---
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
tags:
  - Person
  - Person/Intelligence
  - Person/Lawyer
  - Nicaragua
  - 1980s
  - Contra_War
summary: Nicaraguan attorney and son-in-law of General Edmundo Meneses who served as Adolfo Calero's personal lawyer and was publicly accused by the Sandinistas of being a CIA agent involved in a foiled plot to poison Nicaragua's foreign minister.
---
Carlos Icaza was a Nicaraguan attorney and son-in-law of General [[Edmundo Meneses]] who served as the personal attorney of [[Adolfo Calero]] and was publicly accused by the [[Sandinistas]] of being a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] agent. Before the 1979 revolution, Calero had been a CIA agent himself, and Icaza was deeply embedded in the pre-revolution [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] power structure.[^1]

### The Thallium Poisoning Plot

In 1983, the Sandinistas publicly accused Icaza of being a CIA agent and issued a warrant for his arrest. He was charged with being a central conspirator in a foiled CIA plot to poison Nicaragua's foreign minister with a bottle of thallium-laced Benedictine liqueur. Icaza fled Nicaragua.[^1]

### Role with the FDN

After fleeing, Icaza went to work for the [[FDN]] in Honduras, as did his wife. He later became an attorney for [[Norwin Meneses]], arranging the sale of a Salvador Dali painting Meneses owned. Icaza also served as corporate lawyer for economist [[Orlando Murillo]], whom authorities suspected of being Meneses's money launderer.[^1]

### Shielding Macario

During the 1979 revolution, Icaza's home in Managua also housed the Colombian embassy. When [[Jose Macario|Jose Macario Estrada]] was targeted by the Sandinistas, Icaza sheltered him there until Macario could escape the country seven months later.[^1]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 21: "I could go anywhere in the world and sell dope"