Pubdate: Tue, 07 Dec 2004
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2004 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: Georgie Anne Geyer

HAS FIDEL CASTRO BEEN LAUNDERING DRUG MONEY FOR PROFIT?

Strange things are happening in Cuba. Events in the island nation more
and more resemble the surrealism that has infused all of Latin
American literature with mysticism and, often, mayhem.

First, Chinese President Hu Jintao came through Havana on his recent
triumphal trip to Latin America, deliberately designed to usurp
American influence in that region. One would have thought Cuba, with
its eternal anti-Americano bugaboo, would have been Hu's first "hit"
for investment. But no.

Instead, the young Chinese president, who is peacefully expanding
China's influence all over the world while America fights desperately
in Iraq, offered no investment in oil exploration and only a pittance
in nickel. This, after offering to invest $100 billion in Latin
America in the next decade.

But perhaps that should not have been so surprising. Once again, the
Cuban sugar industry is in crisis. Mr. Castro, never a stickler when
it comes to dates or hours or the realities of agriculture, had to
postpone the sugar crop harvest from November to January.

Second, Mr. Castro has been in the news for releasing some of the
political prisoners who never should have been imprisoned in the first
place. But if you look closely, he has released them, obviously for
international reasons, under something he calls "licencia extrapenal,"
which simply means that their freedom lasts only a year. Then he can
take them back.

Third, this fall Mr. Castro suddenly put a "tax" on dollars on the
island. Now, anyone who wants to use dollars -- the American currency
has in the last few years become the major currency in Cuba -- has to
pay a 10 percent tax. This seems to be yet another device of the
conniving Castro to get money from others without working for it or
producing anything.

Fourth, and by far the most interesting item of late, is the
possibility that Mr. Castro has been money-laundering drug trafficking
funds in Swiss banks. This well-argued theory is put forward by
Ernesto Betancourt, the Washington-based Cuban-American analyst who
was Mr. Castro's economics adviser in the year after the revolution.
In my experience, Mr. Betancourt has always been right, if
controversial, about Cuba.

American drug analysts have usually argued that Mr. Castro was not
involved in the endemic and poisonous drug trafficking of the
Caribbean. But a Senate hearing found that of an estimated $4.3
billion in laundered money worldwide, Cuba accounted for a cash amount
of $3.9 billion, discovered in the United Bank of Switzerland. Repeat,
in cash, and to be deposited, not exchanged. There are only a few
places in the world such money, in cash, could come from; and if from
Cuba, as reported by defectors and investigators, it could not come
from tourism, most of which is paid for in foreign countries by credit
card.

"In my view," Mr. Betancourt told me, "what has happened is that Fidel
saw a wonderful opportunity to make a few bucks by taking advantage of
Cuba's unique competitive advantage for money launderers. Cuba is not
a member of the International Monetary Fund or the Financial Action
Task Force, the two international organizations active in fighting
money laundering worldwide.

"Therefore, you can deposit your money in Havana's Banco Nacional and
your name is kept even more confidential than in a Swiss numbered bank
account. The Cubans then deposit your money, along with that of
others, in an account of the Cuban government in Switzerland, London,
Canada, Spain or Mexico, and there is no way they can trace the money
back to you.

"Originally the dollar bills were transported to Cuba by 'mulas,' that
is, people who travel with suitcases full of dollar bills. Some went
through Mexico in private planes and yachts. Some even went from Miami
and Key West. The $3.9 billion deposited in the Swiss bank over the
last seven years is only a portion of the total. And, of course, all
this cash in dollar bills could not be owned by Cuba alone: They were
depositing for somebody else, and Cuba was collecting only the fee,
usually 25 percent to 28 percent.

"Remember, drug traffic generates about $100 billion a year in dollar
bills at the retail level. The 'capos' of the drug trade are prepared
to pay for legitimation, so we are talking big money."

If true, and it surely seems to me that it is, then the nation that
began with the great revolution of the hemisphere in 1959, and then
passed through the "magic realism" stage, has now, by all accounts,
become a painfully hopeless and depraved place.
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MAP posted-by: Derek