The Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami had held its share of notorious criminals in recent years. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, the burgeoning drug trade had turned Miami into the hottest crime beat in America. The jails and prisons were filled to capacity with international criminals from South America and the Caribbean, as well as homegrown narcos. Into this mix came Roberto Parsons, a Bay of Pigs veteran, former CIA covert operator, and professional hit man for the criminal underworld.
Even in federal detention, Parsons remained active. Within a month of his incarceration, it was discovered that he had concocted a plot to kill three people who were cooperating against him, including Jorge Gonzalez, who had participated in the murder of Pepe Moranga in New York City. Gonzalez had also witnessed the murder of Paco Felipe in Miramar and driven with Parsons to dispose of the body in the Everglades.
The prison murder plot was exposed when one of Parsons’s co-conspirators turned out to be a snitch. Parsons was charged with conspiracy to commit murder. He pleaded guilty and was facing significant time. At this point, his lawyer hinted that his client might be willing to cooperate with authorities if it worked to his advantage.
Parsons agreed to be interviewed by NYPD detectives who were investigating the Moranga, Mujica, and Broche murders. In his statement, Parsons threw out many false leads designed to cloud the investigation. Pepe Moranga, he said, was killed by drug dealers. Angel Mujica was murdered when he returned to New York City and began operating policy spots. “I hear he was killed by the Italian Mafia,” said Parsons. He talked a lot but admitted nothing except that, yes, he had at one time been a bodyguard for José Miguel Battle, whom he considered a war hero from the Bay of Pigs.
Parsons did admit to the detectives that he had once been a member of Operation 40 and had conducted covert ops for the CIA in Cuba and Latin America in the 1970s. He viewed himself as a dedicated soldier in the Cold War. Motivating most of what he did, he claimed, was the overarching dream of killing Castro and taking back Cuba. He hinted that his work for the Agency continued into the 1980s, but he would not go into detail. “That’s all classified,” he told the cops.
Since Parsons remained unwilling or unable to tell authorities the truth about anything that implicated him in a crime, there was no deal to be made. He remained in jail. Months later, he would be indicted for the murder of Pepe Moranga. But he never made it to trial. Parsons’s gauntness, and the deep-set eyes with dark rings—physical features that had been noticed by witnesses to the murders of Moranga, Mujica, and Broche—were the consequence of early-stage pancreatic cancer.
After less than two years in prison, he died of cancer at the age of sixty-four.
His nephew, Juan Carlos Parsons, was convicted on cocaine smuggling charges and sentenced to twelve years in prison. He was never charged for his alleged role in the murder of Pepe Moranga.
THE STRUGGLE TO LIBERATE CUBA WAS NEVER- ENDING.
On January 20, 1993, Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was sworn in as the forty-second president of the United States. After twelve years of Reagan and George H. W. Bush, a former director of the CIA, Cuban exiles could no longer count on unquestioning support from the administration in power. The legacy of the Iran-Contra scandal, even more detrimental for the exiles than the Watergate fiasco, had set back the cause of covert operations in general and, once again, cast a troublesome light on the Cuban connection. From the Bay of Pigs invasion through Operation Mongoose, the Watergate burglary, undertakings in Latin America, culminating most recently with the Nicaraguan Contras, Cuban exile involvement in the country’s secret Cold War history was like an unprotected hot wire, dangerous to the touch. There was no circuit breaker. The dream of a destabilized Cuba was the energizing factor. That dream had not died, but it was unlikely that the post–Iran-Contra CIA or the new Democratic Party administration of President Clinton would be a reliable underwriter of the ongoing narrative.
Old warriors never die. Luis Posada Carriles had been at it for thirty years. He had traveled to and lived in multiple countries, conducted numerous violent operations in consort with intelligence agencies and gangsters from many governments, been incarcerated in and escaped from foreign prisons, and he was not ready to retire. Not as long as Fidel Castro was still alive.
In February 1992, Posada was interviewed by two FBI agents at the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The agents advised Posada, who was one week away from his sixty-fourth birthday, that they were there on behalf of the Office of the Independent Counsel (OIC), who was investigating the “Iran/Contra matter.” They wanted to know about events that occurred in El Salvador in 1985 and 1986. Posada agreed to be interviewed.
Special Agents Michael Foster and George Kiszynski spoke with Posada for six and a half hours. The report they filed was extraordinary in its detail. Posada described how in 1985 he was able to escape from a Venezuelan prison thanks in part to $50,000 in bribe money smuggled to him by Jorge Mas Canosa, president of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). Jorge Mas was perhaps the most politically powerful Cuban American in the United States, the friend of Republican presidents, most notably George H. W. Bush. In 1992, in the waning days of his presidency, Bush attended a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner in Miami for CANF and declared, “I salute Jorge Mas.”
Posada described to the agents how he wound up in El Salvador working with his old Bay of Pigs cohort Felix Rodriguez. He noted that though the Contra resupply operation in Ilopango was a joint covert op directed by Ollie North’s NSC and retired CIA agents, the Cubans formed a separate clique within the unit. The entire Contra support operation crashed and burned when an American mercenary named Gene Hasenfus was captured behind enemy lines. The story exploded in the U.S. media, leading eventually to the televised Iran-Contra hearings.
Posada was hiding out in a tiny house on the beach in Xanadu, on the Pacific Coast in El Salvador, at the time of the hearings on television. He waited until much of the media attention died down, then he moved to Guatemala.
Meanwhile, in Cuba, Posada was tried in absentia for his role in the bombing of Cubana de Aviación Flight 455. Even the CIA suspected that he was guilty, as revealed in internal memos that would eventually be made public. Among human rights activists, he was a notorious figure, a terrorist who was quite possibly being protected by people in the U.S intelligence community. In Miami and Union City, he was a freedom fighter. Jorge Mas Canosa and CANF were, through back channels, secretly negotiating with President Clinton for Posada’s return to the United States.
In Guatemala, Posada reinvented himself as a special consultant to President Vincio Cerezo. Cuban American cold warriors, trained by the CIA at Fort Benning, were now highly valued anticommunist operatives throughout Latin America. He was hired to set up a special squad to help investigate a number of political assassinations that had taken place in the country. But his privileged position with President Cerezo caused jealousy among some of the other ministers in the government.
In 1990, Posada was walking on a street in Guatemala City when he was ambushed by gunmen. He was shot multiple times in the torso and also the jaw. He was rushed to a private clinic, where he received expert medical care under the arrangement of the president.
It was a long and painful convalescence. Posada lost part of his jaw and a portion of his tongue. He let it be known to aides of the president that he did not have the money to pay for his medical bills, which came out to $16,000 for the doctors and $4,000 for the hospital. The aides told him not to worry; the president would cover his bills.
Posada had a close friend who was acting as his assistant, handling all financial matters. The friend told him that the president had only come up with $4,000 owed to the hospital and not the $16,000 owed to the doctors. Posada was stunned. Eventually, to avoid government bill collectors, he was forced to leave Guatemala and relocate to Honduras.
Months later, purely by chance, Posada ran into then ex-president Cerezo on an airplane flight. He confronted t
he man: “You lied. Your aides told me you would cover all my bills, and you only came across with four thousand.”
Cerezo was startled. “What do you mean?” he said. “We gave to your assistant a total of twenty thousand dollars.”
Later, Posada did some investigating and determined that, yes, his close friend had stolen the other $16,000.
A few years had passed, but Posada’s feelings were still hurt. To the FBI agents who had come all the way to Tegucigalpa to interview him he said, “It upsets me very much to think that a friend could steal from me while I was laying in a hospital bed, but that’s what happened.”
As for the attempt on his life, Posada believed that it had to be hit men sent by Cuban intelligence, on orders from Castro himself. Posada had become Public Enemy Number One in Cuba. No one wanted him dead more than Fidel, though the aging cold warrior had to admit that the list of his enemies was substantial, and it was getting longer with each passing year.
BY EARLY 1993, THE MIGRATION OF EXPERIENCED CASINO WORKERS FROM ARUBA TO Lima was well under way. Once Harold Marchena was hired to serve as general manager, he began recruiting experienced casino people from Aruba. His first hire was Manuel Zambrano, a slot machine technician. Zambrano was sent to Miami to retrofit the slot machines owned by Luis DeVilliers. Humberto Salazar was brought from Aruba to train blackjack dealers and also dealers for the craps tables. A Dutch national, Jacobo Van Der Linden, was brought from Aruba to help train the dealers, with the understanding that he would become an assistant manager once the casino opened. Francisco “Chito” Quandas came from Aruba to serve as another assistant manager. George Croes, also from Aruba, became head cashier. A Peruvian native, Mario Masaveu, was hired to serve as an assistant security director under General Guillermo Castillo, an active officer in the Peruvian army, who was the casino’s director of security.
Dozens of others were hired. The Crillón was nowhere near as big as the average casino in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, but it was the only casino in town, and it would be open twenty hours a day. In total, there would be a staff of 125 people, including dealers, cashiers, greeters, pit bosses, floor managers, bartenders, waitresses, and security personnel. And that was just out on the floor. Behind the scenes were personnel managers, money managers, accountants, lawyers, and assorted bosses and investors.
From the beginning, there were complications due to the fact that the original investors knew little or nothing about the business. Nene Marquez and DeVilliers thought that they could ship gaming tables from the United States, but it turned out to be cheaper to have them made in Lima. Also, in the opinion of those arriving from Aruba, there were some serious budgetary problems. The casino owners were planning on paying their dealers between $100 and $150 a month. Chito Quandas objected, saying that if you paid the dealers so little, you were practically encouraging them to steal. After considerable negotiation, it was agreed that the dealers would be paid $400 to $450 a month.
The new employees noticed that everything was being paid in cash, which was unusual. Not only that, but the currency was U.S. dollars, which was even more unusual.
Maurilio Marquez, the Venezuelan, was the casino’s financial manager. He was the one making payments for equipment and to the various managers and trainers, who were on salary even though the casino was not scheduled to open for three months. Quandas remembered seeing Maurilio carrying cash around in a brown paper bag, which seemed highly unprofessional. But since this was a new operation being organized and underwritten by people with no experience in the business, irregularities were to be expected. Or at least that’s what Quandas and the other experienced casino people from Aruba told themselves.
Getting any large-scale business ready for opening day can be intense; the Casino Crillón was no different. But Harold Marchena was alarmed. A veteran casino operator, he was having a hard time figuring out what could be chalked up to inexperience or ineptitude, and what might be the result of something more sinister.
Marchena once heard Maurilio on the phone with Luis DeVilliers telling him they needed hundreds of thousands of dollars. After he finished the phone call, Maurilio told Marchena, “Okay, the money is going to be here. It’s being wired from a Swiss bank account and will arrive in Peru shortly.” Later in the day, Maurilio learned that the money had not arrived, and would not be arriving by wire. He also became aware that his name had been removed from the accounts associated with the holdings of Rydz and Battle Jr.
Still, the owners seemed to have the money, but it now required various employees—Marchena included—to make semiregular cash runs to Miami. The employees would load cash in their bags and in their pockets and concealed on their bodies. Marchena and other shareholders made these money runs two or three times a week.
After learning he was no longer associated with the Swiss accounts, Maurilio Marquez, in the eyes of Marchena, seemed to lose faith in the enterprise. Marchena suspected that Maurilio had begun to skim money by inflating construction costs and then keeping the overage for himself. Labor costs in Peru were cheap, but the installation costs for doors, moldings, floorboards, and other expenses, Marchena noticed, were coming in unusually high. He once mentioned it to Maurilio, who winked and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
This concerned Marchena even more. He had been lured away from a comfortable job in Aruba on the premise that he would have a percentage of the overall business in Lima. If Maurilio Marquez was skimming from the Casino Crillón, he was stealing from him too.
The final straw for Marchena was when the shareholders began interfering with his hiring of casino personnel. Marchena had been given two months to work through 240 people who were trained to work as dealers, pit bosses, cashiers, and so on. It was a grueling process. After a month or so, Marchena noticed that the casino was in some cases hiring people who had not passed the training course. He confronted the Cuban American owners and was told that one of the shareholders was Effugenia Reyes. He was not told that Effugenia was the mistress of José Miguel Battle. Effugenia was a front person for Battle, but nonetheless she was insisting that, as a “shareholder,” she be allowed to make sure a certain number of jobs went to relatives and friends of hers.
Marchena was outraged. He told the Marquez brothers and DeVilliers, “Listen, if you want me to run the casino as a professional operation, then we hire only professionals, not friends. Don’t make me look like a fool.”
Marchena knew that a casino’s reputation for professionalism was sacrosanct. If you wanted to attract high rollers—international gamblers who might be given a credit line of $25,000 to $50,000—they had to know that the establishment adhered to the highest standards. It wasn’t just a matter of professional pride. As a shareholder with a stake in the company, Marchena knew that prospects for making any real money from his efforts at the Casino Crillón depended on its reputation.
All in all, Marchena was getting bad vibrations from what he was seeing and experiencing in Lima. He lay awake at night with the terrible feeling that he’d made a big mistake. But it was not too late. His employers in Aruba had extended to him a grace period in which if things didn’t work out with his new job, he could return. This was standard practice in the highly volatile casino gambling business, where new ventures were known to be high-risk and frequently crashed and burned.
Just weeks before the Casino Crillón was scheduled to open in May, Marchena resigned. Nene Marquez and Luis DeVilliers tried to talk him out of it, but he had already made up his mind. Feeling rattled and bruised, he returned to Aruba.
FELIX FERER, ONE OF THE ORIGINAL THREE PERUVIAN SHAREHOLDERS IN THE CRILLÓN, was also having his eyes opened to certain “irregularities” that were taking place as, in a state of panic and under great pressure, the casino approached its opening date. Ferer, more than the other two Peruvians, was integral to the financial operations of the venture. He and Maurilio were the financial managers, the only ones with the authority to cash checks and make deposits or withdrawal
s.
Truth be told, there were no withdrawals. Money to pay for construction and management expenses was not coming from the bank, it was arriving as cash shipments from Miami.
Much to his chagrin, Ferer, like Marchena and other shareholders, found himself functioning as a money courier from the United States. On trips to Miami, Ferer, sometimes with partner Ricardo Chiang, was given blocks of cash to transport. The cash was rubber-banded together in denominations of fifty- and one-hundred-dollar bills. The blocks were packaged in stacks just thick enough to fit in pockets or to be secured on the body without being detected. On seven different trips, Ferer transported a total of $800,000 in cash.
Among Ferer’s responsibilities, as comptroller for the casino, was to oversee the bank account associated with the business. Two months into the construction of the casino, Empresa de Inversiones Orientales, the controlling business entity, had run out of money. The company bank account was in bad need of an infusion of cash. So far, Maurilio Marquez and other owners had gotten away with paying their bills with cash smuggled into the country. But there were larger expenses that needed to be covered, such as the cost of a backup generator for the casino, which would be $60,000.
The owners turned to their bank for a loan. Banco Continental had underwritten the casino venture with considerable hesitation. There was no casino business infrastructure in Peru. It seemed like a risky venture. But they went ahead with the relationship based on the belief that the casino’s corporate entity would be kept flush with U.S. investment.
Felix Ferer was the person responsible for applying and advocating for the loan. Banco Continental looked at the numbers and turned down the application.
This created a mini-crisis for Inversiones Orientales, one that was averted by implementation of an ingenious scheme. Using a local Peruvian business, cash from Miami was laundered. The owner of this business, a prominent man with connections to the Fujimori government, deposited the cash from Miami in his account, claiming it was profits from his business. Then he wrote checks to the Casino Crillón, which were deposited in the account of Inversiones Orientales. On the surface, it appeared to be a legitimate transaction.
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