DRUG TRAFFICKING THROUGH CUBA ON THE RISE, INVESTIGATORS SAY

HAVANA -- Cuba, once considered off-limits to drug trafficking, is
confronting a noticeable narcotics problem amid signs that the island has
become a conduit for multi-ton shipments of cocaine.

At first, police in Colombia thought it was an anomaly on Dec. 3 when they
seized a 7.2-ton load of cocaine packed in shipping containers and bound
for Cuba.

But Colombian authorities are now certain that smugglers have utilized Cuba
as a major transshipment point for cocaine before.

"No one dares to send 7 tons at one blow unless they've tested the route,"
said a Colombian law enforcement source who spoke on condition of
anonymity.

He said investigators looking into the Barranquilla, Colombia, shipping
firm that dispatched the drug-laden containers in December found that the
same company had shipped containers via Cuba on seven previous occasions in
1997 and 1998.

"How much cocaine was sent? We don't know," the source said.

In the past, a few senior Cuban military officials have been accused of
helping to facilitate the flow of drugs through Cuban waters or airspace,
but this case is bigger and the drugs involved were touching down on Cuban
soil.

President Fidel Castro, admitting that the latest shipments may have passed
through Havana, recently demanded the death penalty for drug traffickers.

"The harm that this is causing us, that this is beginning to cause, isn't
only a matter of prestige but also the foothold that this mortal poison is
gaining among our youth," Castro said in a tough speech on crime Jan. 5.

Drug arrests increase

Reading from an Interior Ministry report, Castro said drug arrests and
seizures had almost doubled in 1998. Authorities seized 234 pounds of
cocaine in 101 busts, and 177 pounds of marijuana in 978 incidents inthe
first 10 months of 1998, he said.

"For possession and trafficking, 1,216 people were arrested, which
indicates the rise in this criminal activity," he read from the report.

Given Cuba's vaunted system of state security, the sale of cocaine and
marijuana was growing surprisingly common in Havana discotheques until
authorities flooded streets with police early this month, residents say.
The presence of narcotics has risen alongside Cuba's booming tourism and
the opening of the economy to foreign investors.

Castro accused two Spanish investors of masterminding the 7.2-ton cocaine
shipment seized in Colombia, saying Jose Royo Llorca and Jose Anastasio
Herrera fled Cuba for Spain because Colombia did not notify his government
quickly enough.

The two men are in Valencia, Spain, and have been notified by a court in
Madrid that they have become part of a criminal inquiry, their lawyer,
Salvador Guillem, told The Herald.

Involvement denied

Guillem said neither Spaniard had anything to do with the cocaine and that
Havana may be seeking to confiscate some $550,000 in assets they invested
in a small factory that makes plastic souvenirs, ashtrays and lamps.

"Strains had developed with the Ministry [of Light Industry] and they were
in the process of negotiating the factory's closure. It's possible this
[drug allegation] is being used as an excuse by the Cuban government to
seize my clients' assets," Guillem said.

The cocaine seized Dec. 3 was packed in compartments hidden in six shipping
containers, police said. The containers were routed to Havana via Kingston,
Jamaica. The Barranquilla shipping company, E.I. Caribe, had sent 20
containers in 1997 and 1998 to Royo's Havana factory, Artesania Caribe
Poliplast & Royo, Colombian authorities said.

Still unclear is any role Cubans may have had in facilitating the drug
shipments.

In his speech, Castro maintained that Cubans were not involved: "No signs
have occurred that implicate Cubans in international narcotics trafficking,
although a few [Cubans] have not followed norms and established procedures,
thus allowing the activity to occur."

Castro said the two Spaniards rented 14 cabanas at Rio Cristal, a
palm-fringed resort near Havana's airport, for months at a time, and
sometimes hosted expensive and unruly parties.

He also said they had set up a financing office in Panama, GFA Financial
Group, that was offering $12 million in credit lines to Cuban state
companies in an apparent money-laundering scheme.

Not well known

The Spaniards kept a low profile in Havana's small business circles.

A French motorcycle vendor who visits Cuba often and is friends with Royo
and Herrera voiced shock at Castro's allegations.

"They are not guilty. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I am 99 percent sure,"
Jean Louis Honteberi said in a telephone interview from Biarritz, France.
Of Royo, he added: "He doesn't have much money. When I heard what Fidel
Castro said about him, I thought, `This isn't true.' "

The drug seizure in Colombia was the second-largest in that country last
year, slightly surpassed by a bust four months earlier of drugs bound for
Mexico, police said.

Concern about the use of Cuba as a transshipment point led Cuba and
Colombia to sign a drug cooperation accord during a visit to Havana by
Colombian President Andres Pastrana this month. Colombia's national police
chief, Rosso Jose Serrano, told The Herald later that cooperation between
the two countries "is going well."

Charges of complicity in drug trafficking by Cuban officials have surfaced
occasionally. U.S. officials say they believe drug-laden airplanes from
Colombia have dropped cocaine packets in Cuban territorial waters.

In November 1982, a federal grand jury in Miami indicted four Cuban
government officials, including a vice-admiral of the navy, for allegedly
permitting smugglers to use the island as a transshipment point for
Quaaludes, marijuana and cocaine. The accused were never arrested.

In 1989, Cuban authorities ordered the firing squad executions of army Gen.
Arnaldo Ochoa and Interior Ministry Col. Antonio de la Guardia for drug
trafficking and treason.

And just two days before Castro addressed police, in early January, de la
Guardia's 34-year-old daughter, Ileana, filed suit in Paris, where she is
living in exile, charging that Castro knew of cocaine shipments through
Cuba by the Medellin Cartel in the late 1980s.