CASTRO: 2 SHIPPED DRUGS THROUGH CUBA

HAVANA -- (AFP) -- President Fidel Castro has accused two Spanish
businessmen of using Cuba as a major drug export staging point for cocaine
shipments between Colombia and Europe.

Castro made the accusation in a speech late Tuesday before 5,000 police
officers celebrating the 40th anniversary of the National Revolutionary
Police. The speech was broadcast by Cuban television 24 hours later.

He said Jose Llorca and Jose Herrera "probably" participated in
international drug-trafficking operations "under the guise of
import-export" business for Artesania Caribena Poliplast, a plastic
manufacturing company the two men set up in Cuba.

The suspects are implicated in a cocaine shipment concealed in shipping
containers seized last month in Colombia, according to the Cuban leader.

He said Cuban police had determined that both men were also carrying out
"money laundering operations through loans to Cuban businesses."

The two Spanish businessmen, Castro said, imported plastic products from
Colombia in containers and then exported their own products to Spain, also
in containers.

"Between Aug. 28 and July 17 of 1998," Castro said, "14 containers destined
for Vigo, Spain, arrived in Cuba from Colombia by way of Kingston, Jamaica."

He said the shipments "are related to four possible drug-trafficking
operations before the one detected in Colombia" in early December.

"Four of those containers are presently in Cuba because they returned from
their destination in Europe," Castro said, adding that police found in them
"evidence that they had been used for drug-trafficking operations."

"In particular, [police] discovered four empty compartments" similar to
those detected by Colombian police in their drug seizure last month.

Colombia announced Dec. 6 that it had seized 7 tons of cocaine in the
northern port cities of Cartagena, Barranquilla and Santa Marta during an
investigation into a group of traffickers who were using Cuba as a staging
point for drug shipments to Europe and the United States.