DRUG TRAFFICKERS

FERNANDO ARENAS

What was your job and your role?

. . . At the beginning, my job was to take care of the maintenance of the
planes, like keeping the licenses up to date. . . just support. At the time
it didn't relate to anything about drugs, or moving drugs. . . . Every
morning, Carlos had to have his newspapers, every single one. So my role
was basically every morning like a paperboy. I had to go to the farm
everyday with the papers, and any other stuff that we need to send him. . .
That was my main role at the very beginning.

So you got to know him right away. . . . Working in an illegal organization
isn't like getting a job testing Beechcraft airplanes. You're in an illegal
operation. What kind of conditions were placed on you? What if you did
something that compromised the operation?

. . . We never said, "Be careful," or, "If you go this far, you going to be
dead," or something like that. You don't have to say it. It was implicit.
We knew that because of who the people were that we were working with, we
had to keep a low profile, basically. . . . And I had to keep silence of
whatever I was going to do. So my family, my friends, and everybody, I just
had to basically lie to them that I got a job and that was it. Not really
lie, but just don't go farther than that. Are you working? Yes. For whom?
Flying planes. So it doesn't have to be as specific. Just general for the
whole deal.

How did you become his personal pilot?

Well, after I became a pilot for the organization . . . some weeks after
Lara Bonilla, the minister of justice in Colombia, was assassinated. So
that really stirred the pot. The chief pilot was doing the drug flights,
the dope flights. I was doing my stuff. And everything was very quiet,
really; if you can call it quiet in that area, in that business. But it was
okay until Lara Bonilla was assassinated.

Did you have any warning? Did you know that tension was mounting and that
there was going to be an assassination? . . .

The tension was mounting.

Explain that. Why was it?

Well, because Lara Bonilla started a campaign against them. Of course there
was talk and it was going to happen, but we have to be careful. He knows
that we know all about him, blah blah blah, but nothing really concrete
about assassination. When it happened . . . Carlos was angry--not about the
assassination or the attempt--but because he was not warned by Pablo
Escobar about what he was going to do. We were caught with our guard down.
We had to run, really run, trying to hide Carlos. . . . He was already in
hiding, in Colombia on his farm. Everybody knew that he was there, but
there were no attempts at catching him or anything like that.

But with the assassination . . .

With the assassination, it was a completely different environment. The
picture changes completely. The police and the army sent an operation to
the farm trying to catch Carlos, as well as they did in Medellin and every
single place. He was very lucky. Carlos has been very lucky all his life
with this thing. Because he had four or five attempts of catching him and
arresting him, as well as against his life--kidnapping him. I don't know
why he was very lucky, and he always escaped. This one was one of those
occasions that he was not at the farm at the time of the raid. So a few
employees were arrested there, and they remained, probably, two years in
jail, I don't remember. But . . . he was able to escape. . . .

The assassination is on April 29, 1984. What do you do after?

Well, we have to run and we have to hide in a place that was safe for
Carlos. We lost contact with the rest of the people from Medellin for a
couple of days. . . . The radio stations were closed, so they had to run
with those radios to someplace else. We had to change all the frequencies.
. . . We have to change everything: locations, radios, code, names,
everything. So we lost contact with them for a couple of days.

Carlos had a friend . . . who was an M19 [Colombian guerrilla] leader. And
they became friends after the M19 tried to kidnap him one or two years
prior to this. They tried negotiations with the Nicaraguan government to
have a Plan B, like a safe haven. They didn't plan at the beginning that
Nicaragua was to play a main role at all. The only thing that Carlos wanted
was to have a place to hide until everything cools down. . . .

So negotiations had begun to get a hiding place, in case. And now you had
to use it.

Right. . . . The deal, basically, at the very beginning was to let Carlos
stay in Nicaragua for a price. The main contact was Thomas Borges, who at
the time was the minister of interior, if I recall. . . . "La corporacion"
was our house in Nicaragua. It was like a commercial relation between
Nicaragua and a third country, or something like that. I don't recall
exactly what we called it. . . .

So it was a front?

Right. And so, we opened a house there at la corporacion. And when
everything was ready, Carlos moved with the chief pilot to Nicaragua. . . .
We had a specific instruction in how to get there, issued directly by
Thomas Borges, by the air force. No one in Nicaragua knew at the time that
we were doing that, and it was a secret operation. And everyone in that
group was supposed to report to Thomas Borges--nobody else. The military
sometimes, they were like, what the heck is this plane doing here? They
were asking questions. But they always said, "This is a Sandinista
operation, and it's a secret, it's a Thomas Borges operation, don't ask."

So you were surrounded at times by the Sandinista military, protecting you?

Right, all the time. All the time. . . .

Why are the Sandinistas putting you up?

The main reason, from the Sandinistas' point of view, was money. . . . The
M19 were the Sandinistas' friends, and they were supposed to be doing a
favor for them. But they request an amount of money from us to open a house
for us, like rent. The Carlos Lehder organization paid $1 million just to
stay there.

For how long?

For as long as we need, and eventually we will have to give them like a
monthly rent or something like that. We never got to that point, but we
gave them $1 million. It was supposed to be in cash, and it was supposed to
be a secret. So it was supposed to be delivered directly to Thomas Borges
and nobody else; there were no mediators on the money. So our money went
directly from our hands to Thomas Borges' office directly. . . . How he
dealt with that money, I don't know. We never knew that.

Was it US dollars?

US dollars--cash. . . .

So, right after the assassination, you go to Panama.

. . . The first option that they grabbed was to leave Colombia and go to
Panama. We were friends with Noriega. We had already our lab there. We pay
him a little money, because they spent, I don't know how much. Because it
was probably better than Tranquilandia, regarding installations, runway,
supplies, everything. And the other good thing was that Panama, being
halfway to the United States, you can go by either Mexico or the Bahamas.
So it was a special place for them to be. . . .

That was the first option, to go to Panama. . . . Noriega was a friend of
the cartel people, our "friend," in quotes. But at the same time, imagine
if they hit that homerun of catching Escobar, the Ochoas, and the Mexican,
Gacha, in Panama. He would be like a saint for the American government, and
for everybody every place. So he was playing both ends, and at this
specific time, he chose to play the arrest card. He was planning to catch
them, as soon as they land in Panama.

For some reason, as was explained to us later for the pilots, the
instructions the control tower gave to their plane were not really what it
used to be. Because we went to Panama so many times, we started knowing the
controllers, their voices, and the way they instructed the pilots how to
land, where to land, where to park, everything. So the instructions were
not clear enough, were kind of shaky, and were kind of an order instead of
an instruction. So they said, "Something is not clear here." And Pablo
immediately jumps and said . . . "Do not land. How much gas do we have?"
And the pilot said, "We have enough to go to Nicaragua, or to return to
Colombia, either way." . . .

Describe the scale of what they were building in Panama.

Huge scale. Tranquilandia is well known by everybody, I think.
Tranquilandia has been shown in many documentaries, and in the news and
everything. So basically this place in Panama would be like four or five
times better than Tranquilandia, bigger than Tranquilandia, easier to
handle than Tranquilandia. The operation would assign flights, hours, like
any other airport in the world. . . .

So this is to be the biggest industrial production facility for cocaine in
the world?

Right.

And Noriega, as far as you know, had blessed this.

Yes, he blessed that in return for money. How much, I don't know, because
that was part of high-level negotiations. We never knew exactly how much
went to Noriega. But he received a lot of money from them. Carlos never
went to Panama, because Carlos never liked Noriega. He never trusted this
guy. He said, "Don't trust this person, who has been involved with the US
government for many years, and has been on the CIA payroll for so many
years. Don't even talk with him." That was the reason why we went to
Nicaragua, and the rest of the group went to Panama.

Carlos was right.

Yes. Carlos is a very smart person. He is very intelligent. And as I said
before, his obsession is the papers. So he read every single line in every
single paper, so he was up to date with what was going on almost everywhere
in the world . . .

How do you learn about the betrayal by Noriega?

As I was saying before, when they were going to land already, something was
fishy. . . . La corporacion, our house in Nicaragua, already had radios and
all that, and we were in permanent contact 24 hours. . . . Pablo gave
orders to the pilot not to land. So they abort the landing, and immediately
they call Nicaragua, and they say, "We need your help. This is happening
with our plane. We have to be careful. We need a place to be."

Colombian authorities were already warned about what was happening, so they
were already back in Medellin, waiting for the plane . . . coming back. So
the Plan B was necessary. . . . Immediately, Carlos contacted Federico and
Thomas Borges . . . and they get us permission to land. The agreement was
that each group has to pay what Carlos already paid. So it was $1 million
for Gacha, $1 million for the Ochoas, and $1 million for Pablo Escobar,
just for being there. "Pablo, of course," they say, "Yes, no problem." We
need to land some place. So they were directly there, and that night at
dinner was when we learned what really happened in Nicaragua, and why they
had to run to Nicaragua.

Tell me about that dinner. What did you hear?

. . . That Pablo Escobar was really really really--not mad, not upset, not
pissed off--he was just really out of whack with Noriega. He was like,
"This guy is dead. No matter what, he is dead. He was ready to betray us,
and after all we had done for him, after the money that we invested in
Panama, after all the money that we invest in the lab. So this guy is dead,
no matter what, no matter how much, is dead. We already killed a minister,
so we don't care any more about anything. And this guy is dead." . . .
Pablo was the main talker that night. The Ochoas were very quiet. First of
all, Jorge was completely against the idea of going to Nicaragua. He wanted
to go back to Colombia, to any farm, any airstrip, it doesn't matter. He
didn't want to go to Nicaragua at all. The Mexican was quiet . . . but
Pablo was really very outgoing and talkative. . . .

So you're at dinner. Noriega is declared dead by Pablo. What happens next?

We have to save whatever we have, and move it . . . The Sandinistas gave us
a place . . . a hangar where we can park--not just the planes that we were
using, the Carlos Lehder organization--but any other plane that we need, as
well as a place to store the cocaine. And that was the beginning of what
happened in Nicaragua.

Part of this cocaine has to be sent to the States. There was part of the
paste still not processed. At the beginning, the idea was to go back to
Colombia with that cocaine to process it. But then later on, Carlos has an
idea. "Why don't we open a lab here? We have the Sandinistas' protection.
We have airfields. We don't have to worry about airstrips or anything like
that. We have everything here." So that's a good idea. They told him, "No
problem." So that's another money to pay to the Sandinistas, on top of our
monthly rent. That was the idea with that paste, and that paste stayed
there probably until the very end. . . .

The cocaine that we had there was divided into two parts. One was supposed
to be carried by our plane, and the other one was for Barry Seal's plane.
Barry Seal was a friend of the Ochoas from before. He was a pilot that they
really trust very much. . . . The first load, Barry Seal's load, is the
famous load where the picture was taken, with Pablo carrying those things,
and Ochoa carrying those things, and . . . It was a complete mess. . . .
Gacha carried like two, no more than two. Pablo carried one, probably, and
that was the one that really caught him in the act. . . . But they were
very happy doing it, and congratulations to Barry Seal and good luck and
take care, and all that. So Barry Seal left. And after a couple of minutes,
they authorized us to leave, too. So we went back to Colombia, and Barry
Seal went to the States. Of course, it was known already that Barry Seal's
plane had cameras. . . .

How did you learn that?

I don't know. The first thing that we knew that the load was caught by
coincidence, in a traffic stop in the States. There is no coincidence in
this business. So everyone is asking, "Who was not in the operation? Who
don't we know? So who was in the Bahamas, who was in the airstrips, and
everywhere. Who is everywhere? Where is everyone? The drivers? The persons
who is going to stash the cocaine? The person who is going to pick up the
money?" They located every single person to find out what happened, because
there is no coincidence.

Every evidence was pointing to Barry Seal. Of course, the Ochoas said, "No,
no, no, that couldn't be, because he has been a friend of ours for so long.
No, no, no." . . . And after, I don't remember when exactly, but internally
we knew that that was it. And it was so clear, and the Ochoas were so
convinced of that thing, that they launched the operation to find Barry
Seal, and to kill him. It was so clear. Even though we didn't really have
the picture yet, even though we didn't have all that mumbo-jumbo that came
after the picture was introduced to the newspapers, we kind of knew what
was going on there. And after the picture, of course--there is nothing else
that killed this guy.

Who killed Barry Seal?

The Ochoas. . . . The Ochoas really trusted this guy with everything. He
was in Colombia. He knew the families. He was treated like another part of
the family, another member of the family. . . . Jorge especially had . . .
a good time with him. He thought about him as an older brother, something
like that. He really trusted this guy. He really liked this guy. So feeling
betrayed in that way was a huge offense for him. So of course he had to go
out. . . . Fabio wanted to do it personally. Jorge convince him not to,
because of the risk involved. But Fabio really wanted to do it personally.
. . .

After what happened with Barry Seal, the Nicaraguans got too nervous about
what we were doing there. . . . and said, "We need that cocaine out of here
as soon as you can." So we had to take that cocaine out. . . .

At this point, is there a crunch on the cartel for money?

On Carlos, yes. The rest of the guys, no, because this was just one part of
the operations. Even though we were in a big mess . . . the flights
continued going out, taking off from Colombia, as any other regular day.
Somebody else was moving it. Not Carlos' planes, but somebody else's. So
the operation never ended, never stopped. Never.

. . . At one point, Carlos controlled the majority of all transportation.
And then it changed, and more people got involved? . . .

I wouldn't say that he controlled the majority of the transportation
operations. What happened was that Carlos played a very special role in
establishing the business in the States, because he had Norman's Cay. He
was the owner of the island. Pablo sent that little plane that he had in
his farm in Colombia . . . with two or three kilos of cocaine, and Carlos
opens his island to do this. . . . So of course Carlos was a very big
player in this. . . . He was the person that really expanded the view of
the business. Before, they were sending a mule with something in their
stomach, or one kilo here, one kilo there. He opened this as a major
operation. He was the one who really creates the idea of being able to move
thousands and thousands of kilos to the States. . . .

What happened with getting the dope out of Nicaragua?

. . . The Sandinistas wanted to get rid of the cocaine that they have . . .
to prove that they didn't have anything to do with that business. . . . We
had two little vans that we used to move around the city, in Managua. So we
had to use those two vans to move that cocaine that was left after Barry
Seal's flight, right to the house where they were. At the time . . . Pablo,
the Ochoas, and the Mexican were already gone. But we had to move out . . .
to the house where Pablo, and the Ochoas and the Mexican were living at the
time. . . . And later . . . our plane took the cocaine already processed to
Bahamas, and then to the States, and that load was safe. . . .

When you met the killers of Lara Bonilla, did they talk to you about the
assassination?

When they got there, Pablo and the Ochoas and all that . . . there were
about five people with them. We assumed, at that point, that they were just
bodyguards being brought by Pablo and the Ochoas to be part of their
security. Then the time came when we were in the house 24 hours, because we
were not allowed to go out. Later, we did go out, but in the very beginning
we were in the house 24 hours, doing nothing else but wait for either the
option to go back to Colombia, or wait until something happened. So we
started talking about this. And the man who was the group boss started
talking about it, making jokes, about what happened in Colombia. . . . So
finally they get familiar with us, they start trusting us. . . . One day
finally they said, "Do you want to hear the story about the assassination?"
I said, "Yes."

Okay, this is the story. They were planning to kill him as soon as he was
leaving the ministry building, but they couldn't. So they have to follow
him for many, many blocks. The traffic was so heavy that they couldn't find
a place that was safe enough to shoot and run. Finally a guy who died that
day, the one who actually shot Bonilla--the other guys, they were two
motorcycles and two cars, total for the operation. They got to a point in
Bogota, which is very heavy at that time of the evening, like five or six
o'clock in the evening. The cars were stopped. They couldn't move. And the
only motorcycle that had the chance to do something, to shoot, was this
guy. He turned to the other people and says, "Okay, take care of my wife. I
know that I'm going to die. Take care of my wife." So he told the driver,
"Go for it. We're going to do it." He did it by himself, because the others
were stuck back there. He decided to run, and was shot. So as soon as this
happened, the group that was running the operation had to run, of course.
They went to Nicaragua and stayed with us.

Did they talk about who ordered them to do it?

They were Carlos' people, directly. The Mexican didn't care. He didn't know
exactly what happened, what the version was. When he heard, he was ready
and he said, "Good." Jorge and the Ochoas they were not very happy with the
operation. They thought that this is going to launch a huge, huge, huge
operation against us, so this doesn't make any sense. Pablo was the one who
carried over the whole operation. It was their people--his
money--everything was his.

Did everybody live in fear of Pablo? Did you witness that?

Well, fear in that, in this business if you betray, you have to fear that
something is coming, and they're coming after you. . . . If you snitch on
somebody else, you have to be aware that you are dead--whatever happens,
you're dead. . . . At the same token, among the people that were working
with Pablo, there was a great feel of trust. "If Pablo said it, that's
okay. Do it. Don't worry about it. Do it." Not because of fear but because
the whole Medellin cartel trusts their judgment. . . .

What did Carlos think of Pablo?

Carlos never saw them as bigger or better or nothing like that, because he
was equal among equals. He was part of the same group. . . . He always
thought as friends, as partners, as people that he could trust, especially
Pablo.

Was it not true, then, that Pablo is the king of it all?

No, I don't think so. What happened was this. The people who were more
exposed to the public became the people that were feared by the society in
general. But let me give you an example. The Ochoas . . . were not that
open as Pablo in politics. . . . The Ochoas were very settled. A nice
family, very gentle people. They are very family-oriented. So they were not
as feared as the others. . . Fabio Senior is the clear image of a
grandfather that is very good person, an excellent talker, very kind, very
gentle. So this kind of image is the one that we give from the Ochoas.

But they were just as dangerous?

Yes, they could be as dangerous as anybody.

Do you know incidents where they were dangerous?

Like Barry Seal, for example, to give you just one. Of course, for the
Ochoas, it was the last option. So the Mexican was the first option. You do
something? Get rid of him. So Pablo, sometimes yes, and sometimes not. But
for the Ochoas it was, "Let's think about it. Let's try to make a deal with
the person that made the mistake.. . . . As a last resort--there is no
way--we need to kill him? Okay, we have to." But that was their last
resort. . . .

Did you ever hear them . . . discuss extradition in the United States under
the DEA, for instance?

When Carlos said, "I'd prefer to be buried in Columbia than to be in jail
in the United States," he really meant it, and he really expressed the
feeling of all of them. That's basically what happened when Lara Bonilla .
. . said that he is going to reestablish the extradition, and he's going to
send everybody to the States. That is what really stirred the pot. . . .

Do you recount a call where Pablo or Carlos or the Ochoas were saying
something about the Americans--extradition, or their policy of the drug war?

This concept was expressed by all of them, many of the people that were
involved in the drug business at the time, as far as I know. Nothing
happened until we start taking the money out of the United States. One
concept was expressed by Carlos and Pablo, asking, "Who is using that
cocaine? We are not using that cocaine. It is the States." . . . And the
alcohol thing and Prohibition and all of that stuff for 12 years . . . They
said that they could live with the entire Mafia, because the Mafia invests
the money back into the United States again. That was okay. But when we,
Colombians, part of a Third World, we that are nobodies in this world are
taking millions and millions and millions out of the United States, that's
when the United States started thinking about the war on drugs. They were
okay until the money started getting out. . . .

That seems just like a rationalization. Many people in the United States
were in favor of the drug war, because they saw so many people becoming
dangerously addicted to cocaine. There was a lot of child abuse, domestic
violence, shootings and destroyed families. There was never talk about that?

Not really. I don't recall any occasion that they were worried about what
was happening here, no. They were worried about the business, that they
were losing the money they were losing the properties that the US seized. .
. . They say, "We have to be careful." But they never, never said, "We
don't know if this is right or not" . . .

But within the organization, for example, Carlos had a policy that if you
were caught doing cocaine, you were out. You are no longer part of the
organization. Doesn't matter who you are. You could be the lieutenant. You
could be a small soldier. You could be the cook. If you're caught doing
cocaine, you're out. That was one policy, because he said that cocaine
destroys your brain. Crack destroys your brain. Crack and cocaine were "No
way, Jose. You're out of here." If such and such is caught at it, don't
touch it. . . .

Did you ever hear them make jokes about Nancy Reagan, and "Just Say No," or
George Bush talking about getting the drugs at their source? Did you ever
hear them make jokes about Ronald Reagan?

Yes, a lot. The American policy was a laughing matter all of the time,
because of this. On one side, you are launching a huge campaign against
drugs. And then the other side, there are so many people in this country
that use that, Hollywood, business people. . . So yes, they were worried
about the interdiction and all of that, but they were making jokes about
Nancy Reagan's saying "no", when in the meantime we are increasing our
cocaine loads to the States. We were doing, say, 30 tons a year last year.
And now we've sent 60 tons. So where in the heck is that "no" policy that
they were talking about? That kind of stuff, and no specific joke or
anything, no, I don't remember.

What did you think of the DEA?

I was lucky to be caught, because basically if I was not caught at the time
that I was caught, probably I should be dead now--because I was going to a
point of no return. I was having so many problems, the plane that I
crashed, the load that the Mexican assumed that it was my responsibility
and all of that stuff--I was heading to a dead end. So basically, I was
lucky. I was lucky to be caught by the DEA. And I was lucky enough to have
a second chance. Do I agree with all of the DEA policy? Probably not. Do I
praise the DEA? Probably not. But I got a second chance because of the DEA.

What did you think of them at the time that you were flying drugs?

For me--and this is a very personal concept--I knew that I was completely
wrong in what I was doing. I said at the time that I was going to make good
money, and then disappear. This is a concept basically for all of the
pilots. I don't know the other people, but all of the pilots we were
involved in this because we want some money and get out. We wanted to make
a couple of good flights, that we can save for life, and then get out. And
because of the business, today you have money, tomorrow you don't have any.
And then the way you can get back on track is doing another flight. So
something keeps you in there.

Then, after a while, if you go back to your regular life, you miss that
craziness. I have seen many people that go back to the drug business, not
because of the money, but because of the excitement that is behind that. We
are humanly absolutely nutcases. And we feel a different kind of excitement
during that kind of a trip flying and knowing that somebody could be down
there and they're going to catch you--that you're going to spend the rest
of your life in prison or you can be killed by somebody.

This is a crazy excitement that you look for after a while. And that's
basically what happens. It's like an addiction to this stuff. I have seen
so many people going back to this, not because of the money and not because
they don't have enough money, but because they miss that part of the life.

[part of a series]

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