The Infiltrator, page 15
A major player, then. Good.
After lunch Alcaíno suggested the ladies go on a shopping spree while he and I visited a friend — who turned out to be his tailor.
“I want to give you a few pointers,” he said. “Your attire is fine, but you should step it up a little. Let’s go in this building here, and I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine who will fit you nicely in a couple of new suits.”
I’d thought the thousands I’d spent out of pocket had dressed me for the big leagues. Apparently not. With Alcaíno’s help, I picked out two suits, which the tailor pinned and marked, as Alcaíno proclaimed, “Those look perfect. I’ll have someone come by and pick these up for you tomorrow. These have style and look more Miami Beach than Wall Street.”
We rejoined the ladies to find that, similarly, Gloria had picked out a number of items for Kathy — but my mind was already training on the evening’s meeting. The gift from Alcaíno I appreciated most was the chance to meet another player working with the cartel.
Before dark, Kathy and I put Alcaíno’s Porsche through its paces in the Pasadena Hills along Putney Road, a narrow, winding street lined with mansions. As we approached the electric gate at the top of Alcaíno’s driveway, it slowly opened and gave us access to a steep hundred-foot path that sloped down to a large fountain in front of their magnificent home. Two Rolls-Royce sedans, a Mercedes two-door sports coupe, and various other cars sat in the driveway. A separate building housed his servants, and a detached garage had become his office. As we got out of the Porsche, two huge Doberman Pinschers dashed toward us. Alcaíno called out, and they stopped cold in their tracks.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, noticing our alarm. “They are harmless.”
Yeah, as long as you tell them to be. Otherwise, they’d eat us alive in minutes.
“Bob, this is my very good friend Juan Tobón. He is visiting with us but also has a home in Miami. He is from Medellín.” Alcaíno also introduced us to his two teenage daughters, Paola and Claudia, as well as his maid and another servant.
Inside his home — easily 4,300 square feet — Gloria rushed to greet us. “Oh, Kathy, it is wonderful to see you again, and, Bob, thank you for sharing this evening with us.”
The Alcaíno home was exquisitely decorated in an oriental theme. Four large jade carvings sat on wooden stands, each more than two feet long. Ivory sculptures filled the house, and on the walls I noticed a Chagall painting and a Miró etching. The back of the house, a sheer wall of glass, faced a huge stone deck and a pool that perched on a hill overlooking the Rose Bowl.
But the architectural detail that struck me most in the home was a four-foot-high safe hidden in the closet of the master bedroom. When the day came for our agents to search the house, that vault would no doubt prove a gold mine.
“I’m going to need your help,” Alcaíno confided, “to create a half-million-dollar loan that I can use as an excuse for where I will get the money to renovate this house. I’d like to build an elevated tennis court, underground parking garage, and an additional 4,200 square feet of living space. I can give you the cash to offset that ‘loan’ soon. Then you can draw up the papers and push the money through your mortgage company.”
“Un pedazo de torta,” I said — piece of cake.
We settled down in the living room to enjoy some fine wine from Chile and hors d’oeuvres. Then to the dining room where we all enjoyed a lavish seven-course meal.
Tobón proudly proclaimed throughout dinner that he ardently believed in Santería, the Afro-Cuban religion born in the Caribbean when African slaves brought to the West Indies were exposed to Catholicism in Cuba. This dark religion thrives in south Florida among many of the men in the drug trade. Until he professed his devotion to Santería, it didn’t occur to me that the strange and obvious bulge in Tobón’s sock was a charm comprised of herbs, dead animal parts, and other ritual ingredients. Kathy’s obsession with palm reading came in handy, and she put it to good use entertaining the room.
Tobón also didn’t hide his hatred for los feos, who he believed had violated his rights when they seized his twin-engine plane filled with cocaine in Texas and a jet in California bought with $750,000 in cash.
After dinner, Alcaíno, Tobón and I moved to the deck overlooking the valley that cradled the Rose Bowl, Brookside Golf Course, and Foothill Freeway. Under this starlit night, Tobón and Alcaíno opened up about the state of the drug trade.
“Noriega should be shitting in his pants,” Alcaíno said. “Jorge Ochoa” — brother of Alcaíno’s partner Fabio Ochoa — “sent a mini coffin to Noriega last week that contained a note warning him that he would be able to use the coffin if any of Jorge’s money was lost in Panama. The note was signed ‘The Ochoa Family.’”
The conversation also revealed, quite plainly, that Tobón’s wife, Clara, was the niece of José Rodríguez Gacha, “El Mexicano,” one of the most notorious members of the Medellín cartel.
When talk drifted to credibility, Tobón was quick to challenge mine. “Bob, I own a two-hundred-acre mountaintop ranch in Medellín. We raise horses and cattle. I’d very much like to invite you and your lovely wife to join us at the ranch so you can personally see the beauty of Colombia.”
“Let me tell you,” Alcaíno chimed in, “that it would make all of us much more at ease if you and your family would enjoy some time with us in Colombia. You know, the men who refuse to come are most often los feos. Joining us down there would put everyone at ease and open your business to heights you’ve never imagined.”
A tight spot, but I came prepared.
“Roberto, I love you like a father, so I’ll confess like a son: Everything I do is done to protect my family. This business I have with you is a bonus. My core responsibility is to those here that I have served for years. Traveling to Colombia will raise flags with los feos and that will jeopardize the responsibility I have to my people. We need to build a sound business reason for my travel there. If I’m managing investments for businessmen in Colombia I have that cover. Until your people show me good faith by letting me manage some of their investments, they’ll have to settle for visiting me in a normal vacation spot like San José. I’ll be there in a week to meet with Gonzalo and clients from Medellín. Anyone you recommend is welcome to meet me there.”
“I understand entirely,” Alcaíno fired back, “but on the Colombian side we have everything taken care of. We have most everyone in our pocket. One of my friends, Alejandro, had his bodyguards assassinate the Justice minister in Colombia. Even though his men were caught by the Colombian army with five machine guns, he simply paid them one million dollars, and everything was totally forgotten. We have the power. Juan [Tobón] and I own a resort in Medellín known as San Jéronimo. This place is used for high-level meetings and los duros feel safe meeting there. You should come there and I’ll arrange for you to meet the people who run everything.”
It was the invitation I’d been waiting for, but there was no way Customs would let me accept. Before I could reply, Gloria and Kathy walked onto the rear deck of the house and joined our conversation. As they approached, Alcaíno slipped me an envelope that contained the engagement ring. I proposed, gave Kathy the ring, and everyone bought it. Which gave me the benefit of the doubt on future occasions when Alcaíno might otherwise wonder whether I was one of los feos.
Then he started to grandstand. “Bob and Kathy, I would like to invite you to join us in Miami on April eighth when we can all attend the world championship fight I’m promoting. Bob, what can we do special to celebrate this event?”
He wanted something special. We were making millions from the operation, so it made sense to throw $10,000 or so of our profits at Roberto if it got him to bring along his friends in the drug business.
“It would be my pleasure,” I announced, “to host a party on the day of the fight for you and twenty-five of your guests. And the night before the fight, I would be honored if you and your friends accompanied me and Kathy to a dinner party in Miami.”
That announcement loosened up Tobón, who asked me, “When will you be back in Miami?” and invited me to join him there to meet a friend of his. I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I agreed.
A little before midnight, the party broke up. It had been a productive night. Back at the hotel, it was too late to call the East Coast, so for an hour I wrote out notes about the evening’s conversations, hid them in my briefcase, and crashed.
The next morning Alcaíno called to say how much he enjoyed his time with us and how enthralled he was with Kathy. “We love her, and we respect her very much…. You know how we are, you know us all the way now.”
Before we left L.A., I called Awan’s friend, Iqbal Ashraf, manager of BCCI L.A. We met in an airport lounge for a quick meeting before I flew back to Tampa. It was immediately clear why he and Awan got along so well. They looked and acted like twins.
I explained to Ashraf the nature of the transactions I had conducted through the other BCCI branches and that I understood he could help by arranging deposits of funds outside the U.S. used secretly as collateral for loans, the proceeds of which could be made available through his branch. I indicated that my clients were Colombians with large cash-generating businesses in the U.S. and that my clients included Jorge Ochoa, who had just sent a small coffin to Noriega with a threatening note.
Ashraf couldn’t have cared less. He simply replied that he hoped I would arrange for my clients’ funds, after passing through offshore BCCI branches, to be deposited at his branch in L.A. He was ready to help me hide the funds in haven countries, use it as secret security for offshore loans, and bring it back to L.A. where his branch could manage the funds. All smiles, he urged me to get in touch as soon as I was ready.
Detroit’s plan to file federal affidavits to execute search warrants against the Giraldos had been shut down, L.A. had been a roaring success, and now it was time to make some new friends in the cartel.
11
LURING THEM IN
* * *
San José, Costa Rica
March 23, 1988
THERE WAS ENDLESS CHAMPAGNE for everyone on Lacsa, Costa Rica’s national carrier. Emir and I had planned our strategy before we left Florida, but as we flew over the Gulf of Mexico we quietly went over it again.
“You have Gonzalo wrapped around your little finger,” I said. “He thinks you’re more loyal to him than me, so let’s play that up. If our negotiations with Ospiña get bogged down, we’ll take a break, and I’ll find an excuse to get away from you guys. While I’m gone, you can let Gonzalo cry on your shoulder and see if you can get some inside information from him that will help. I have to play the hard line. I’m sure they have other sources to do what we do, but with Panama frozen we should look like a good alternative.
“We need two things from this trip. We’ve got to get these guys to let us hold more of their money for a longer period of time. That will help us seize more money at the end of the case. Besides, that’s what the boys at BCCI want. They’re hungry for deposits. The other thing we need is to get Ospiña to help us lure his bosses to a meeting in Europe. We’ve got to get them on tape.”
“Ospiña’s bosses will try to leave as little money with you as possible,” Emir said. “They’re going to fight this, but we’ll give it a try. The timing is right because Panama is a mess, so maybe you’ve got a long shot. I hope you brought your wading boots, brother, because you’re going to have to throw so much bullshit at them that the floor will be a foot deep in crap.”
We laughed.
After getting through Costa Rican Customs, we had a quick meeting at an out-of-the-way restaurant with a Customs agent assigned to the U.S. embassy. The ground rules had been established in advance, but we went over them again.
No more personal contact with law enforcement while in San José unless we needed help. I would call either the local Customs agent or the Tampa office at least once every six hours. An agent in Tampa had my cell phone, so the plan was to call that to report. Nothing more than “Things are fine and going as planned. We’re on schedule.” Our hotel-room phones were surely tapped, the room was bugged, and the cartel would get access to our hotel records to see what numbers we called. If we needed to have a conversation outside our roles, that would take place somewhere we felt totally confident we couldn’t be heard or monitored.
A fifteen-minute cab ride took us to the Herradura hotel and spa in Heredia. A luxury hotel, it had a casino, huge pool with a swim-up bar, fine dining, even a gym. Everything under one roof so we could avoid leaving the property and risk exposure to kidnapping or assassination. Mora, his wife, and Ospiña had already checked in, and after checking in ourselves, we met them near the blue tiled pool, sunning themselves in lounge chairs.
“Mr. Bob,” Mora announced, “this is my good friend Javier Ospiña.”
“Buenos tardes, Javier,” I said. “Bienvenido a Costa Rica.” Then to Emir, “Please tell Javier that we appreciate the sacrifice he has made to come all the way here to meet with us. Since we’ve all had a hard day traveling, let’s relax and begin our discussions about business tomorrow.”
We sipped piña coladas for two hours and studiously avoided talking business. Shoring up our cover, Mora yammered about the private jet, Rolls-Royce, brokerage firm, trips to the bank, our air charter service, the investment company — on and on. He was the best commercial for our money-laundering services that money almost didn’t have to buy.
We met again in the lobby at 8 P.M. While I preferred to eat at the hotel, our Colombian friends wanted to dine at a nearby restaurant. After dinner, a cab took us to La Plaza Disco near downtown San José, an upscale hotspot for the young and beautiful. Emir and I took turns dancing with Lucy, and Ospiña found some women who caught his eye.
He looked like a GQ model — short but trim — and carried himself well. Before he became a money man for the cartel, he had worked at a bank in Medellín. Despite dancing with many of the women in the club, he kept coming back to me with a smile, occasionally running his hand up and down my back, feeling for a wire, and saying, “Mr. Bob, we are going to do the big business.”
At 3 A.M., we headed back to the hotel, and I told Emir, “This guy must be paranoid. He came over to me at least four times at the disco and while talking to me ran his hand up and down my back looking for a wire.”
“Get out of here,” Emir said as though I were crazy. “You’re exhausted. Go to bed.”
First order of business the next afternoon after lunch was signing and giving to Mora forty-six blank checks drawn on the U.S. account of my investment company so he could pay our clients in Colombia while Panama was down.
“With Panama’s present situation —” Ospiña started. “Panama has already definitely canceled.”
I told him I could understand. “Roberto told me that Jorge Ochoa sent him a coffin.”
“That is the system that he has in Colombia,” Ospiña replied. “He always sends a coffin to any person that might have a problem with him.”
And then Ospiña let me know we had competition from a bank in Panama. “Banco de Occidente, my boss has a deposit, a very high-level guarantee, in dollars deposited in Panama. It gave him an absolute security guarantee.”
How could Banco de Occidente provide him with funds seized by Panama while BCCI couldn’t? I offered all the excuses that Awan had given and gave the same assurances that Panama would normalize within a week. It satisfied him, but why was Banco de Occidente so cozy with the cartel? Interesting.
Ospiña had come to Costa Rica to hear about my laundering system and to determine its capacity. His boss had a lot of money that could be made available. If I could prove my organization could handle unlimited funds, his group would provide roughly $50 million per month in cash: $8 million in Houston, $10 million in L.A., $10 million in New York, and $20 million in Detroit.
My head spun. At the average wholesale price of $12,000 per kilo, those numbers meant that there were at least 4,166 kilos sold per month in those cities — which didn’t even include Chicago, Miami, and Philadelphia. There were probably four or five other laundering organizations operating at the same time, taking in just as much cash. The numbers were terrifying.
During the meeting, Ospiña did something that, had his bosses known, would have gotten him killed. He used my hotel phone to contact Don Chepe — and with the assistance of the hotel operator, he announced the numbers with the recorder in my briefcase just a few feet away. A stupid move on his part, but now our office had four or five numbers in Medellín at which they could find Don Chepe, whom Ospiña finally reached.
“Tell him it is Javier. That I’m calling from up here … Javier Mina.” Javier the Mine, Ospiña’s nickname in Medellín because he handled so much of the cartel’s wealth. “What’s up, man? … Fine, man…. Listen, man, I’m here right now in a meeting. We’re talking about those papers [code for currency]…. Yes, about those books [a lot of money]. Yesterday there was a movement in Astros [Houston]. Do you know how much was the amount moved, transferred? … Fine. Of course there still hasn’t been an accounting. Therefore I think that negotiation, with which papers are we going to deal with? … That’s why, then let’s say, that would be, well … in what city? Well, yes … but have you spoken to your father about which future alternative for the location could be more effective? [code for “Where do you want the money sent because of Panama?”] Then it would be best to already settle things here and then talk over there?”
Don Chepe wanted the money received in Houston to be wire-transferred to Uruguay, where he had accounts. Again, interesting. Uruguay had been Awan’s first pick as an alternative to Panama, and after Operation Pisces some of his Colombian clients moved their accounts there, too. BCCI and the cartel were thinking alike. Not a coincidence.
