32 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
32 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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category: "Organized Crime"
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tags:
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- Person
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- Drug_Trafficker
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- Contra
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- Nicaragua
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- Costa_Rica
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- 1980s
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- Dark_Alliance_Investigation
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summary: Brother of FDN officials Aristides and Fernando Sanchez, business partner of Norwin Meneses in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, identified by the FBI as a cocaine source for the Frogman ring in San Francisco.
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---
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Troilo Sánchez Herdocia was a playboy brother of [[FDN]] leaders [[Aristides Sanchez|Aristides]] and [[Fernando Sanchez|Fernando Sánchez]] who served as a cocaine supplier for [[Norwin Meneses]]'s Contra drug network. The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] identified him in November 1982 as a source of cocaine for the [[Frogman Case|Frogman drug ring]] in [[San Francisco]].[^1]
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### Background
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Troilo had been a partner of Norwin Meneses in one of Norwin's nightclubs in [[Managua]] and was one of his drinking buddies. A pilot, Sánchez claimed he flew for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] in [[Nicaragua]] in the early 1960s during preparations for the [[Bay of Pigs]] invasion, which was partly staged from Nicaragua. By the late 1970s he was a hopeless drug addict, spending large sums of his family's fortune on heroin, cocaine, women, and gambling. The [[Sandinistas]] seized what remained, and Troilo and his wife Isanaqui fled to [[Costa Rica]], where they became partners with Norwin Meneses in a bean-processing factory.[^2]
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Norwin Meneses described the relationship as familial: "We are like family. [Isanaqui] came many times to visit my brother Mundo, who was a general and the police chief of Managua and was later assassinated in [[Guatemala]] for the Sandinistas."[^2]
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### Role in Contra Drug Trafficking
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In December 1981, Troilo and [[Horacio Pereira]] met with [[Carlos Cabezas]] in Costa Rica and proposed selling cocaine to raise funds for the [[Contras]]. The FBI identified Troilo as operating out of Costa Rica alongside Horacio Pereira and Fernando Sánchez as a source of cocaine for the San Francisco drug ring. Former Contra official Leonardo Zeledón Rodríguez told UPI in 1986 that "Troilo sold 200 pounds of cocaine and received $6.1 million for it."[^2]
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### Legal Troubles
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Troilo was arrested on drug charges in Costa Rica in the mid-1980s but was acquitted. He recovered from his drug addiction and was living in Nicaragua as of 1998.[^1]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Cast of Characters
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[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 5: "God, Fatherland and Freedom"
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