys and bad guys, but perhaps it is more complex than that. The war between good and evil may be basic and eternal, but why should we enlarge the area of conflict? It is time to quit playing games. The opportunity exists, perhaps, but surely not for long. Too much money has already been made, too many people corrupted. Unless we act wisely and soon, the prophecy made by the poet Yeats and recited that dark day in 1968 by Gary Alexander must come to pass and we will ask with them: And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born? pps. 181-190 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. 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