The Infiltrator, page 26
That argument scored points with Armbrecht, who said, “If we can get that worked out, I think that will be the only way. If that gets cleared, then I think it’s a big step toward getting things in the right direction…. That tells me something. That’s very important because they’re coming this way with one story, and then when their guy does it they are saying something different, and that’s very important.”
I dropped another reason why Medellín should question Marta’s claims. A competitor, Eduardo Martinez, had sabotaged previous work we had done for Armbrecht’s group, providing Mora with inaccurate account information, which caused a transfer delay and displeased Armbrecht’s bosses, worrying that our process was slow. It was probably a monkey wrench intentionally tossed in the gears of our system, designed to make us look bad. Marta probably had reasons for someone else to get our business. Maybe she wanted us to look bad to help a friend. More points scored.
Our conversation wandered off again — thankfully — and Armbrecht started ranting about America’s arrogance. After all the saber rattling in Panama, nothing changed, and Noriega hadn’t left the country. He didn’t leave because he had received a quiet, much more effective message from Medellín: that coffin. His friends meant business. They knew the U.S. would replace him with a puppet who would give DEA access to account information leading to their pots of gold.
To put Armbrecht at ease I brought up the impending wedding, which he assured me he’d attend — and then I threw him a curveball, something that would reassure him I wasn’t a narc. I reinforced his opinion of Mora by saying that I was frustrated trying to speak with important people in Medellín through him. Mora was a good man but prone to missing some of the finer points I was trying to convey. As a result, I was planning a trip to Medellín in late October, a few weeks after the wedding, and I wanted an audience with Armbrecht’s bosses. He was willing to help, but he didn’t want to look like he was pushing. Better for Mora to approach them while he encouraged from the sidelines.
Of course I had no intention of visiting Colombia. But the intention put him at ease, got him to lobby for me, and increased the probability he’d be in Tampa for the takedown.
It was nearly 3 A.M. when we shook hands and wrapped things up. He had every intention of letting his bosses know Marta was talking from both sides of her mouth, but he couldn’t promise a positive outcome. We had hit a big bump in the road in New York, but all wasn’t lost. The trouble was that there were now so many enemies in our midst that another crisis could emerge in no time.
And it did.
17
THE FIRST BIG CATCH
* * *
Key Biscayne, Florida
July 22, 1988
“CUSTOMS FUMBLED ON BIG DRUG CARGO, DEA SAYS,” screamed the Washington Times headline just two days later.
A turf war had erupted between Customs and DEA over how Detroit had handled the Giraldo brothers. The article detailed how Florida Customs had traced the first shipment of 220 pounds of cocaine to Detroit, where they filmed sales of the dope to local dealers. No arrests were made, and DEA wasn’t called in again until six months after the Giraldo brothers received another 106 kilos. Only then did authorities take the Giraldos and seven others into custody.
If Armbrecht read the article, he would know the leak came from Florida and would suspect anyone there dealing with the Giraldos, especially anyone involved in laundering — the only jurisdiction Customs had in domestic drug cases. Combine that with the bungled New York surveillance, and it was a wonder that he didn’t have Emir and me whacked on the spot.
But we couldn’t dwell on whether Armbrecht had read the article. Agonizing over that would take me off my game and broadcast fear. I had to deal just with what was before me, so when Alcaíno showed up at my doorstep, I smiled broadly.
As usual, he filled my ear with the latest cartel news, dropping details about who was doing what, including the latest about La Mina, one of my biggest money-laundering competitors, run by Argentineans in L.A. and New York. He gave me their names and the address of their office near Forty-seventh Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan — which helped New York Customs close in on them.
He mentioned, too, that his ton of coke was moving from Buenos Aires to New York and would arrive in two to four weeks. Our office had already sent out a bulletin to Customs inspectors, warning them to look for commercial shipments involving anchovies from Argentina or Brazil, but I needed more detail. Not the right time to press, though.
When I mentioned having problems with another competitor, he raised his brow and smiled. “You might have to go do some crazy thing, finish it, and then you take over the whole pie.” He encouraged everyone else to pour blood in the streets, as long as the aftermath gave him more power.
His biggest new offer came to me in the form of Fabio Ochoa, his partner in the load on its way to New York. Ochoa’s sales generated $10 million to $40 million per month in the U.S., and Alcaíno could land me the lion’s share of that figure. Ochoa was having most of his money flown from the U.S. back to Colombia, but Alcaíno could get that rerouted to me if I was interested.
I was interested. “Count me in,” I said.
Bilgrami came by the house early the next evening with new proposals. He had a client with $700,000 in a safe-deposit box and was offering a 6 percent fee if I’d work the cash through my system and provide a wire transfer. But what Bilgrami really wanted to discuss was bringing my dirty business to him, Awan, and Akbar at Capcom when they left BCCI. I pumped him for details, asking questions like a curious child. Bilgrami panicked when he realized how openly he was talking.
“I really get scared talking about this,” he said, squirming.
“We don’t have to do that,” I assured him. “Whenever, okay? But it sounds interesting.”
He calmed down and then dropped his pants.
“It’s a very good system,” he continued, “and it works out perfectly.”
The plan: I’d give cash to Capcom, which would purchase and sell gold simultaneously through two separate gold dealers. The money from the gold dealer who bought from Capcom would go into whatever account I designated. No link, the flow of funds untraceable. I wanted details, but now wasn’t the time. Bilgrami was tense. Better to wait him out.
When I asked for him at the bank the next day, Awan unexpectedly ushered me to the couches. Awan had been traveling in Panama, Colombia, London, and elsewhere for weeks — I hadn’t seen him in more than a month. I told him I’d be flying to Europe in about three weeks and wondered if he thought I should contact Ziauddin Akbar at Capcom.
“It would be good if you would meet him and see his setup and all that,” Awan said.
It was also a chance to get Akbar on tape. While in Europe, I could make separate stops at the BCCI Paris and London branches to shore up the cases against Chinoy, Baakza, and Howard.
“I don’t know if Akbar [Bilgrami] mentioned to you,” Awan said. “We’re going through a bit of a problem these days. We think there’s another investigation going on. I’ve been with the lawyers for the last couple of days, trying to sort out some things…. We’re just anticipating it to come through. We should have our defenses ready.”
“Why?” I asked, surprised. “Is there grumbling?”
He took a long drag from his Dunhill Blue and exhaled toward the ceiling. “Senate committee again.”
The piercing ring of the boardroom phone interrupted the conversation. Awan reached for the receiver as anger swelled inside me. How the hell could Jack Blum and the subcommittee have resumed their investigation? Top-level Justice Department officials had given them written notice that resuming before October would endanger the operation and our lives. We needed two more months. Dammit.
“Hello?” Awan said, “Yeah, what’s happening? Who? What do you mean? Who said? Who’s saying that? Are you sure? Where did it happen? Who’s telling you this? Yeah, in the embassy. Let me call. I’ll call you back.” He looked like he’d seen a ghost as he hung up. “Give me one moment,” he said, dialing a number and confirming what he’d just heard.
“We just received some news,” he said to me finally. “The president of my country was killed in a plane crash. We just got it — I mean, that’s all I got, and they suspect that the Russians shot it down. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan was killed, too” — as were other key Pakistani officials, including the director of intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
As Awan left the room, Bilgrami entered with documents needed to move money to Panama, which was still in play, and then addressed the Capcom plan. I’d have to place half a million in a portfolio account in London in the name of an offshore company I controlled. The only activity in that account would be the placement and management of that half million — seed money that entitled me to launder $1.5 million per month through Capcom’s own massive operations account.
Our monthly delivery of $1.5 million looked like a cup of water poured into a fifty-gallon rain barrel with a hundred spigots. In the course of a day’s business, Capcom might open a few or all of their spigots to pay different precious-metals dealers for gold. They might sell to fifty other precious-metals dealers, which lifted fifty more cups of water back into the barrel. But — and here was the trick — they could instruct the precious-metals dealers to whom they sold gold to send payment to any account in the world, rather than returning those funds to Capcom. Delivery of laundered money to the cartel went through unsuspecting gold dealers. Capcom didn’t even have to risk wiring funds to cartel accounts. It was utterly perfect.
To cover their tracks and ensure they didn’t lose money on the fluctuating gold market, Capcom would buy and sell $1.5 million worth of gold in their name simultaneously, charging me a fee of 1.5 percent. To launder the first installment, they’d take a $22,500 commission — and hoped, of course, that we’d occasionally increase the half-million balance in the portfolio account.
I offered to place the half million in seed money on deposit with Capcom immediately.
Bilgrami’s eyes lit up. “Okay, why don’t we do this? Why don’t we do this? I have all the agreements here. Why don’t you sign one, and we’ll make the first run, and you meet him in September?”
Then he put the squeeze on and upped the ante, asking that I place a million dollars with Capcom, half on deposit and half as a test run for channeling funds to one of my clients. When I agreed, Bilgrami’s pen darted from form to form, papers flying.
But before I left, he made a damning suggestion. He recommended I visit a spy shop on Brickell Avenue where he bought equipment for BCCI offices in Miami and Colombia. He had noticed equipment capable of detecting recording devices and thought I should invest in same for conversations with people I didn’t trust. Yet more proof that BCCI was rotten to the root, and validation that the bank had probably monitored my conversation in the boardroom with Mora. Thankfully, Saul Mineroff’s foresight and special alloy casing neutralized that threat.
Outside, I hit the pay phones and called Customs.
“I just left a meeting at BCCI. I guess you’ve heard that President Zia of Pakistan, the U.S. ambassador, and a bunch of senior officials were killed when their plane exploded in Pakistan?”
They hadn’t.
“Never mind,” I said. “I was just checking in to let you guys know everything was under control.”
Later that day, news of President Zia’s death hit the wire.
I learned consequential international news before the rest of the world and learned more from my dirty bank contacts and cartel clients in one day than anyone carrying a badge and a gun could by pounding the pavement for a month. It was turning me into an information junkie, wanting to run from target to target to learn as much as I could before our window of opportunity slammed shut forever.
Which reminded me …
Saad Shafi, head of BCCI Nassau, had asked me to visit him in the Bahamas to work out a more formal relationship. A quick call determined he still stood by his invitation. And there was Tuto Zabala, with whom I also had unfinished business. And he probably still needed help collecting the debt from the Cubans in Chicago.
“Yes, I would really appreciate your help,” Zabala said. “Let’s get together so I can give you the details. How much would that cost?”
Best if we talked in person, I said, promising to contact him in a few days. With less than two months left, I had just enough time to gather intel about his customers in Chicago. Time to turn to Dominic, who made a living prying money from the hands of dopers who’d stiffed his bosses. He could school me on everything I needed to know.
“First, you tell him your people charge fifty percent,” Dominic said.
“Fifty sounds like a lot,” I said.
“Well, it does to you ’cause you ain’t done this before. Like I used to tell da guys I did this for: nothin’ from nothin’ is nothin’, so for fifty percent you get a lot more than nothin’…. You’ll need every piece of information he can give you, especially if he has any idea if dese guys are working with people who are connected. Tell him that if dese Cubans are working with someone connected there might be a peaceful way this can be resolved and you definitely don’t want to fuck with somebody who you later find out is connected. It could start a war. You need to ask him how far he wants you to go, you know, to find out if you’ve got the green light to take these people out — just ask him if he wants your people to go all the way.”
Zabala picked me up at Miami International from a quick trip to Tampa.
“I have the people in Chicago who can get this done,” I told him. “It’ll cost you fifty percent. How much do they owe you?”
“A hundred and ten thousand. The fee is okay,” he said, briefing me about Pepe and José Hurtado, the Cubans in Chicago with ties to Miami who carried guns and ran two grocery stores on North Milwaukee Avenue and West Washington Boulevard. Zabala had sold fourteen kilos a month to them over the last three years, but he had no idea if they had mob connections. They did have a Chicago detective on their payroll, however. Zabala promised to provide their business addresses, home addresses, descriptions, and phone numbers.
When I requested photos, Zabala suggested that a member of his family, an employee of the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles, could help. He claimed that she routinely gave him information from state files.
“If we have to,” I asked, making a gun gesture with my hand, “do you want my people to go all the way?”
He nodded.
When he dropped me off on Key Biscayne, I told him it would take two weeks to make sure the Hurtados didn’t sell to the mob and another four to get everything in place to grab one of them.
“Thanks, Bob,” he said, “and if you can use me to move money or merchandise anywhere in the States or foreign, keep me in mind.”
The amphibious prop jet taxied past giant cruise ships in Miami harbor. We had six weeks before the world learned that Emilio Dominguez and Robert Musella were feds. So this had to be a quick trip: get Shafi on tape and get back to Miami as soon as possible.
Shafi offered typical BCCI hospitality, a chauffeured Mercedes and lavish meals. But I was there for business, and it was time to talk. Shafi met with me in the privacy of my hotel room. I asked if we could deposit large sums of currency so my clients in Colombia could receive wire transfers from his branch.
“Sure, sure,” he said. “That’s not — we are equipped here for everything…. You name a transaction, we know it, so we are fully equipped to handle any kind of thing.”
“The biggest concern I have,” I said, “is one that, if we do business, you and I would share, which is to maintain the absolute confidentiality and secrecy of every transaction that we have.”
“Sure, sure.”
I explained the services I provided to my Colombian clients, how we received boxes of cash, deposited them to accounts of cash-generating businesses, and disguised the transfer of funds to their accounts as loan proceeds.
Shafi didn’t flinch. He was more than happy to take those funds, place them in secret CDs, and extend separate loans in like amounts unlinked to the deposits. He, too, had graduated with honors from BCCI’s money-laundering 101 class.
Then I gave him my canned speech about the source of my Colombian clients’ funds and Lee Iacocca. “What they do is their business. What I do is my business, and I’m a wall between them and yourself.”
“Sure,” he said. “We try to give the best quality of service in terms of good banking, plus confidentiality. Once you feel comfortable, you’ll automatically give — that’s our policy.”
Shafi would happily launder as much as we could bring, but he wanted some funds to stay on deposit. If we had $20 million to clean, he wanted to hold $1 million while he pushed the other $19 million through, and he cited the importance of his end-of-year balance sheet. As long as I had big deposits with his branch on December thirty-first, I’d get first-class treatment.
“Now that you have taken me into confidence,” Shafi said, “I can assure you that, if God forbid, if I have anything” — a problem — “I’ll tell you up front. But that, of course, I’ll do in confidence also. As of now, I don’t feel any problem. I feel that everything should run perfectly.”
To reassure me, Shafi claimed that, if the U.S. ever inquired about my banking in Nassau, he would know. He maintained a close friendship with the prime minister, Sir Lynden Pindling.
Back in Miami, Zabala was at my doorstep with a list of details about the Hurtados. In exchange, I invited him and his wife to my wedding, which he quickly accepted. Then, icing on the cake, I told him I needed him to pick up cash in Miami.
What he didn’t know was that he would be receiving cash from undercover agents and, after holding the money for a day, delivering it right back to other undercover agents. This illusion of movement gave him the impression that he was a trusted member of our organization. Paying him to pick up, hold, and deliver the cash bought his loyalty, which I’d need as October drew closer.
