The Infiltrator, page 14
And then even more good news. He was funneling money into a professional-boxing promotion company with one of his friends, Tuto Zabala, and he needed some of the money laundered so he could use it safely to promote an upcoming world championship fight.
I asked how he got into the fight business with Zabala.
“All the time I’m thinking crazy things in my mind, you know. The criminal mind never stops.” We both laughed, and he continued. “It’s very difficult to lose money, because the gate is not that important anymore. TV and tape and closed circuit are important…. They have a convention center here that seats twelve thousand. That’s around a hundred and some thousand dollars. So part of the expense goes to the theater, and that’s your profit structure right there.” It also gave him legitimate cover to travel to Colombia.
Then he asked me to talk to my family to see how much money we could make fixing a championship fight. He had bought my cover — completely. The work of courting him had paid off, and now, like Mora, he would become an unwitting pawn delivering us deeper inside the cartel.
As we talked about the fight, Alcaíno motioned a man to join us. “Tuto, I’d like you to meet my good friend Bob Musella. Bob, this is Tuto Zabala.”
A fifty-year-old Cuban exile, Zabala had helped found Alpha 66, the Cuban revolutionary group bent on overthrowing Castro. Zabala fled in August 1961 after ten hard days of interrogation by Castro’s security force. He looked like any other hard-working blue-collar Cuban in Miami, except he wore a big gold chain studded with large diamond letters spelling TUTO, and an injury had caused his right eye to drift permanently to the right. After escaping, he’d lived in Jamaica and Puerto Rico, but now promoted fights and distributed cocaine for Alcaíno in Miami — five to twenty kilos at a time to Cuban buyers in Chicago who ran a small grocery-store chain.
The super flyweight world-title fight between Colombian-based world champion Sugar Rojas and Mexican champion Gil Roman was scheduled in Miami for April 8, and Alcaíno wanted me, Emir, and our guests ringside with him. Another chance to build relationships with yet more people in the U.S. who worked with him and the cartel.
Alcaíno had delivered. I was no longer simply passing money through accounts for a fee. He’d greenlighted me to act as his bank, to manage some of his investments, and to pump dirty money into his businesses. When the operation ended, everything he owned would be seized — and all of that from one meeting. No need to push him more, especially with Zabala at the table. I thanked Alcaíno for his help, and we agreed to meet in L.A. in two weeks when he next returned from Medellín.
On the same day I met Alcaíno at the Marriott, the Miami and L.A. offices started closing in on couriers who had delivered cash to our undercover agents previously. After couriers were identified dropping money shipments to our agents and a week to ten days had passed, they were fair game as long as they weren’t scheduled to drop to us again. So surveillance teams followed them, and, when it appeared that they might be transporting, marked police units working with us made what looked like routine traffic stops. The bagmen invariably betrayed their nervousness, which gave cops probable cause, allowing them to ask for consent to search the vehicles. The couriers almost always complied, but then denied knowing the money was in the car or who owned it. The cops seized the money and usually let the couriers go. As long as no one filed search-warrant affidavits that could expose our operation, no one else could connect me to the seizures.
No one ever came forward to claim the cash, which then automatically forfeited into the police department’s coffers, and which they used to buy cars or equipment. In cop talk, this procedure was called “a rip.” At a series of staged traffic stops, about a million dollars of cartel money and thirteen kilos of cocaine were “ripped” in a week.
At the same time the rips were going down, the U.S. government froze all Panamanian government accounts in the States in an effort to pressure Noriega. Because Panama’s central bank could no longer obtain U.S. dollars, it closed all of its branches until further notice. Which left $750,000 of Don Chepe’s money frozen in my Panamanian account. Don Chepe didn’t care why, though. Word quickly came through Gonzalo that I had to find a way to get Don Chepe his money soon — or else. If anyone could release the money and reformulate my system around Panama, it was Amjad Awan.
I called him at the bank, but he wasn’t there. Minutes later, he called me with an explanation that he was keeping a low profile because the feds might be monitoring his movements and conversations there. If I wanted to talk business, he invited Kathy and me to his home in Coconut Grove for dinner, after which we could talk.
Awan lived in a beautiful ranch-style house in Coconut Grove, on several acres blanketed by the shade of huge banyan trees. Meticulously kept, the grounds included a full tennis court and pool. He and his wife, Sheereen Asghar-Khan, greeted us with polite smiles. Though technically Muslim, neither of them abstained from alcohol. Awan preferred Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks, but Kathy wisely decided on bringing a bottle of Perrier-Jouet champagne for dinner.
The smell of aromatic spices filled the house with warmth. Sheereen had prepared a rich and savory traditional Pakistani curried chicken dinner. Her humble grace offered no clue that her father had once commanded Pakistan’s air force and was now a respected politician. Awan’s father, Ayub Awan, former head of the Pakistani police and director of the ISI, Pakistan’s CIA, had semi-arranged the match.
Awan’s roots in Pakistani Kashmir made clear why he was one of just a few bank officers managing CIA accounts that fed money to Afghan freedom fighters, many of whom later joined the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Before dinner, we all visited their rec room, which displayed much of Awan’s memorabilia, including an autographed, framed picture of Noriega in dress whites. The picture bore an inscription written when the two men had been in Geneva: A mi amigo Awan con gran aprecio a todo su familia — “To my friend Awan with great appreciation to all your family.”
At dinner, the Awans asked endless questions about our families, my business interests, my employment history, and my travel. He was no doubt assessing just how plausible his and the bank’s deniability would be. As often as we could, Kathy and I shifted the conversation to our own curiosity about Awan’s prior service with BCCI in Pakistan, Colombia, Panama, and Washington.
After dinner, he and I excused ourselves for a leisurely stroll around the gardens — my chance to elicit help getting Don Chepe’s money out of Panama and finding an alternative country. As we walked toward the tennis court, I flipped the remote power switch in my pocket that powered the mic on my chest and the recorder taped to my inner thigh. Awan told me that nothing could be done at the moment about the $750,000 frozen in Panama. He told me to buy time until banking resumed, perhaps a week. It wouldn’t be long before Don Chepe came calling, though.
“Tell me something,” Awan said, after we debated the merits of other havens. “Where is the cash?”
“Here in the States,” I said. “Detroit, Houston, New York.”
Awan thought for a moment. “Can it be transported?”
I told him planes owned by our air charter service could move it, yes.
He offered a solution. “If the cash can be delivered, say, to Uruguay … and if there’s a general need for cash in Uruguay, which I believe there is … A lot of dollar notes are smuggled from Uruguay into both Paraguay and Brazil because people like to buy dollar currency over there. If we could get the cash transported over there and give you credit in whichever place you want it … because all the consumer items which come into Brazil are paid for with dollar notes in cash.”
It was an amazing proposal. The bank would accept planeloads of smuggled cash in South America and exchange it for credits to accounts throughout the world, leaving no link whatsoever between the cash itself and the increased bank balances. But the Uruguayan approvals our office needed would prove far too risky. A great idea, but only for a bona fide criminal. I’d have to find a good reason to decline later.
Since Awan seemed comfortable talking about the dirty side of business, I told him that some of my Colombian clients wanted me to fly planeloads of U.S. currency to them because it “would move right on to Bolivia and other areas because that’s where the labs are” — the labs that processed bulk shipments of coke.
Awan didn’t so much as blink. He simply offered other banking alternatives to Panama, then said, “Let me give this a little bit of thought and see how I can find out and meet in our various locations, what we can do.”
Sheereen opened the door and shouted to us, “Want some green tea or coffee?” We’d run out of time to talk and ended the evening with, tea, coffee, thanks, and plans for Awan and me to meet again shortly.
The next day Steve Cook informed me that Treasury had approved our request for $5 million to place on deposit with BCCI. It was bait I couldn’t wait to throw to Awan and Bilgrami.
The day after that, I met Awan for late morning coffee at the Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove. He had spent the prior evening with the Pakistani ambassador and friends, who had just left for Jamaica. I had his full attention, but he needed to leave for Colombia to reassure his customers about Panama.
“What I would like to suggest,” I said, “is that in order for you to get a little bit of a better feel for me, at a time that you’re going to go to New York, if there’s going to be one in the near future, or if not, I’ve got a corporate jet which we could use, and it’ll cut down time substantially. But maybe if … One, I’d like to invite you to my home for dinner one evening. And then I thought that we might go … if we can complete it in one day, take a quick ride up to New York, and I’d like to introduce you to some of the other people affiliated with the firm.”
Awan smiled. “I’d very much like that.”
Then the good news. “I’m going to shift some of my personal savings over to some matters with you all, and so therefore I’d say sometime within the next several weeks I’ll get with you on the placement of about $2 million, just for me in a, um, anything — a year, whatever it is. It doesn’t matter to me. I just think I need to show some good faith here.”
Awan almost jumped at the prospect. “Fine. And where would you like that placed?” We decided that the secrecy of BCCI Paris was best and agreed to work out the details as soon as I made funds available.
I told Awan that my Colombian clients had large shipments of U.S. currency backed up in several U.S. cities as well as in Madrid, Paris, and Rome and asked him if BCCI had resources to help me get the cash into the banking system. He asked for time to discuss the issue with colleagues and promised to get back to me with a proposal.
Then I went over my itinerary with him. I was headed to L.A. to meet the client wanting to provide a secret $750,000 deposit as collateral for a construction loan in a like amount. That same client also wanted a similar arrangement for a $500,000 home improvement loan. Then off to San José to meet the clients with the backed-up cash.
Awan liked the concept of the construction loans and asked that I visit Iqbal Ashraf, manager of BCCI L.A. Ashraf could help with those L.A.–based loans and — I read between the lines — was part of the bank’s “inner team.”
A few days later in Tampa, ten of the personnel and I gathered. I briefed them on what had happened and outlined expectations for upcoming encounters, and they in turn briefed me on what was happening in other cities.
Emir had heard that, the next time the tractor trailer arrived in Detroit, the Detroit office planned to file federal affidavits to execute search warrants for money and cocaine at the Giraldo brothers’ home and storage facility. Which totally violated the promises the Detroit agents had made to us when we invited them into our operation. There was no reason they couldn’t proceed the same way the Miami and L.A. offices did: let state or local cops orchestrate an accidental find. Detroit was looking for statistics and promotions. Yet another case of being able to trust the targets more than our own people. And, according to Steve, Tischler supported Detroit’s approach.
“Hasn’t anyone thought this out?” I fumed. “If they file those affidavits, those documents are going to spell out everything Emir and I have done. Even if the affidavits are sealed, you know that simply means that they are placed in a sealed envelope in the office of the judge’s clerk. The organizations we’re dealing with buy presidents of countries. A clerk wouldn’t be a challenge. Shit like this is going to get us killed!”
I suggested we force a plan to require surveillance of the semi in Miami, and, when it started moving north, our office could coordinate with highway patrol and agricultural inspectors to orchestrate an accidental discovery of the cocaine at an inspection station near the Florida–Georgia border.
Mark supported our counterapproach, but we had to get the ball rolling with a written request from our office.
“Steve, I have no bridges to worry about burning,” I said. “I’ll be the bad guy for the front office and write the memo to you. Then you’ll have to pass it up the chain and they’ll have to deal with it. I can lay out why Detroit’s plan will undermine the entire operation.”
I churned out the memo that night and had it on Steve’s desk the next day. As it worked its way up command, Steve told me that, though he didn’t mind, Tischler didn’t like my habit of putting things on paper. Probably made it harder for her to lie about what had actually happened. Customs and Justice staff in D.C. eventually refereed the argument between Tampa and Detroit, but I couldn’t wait for the bureaucrats to make a decision.
It was time to hit L.A.
10
LOS DUROS AND LOS ANGELES
* * *
Los Angeles International Airport, California
March 17, 1988
ALCAÍNO WAS WAITING FOR US as we descended the escalators at LAX. “Bob and Kathy, it is so wonderful to see you. My car is just outside.”
We collected our bags and met him beside his vintage black Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, of which he was visibly proud. He drove us to a local restaurant where his wife, Gloria, joined us. At the end of the meal, he grandly announced, “Bob, please take Gloria’s Porsche. You can use it as long as you’re in town. Tomorrow morning we’d like you to join us at Tiffarri Jewelers, our jewelry store downtown, where we can talk and look over some of my inventory. If you’re up for it, we can go out to dinner tomorrow evening. The following day I’ll show you around town, and then we’ll have dinner at our home.”
He was working hard to impress us.
Kathy thanked the Alcaínos for their kindness, adding, “I can’t wait to see the rings at your store. Bob needs to come through on his promise of a special gift I can cherish for life to remember this trip. Something tells me that gift is somewhere in your jewelry store.”
Alcaíno let loose a big belly laugh. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I promise you we have whatever your heart desires!”
Perhaps, but why would he offer us his Porsche? As we approached the car, I whispered to Kathy, “Don’t talk business in this car. It could be a trap.”
As we drove to the hotel, Kathy tossed the car but couldn’t find anything. We assumed it was bugged anyway.
The next day, on the eleventh floor of an office building on South Hill Street in downtown L.A. we visited Alcaíno’s private and exclusive jewelry store. The Tiffarri Jewelers suite sported thick bulletproof glass and high-tech security. Very few customers visited while we were there, so we had no problem having an extended meeting, all caught, of course, by the recorder in my briefcase.
Alcaíno wanted me to set up a dummy loan from my mortgage company to Antilles Promotions, the company he and Zabala were using to promote the championship fight in Miami. I had him execute a lien on his multimillion-dollar home as fake collateral, which justified moving $50,000 of his drug money from my mortgage business to his promotion company.
Next order of business was creating corporations, phony loan documents, and fake service agreements to hide Alcaíno’s initial half million in the apartment project in downtown L.A. He happily gave me full authority to structure the deal to hide his true ownership.
Before lunch, Alcaíno showed Kathy some diamonds and an assortment of rings, encouraging her to go big. He beamed as he quietly told me he would have the ring sized and the diamond mounted within two days so I could present it to her during dinner at his home.
At lunch, I leaned into Alcaíno’s ear. “Roberto, what do I owe you for the ring?”
“Nothing, my friend,” he said. “It’s my pleasure to bring happiness to you and your lovely bride. This engagement ring is my gift to you.”
Back at the hotel, I hit the pay phones, briefed the office, and wrote some notes on critical dates, times, and statements, which I then hid in the false compartment of my briefcase. Those notes became the basis of the memos I would write in Florida about the events of the trip.
A seven-mile jog and some quick sightseeing filled the rest of the day until it was time to get ready for the Alcaínos again. We had dinner, and then Alcaíno insisted we move to a local club, where, on the dance floor, Kathy and I sank compliments and lies into the ears of our dance partners. Easy enough, you might think, but no. The rush of acting, the thrill of riding the cutting edge of crime, eventually numbs your senses, and years of this wear you down because the abnormal environment begins to normalize. You live by your lies. Outwardly at ease, you’re burning inside, checking and double-checking whether you’ve stumbled by offering any sign of your true identity. It’s almost easier to surrender to your role, but you can’t for even a second because you must also act as a minesweeper, gathering every hint of crime around you while pretending to enjoy the high life.
“I’m going to introduce you to an important friend of mine from Medellín,” Alcaíno said in a low voice the next day over lunch. “His wife is the niece of one of los duros. I think you’ll find him to be very … interesting.”
