The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Marcos Aguado.md

title	aliases	created	updated	category	tags	summary	location	relations
Marcos Aguado	Marcos Aguado Marco Aguado Marco Antonio Aguado Arguello Marcus Aguado	2026-05-17	2026-10-08	Military	Person Military Contras ARDE Nicaragua CostaRica ElSalvador Ilopango CIADrugTrafficking KerrySubcommittee DarkAllianceInvestigation 1980s 1990s	Nicaraguan pilot who ran air operations for Eden Pastora's ARDE forces, named in CIA and Senate records of Contra drug allegations, later based at Ilopango in El Salvador.	Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador	type with start role fn employed_by Eden Pastora 1984-09 personal pilot, per the CIA inspector general's Volume II account 1 type with start role fn head_of ARDE 1984-09 Chief of Air Operations, FRS/ARDE, per the CIA inspector general's Volume II account 1 type with role fn relative_of Eden Pastora son-in-law, according to Pastora as recorded by the CIA inspector general 1 type with start role fn partner_of Norwin Meneses 1986-05 C-47 sale and business association, per Webb's account of Aguado's statements 2 type with start end role fn participant_in Contras 1983 1986-05 Southern Front air operations; quit in May 1986 according to Webb 1 type with reverse start end role fn investigated Kerry Committee true 1986-04 1988-12 Senate subcommittee deposition and hearing testimony on Contra drug links 4 type with reverse start role fn investigated Fred Hitz true 1998-10 CIA inspector general, Volume II review of Contra drug allegations 1

Marcos Aguado, recorded in the official files as Marco Antonio Aguado Arguello and in the Justice Department glossary as Marcus Aguado, was a Nicaraguan pilot who served as air operations chief of Eden Pastora's ARDE forces in Costa Rica from 1984. Central Intelligence Agency cables, Senate subcommittee hearings and a Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General review recorded allegations that he was involved in drug trafficking, and the reporter Gary Webb named him in the Dark Alliance series. He later worked at Ilopango Airbase in El Salvador.

Early service

The CIA inspector general's account of Aguado's background states that he was a Sandinistas Air Force pilot from 1979 to 1980 and then a commercial pilot for Aeronica until he defected in 1983 and joined the Contras.¹ Webb's cast of characters calls him a "CIA-trained pilot" and a business associate of Norwin Meneses.² In his October 31, 1987 videotaped deposition, played at the April 1988 hearing, Aguado said that he became head of the southern air force and then second in command to Pastora.³

In an April 1983 cable the agency recorded that Aguado had been offered a job flying an aircraft for the Southern Front. By September 1984 it recorded him as Chief of Air Operations for the Sandino Revolutionary Front (FRS) and ARDE and as Pastora's personal pilot. According to Pastora, Aguado was also his son-in-law.¹

Air operations for ARDE, 1984 to 1986

A December 1984 cable reported that Pastora had designated Aguado "one of his 18 commandantes, to be in charge of air operations and logistics at Ilopango." The same cable said that Aguado had not flown any missions inside Nicaragua since September 1983, that he "is closely associated with" Pastora, Adolfo Chamorro and Gerardo Duran, and that "as such he may very well be actively participating in alleged narcotics activities . . . or at least aware of such activities."¹

The Kerry Committee described Aguado in its December 1988 report as "Eden Pastora's air force chief." In his deposition Aguado said that traffickers "took advantage of the anti-Communist sentiment which existed in Central America" and "undoubtedly used it for drug trafficking," and that "They fooled people."³⁴ Referring to the Contra resupply operations, he said the traffickers used "the same connections, the same air strips, the same people," and that the drugs "would later on go to the U.S."⁴

The Morales aircraft

The subcommittee report reproduces a notarized purchase order dated October 1, 1984, under which a McDonnell-Douglas DC-3, the civilian designation for a C-47, was transferred to Aguado for one dollar, signed by George Morales as seller and by Aguado as purchaser.⁴ The subcommittee found that $10,000 had been given to Chamorro to cover the cost of moving the aircraft from Haiti to Ilopango.⁴ The CIA inspector general records a C-47 flown from Haiti to El Salvador by Aguado on October 16, 1984, under an agreement that Chamorro reached in Miami with an unidentified Cuban trafficker.¹ The subcommittee identifies the trafficker as Morales.⁴

Between October 18, 1984 and February 12, 1986, the subcommittee reported, some 156,000 pounds of material were moved from Ilopango to airfields in Costa Rica on 24 flights, eleven of them to La Penca on the Nicaraguan side of the San Juan River.⁴ A U.S. Customs Service document furnished to the subcommittee showed that Morales entered the United States from the Bahamas on October 13, 1984 with Aguado, Octaviano Cesar and Chamorro, and that the three declared $400,000 in cash and checks. They said the money had been returned to Morales after clearing Customs.⁴

Webb quotes Jonathan Kwitny's 1987 reporting in The Nation that the C-47 was "repeatedly piloted into and out of Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador by Marcos Aguado."² Webb also reports that when Aguado quit the war in May 1986 he sold the aircraft for $30,000, to Meneses, and that in 1997 Aguado said the plane was still being used by Meneses in Venezuela.²

Where Morales met the Contra leaders

The subcommittee report says that Marta Healey introduced Morales to Chamorro, Aguado and Cesar at a meeting in Miami, and that Morales was then under indictment for marijuana smuggling. According to the report, each of the three Contra leaders denied knowing of the indictment when they first met Morales at Healey's house in Miami.⁴ Webb places a March 1984 meeting at Morales's offices in Fort Lauderdale.² The Justice Department Inspector General records Morales as saying that after Healey's May 1984 approach he met with Cesar, Chamarro and Aguado in Miami.⁵ Celerino Castillo writes that Healey, the former wife of Chamorro, approached Morales in 1984 after his second arrest and arranged a meeting with Chamorro, "Southern group air force chief Marcos Aguado" and Cesar, and that Aguado and Cesar told Morales they were CIA agents and asked for financial and military assistance.⁶ Morales told the subcommittee that he agreed to help the Contras "with their needs," and that "they in exchange would help me with my objective, which was solving my indictment."⁴

The same debriefing places a June 1983 meeting at Opa Locka airport, attended by members of the Medellin Cartel, which Morales said Aguado and Gerardo Duran had flown a group into. Morales said that Aguado refused to fly the cocaine shipments because of his "CIA connections."⁵

Alan Fiers, then chief of the agency's Contra program, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on July 31, 1987 that Morales had seen John Hull in Morales's office with Aguado in 1983, but that Morales had not met Hull.⁷

Morales's testimony that they were CIA agents

In the July 15, 1987 hearing Morales testified that the Contra leaders "represent themselves as CIA agents," and that he "heard about they being CIA agents," naming Cesar and Aguado.⁸ At the April 7, 1988 hearing he gave the fuller account that "they told me that they were CIA agents. Two of them said they were," followed by the names of Cesar and Aguado.³

Cables from 1985 to 1988

A May 1985 cable stated that Aguado, then an FRS/ARDE pilot, could "easily" provide concrete evidence linking Karol Prado, Pastora and other Southern Front Contras to drug trafficking.¹ A January 1986 cable said that Aguado "should have knowledge of the recent arrest" of Gerardo Duran, which the cable tied to a 600-kilogram shipment of cocaine from Morales.¹

In April 1986, Adolfo Chamorro planned to denounce Carol Prado, Eden Pastora and Marco Aguado as being the ones involved in drug trafficking, and said he had the evidence to prove it. A DEA debriefing of Chamorro on April 25, 1986 produced no narcotics information, and the cable reported that "all Chamorro wanted to talk about were politics and war."¹

In April 1987 a station reported that an embassy officer had been told that Aguado, Prado, David Mayorga, Chamorro and Duran "are presently involved in shipping cocaine from Nicaragua via Costa Rica to the United States."¹ In July 1987 a message from Octaviano Cesar said that Aguado wanted to contact the CIA to provide information tying Pastora to "past drug trafficking." The station declined to meet Aguado because of counterintelligence concerns and passed the information to the local DEA office.¹

On July 31, 1987, Fiers gave the Senate Intelligence Committee an account of the narcotics allegations concerning Aguado, Cesar, Mayorga, Adolfo and Roberto Chamorro and Duran.⁹

In March 1988 a station cable reported that Reyner Veliz Cruz, a Guatemalan described as a suspected drug trafficker, had been traveling with Aguado, and that the two had flown twin-engine aircraft into Ilopango in February 1988 and again in March 1988, after customs officers had left. The cable said that Aguado "has bragged that he still works for CIA," that customs personnel at Ilopango "assume that Aguado has connections with drug trafficking," and that Aguado could not obtain a United States visa.¹⁹

The agency's own assessment reads: "No information has been found to indicate that CIA ever attempted to develop additional independent information that would confirm or refute the allegations against Aguado."¹

Iran-Contra testimony

Robert Owen, a courier for Oliver North, testified in his Iran-Contra Affair deposition that Aguado was Pastora's pilot: "He was Pastora's pilot. There was concern about him."¹⁰ The subcommittee report says that Owen told the Iran-Contra committees he had told North that Prado was involved in trafficking drugs out of Panama, and that Pastora's pilot, Marco Aguado, "was also involved." The subcommittee was unable to validate Owen's claims. Prado denied the allegations and said he believed the drug trafficking allegations against Pastora were the result of a CIA effort to discredit him.⁴

Costa Rica and the Hull ranch

Webb says Aguado was "formally accused" of cocaine trafficking in Costa Rica and was no longer welcome there.² The CIA inspector general reports that in a March 7, 1989 summary, a Costa Rican judge had charged Hull with "hostile acts" and "drug trafficking." Costa Rican court documents claimed that planes piloted by Duran and Aguado had landed at Hull's airstrips carrying military supplies and, with Hull's knowledge, left loaded with drugs.⁷ Hull has said that the allegations of Gary Wayne Betzner are "not true, not true!"⁷

Ilopango

The Mercury News reported in 1996 that Meneses described Aguado as one of his oldest friends and said he worked for the Salvadoran air force high command.¹¹ Webb states that Aguado made arrangements for Pastora's planes to be hangared at Ilopango from 1983 under an agreement with the Salvadoran Air Force.² Soon after North set up his resupply operation at the base, Webb writes, Aguado moved there permanently as an aide to a high-ranking Salvadoran air force commander.² The Christian Science Monitor reported in October 1986 that the Contras had used Ilopango "at least since 1984," and that General Juan Rafael Bustillo "has been a major contact person for aiding the contra shipments, according to diplomats and other informed sources."¹²

The Justice Department Inspector General glossary lists "AGUADO, Marcus" as "Contra pilot at Ilopango Airport, alleged drug trafficker, and reportedly Eden Pastora's representative in El Salvador."¹³

Enrique Miranda's account

Webb describes Enrique Miranda as a former Sandinista intelligence officer who became a CIA double agent during the Contra war. Webb dates Miranda's testimony to a 1992 trial in Nicaragua and quotes it: "Norwin was selling drugs and tunneled the benefits to the Contras with help of high-ranking military officials of the Salvadoran Army, especially with the help of the head of the Salvadoran Air Force and a Nicaraguan pilot named Marcos Aguado."² Webb's notes date the testimony to a Nicaraguan case against Meneses filed in 1991.¹⁴ The Justice Department Inspector General dates the Nicaraguan trial to 1991 and records Miranda's sentence of fourteen years in August 1992.¹⁵

The CIA inspector general summarizes Miranda's allegation that Aguado flew weapons to Medellín, Colombia, during the 1980s and returned with cocaine that he stored at Ilopango.¹ Miranda told the Justice Department Inspector General's investigators in 1997 that Aguado had said he flew Salvadoran military planes from Ilopango to a military airport in Texas, that Aguado frequently described flying to Colombia with weapons and returning with cocaine stored at Ilopango, and that American planes then came to El Salvador with weapons and went back to the United States with drugs.¹⁵ Webb quotes Miranda as saying that Aguado "became a colonel in the Salvadoran Air Force, sharing all the privileges of a high-ranking military officer in El Salvador and was accepted by subordinate ranks as Deputy Commander of the Salvadoran Air Force," and that "The flights he directed went as far as Colombia, where they were loaded with cocaine and then redirected to the United States, to a U.S. Air Force base located in the state of Texas."² Webb reports that Miranda said Aguado and Meneses supervised the loading of cocaine at Ilopango onto U.S.-bound aircraft owned by the Salvadoran Air Force and, on occasion, by Southern Air Transport, a Miami-based CIA contractor.²

Webb reports that Miranda testified he had dined with Aguado at Meneses's mansion in Managua in 1991, where Aguado described flying for the Colombian cartels. Aguado is quoted as saying that he once took a Salvadoran Air Force bomber and leveled a warehouse of Medellín cartel cocaine on behalf of the rival Cali cartel, and that he planned to bomb the prison where Pablo Escobar had been briefly held.² Webb reports that Miranda doubted Aguado's boast about flying weapons to the cartels until a Salvadoran Air Force colonel and his associates were arrested in 1992 for selling bombs and high explosives to Colombian drug dealers.²

The inspector general's assessment is that "the failure to report such important information in 1996 makes it difficult to credit Miranda's account in 1997."¹⁵ The same chapter records that Miranda said Meneses had invited him to watch the Texas operation, but that when pressed he said he had not seen it occur, and that most of what he told the investigators came second-hand, mostly from Meneses.¹⁵ The CIA inspector general's summary states: "No information has been found to support Miranda's allegations."¹

Webb reports that Miranda and former Nicaraguan antidrug official Roger Mayorga placed the Texas base near Fort Worth, without knowing its name. Webb says that the only air force base near Fort Worth at the time of the alleged flights was the now-closed Carswell Air Force Base, home of a Strategic Air Command bomber squadron, and that the U.S. Air Force told a requester in a 1997 Freedom of Information Act case that the flight records for Salvadoran military aircraft in the mid-1980s had been destroyed years ago.²

The Meneses trailer and the 1991 seizure

The San Jose Mercury News reported on August 18, 1996 that during Meneses's 1991 trial in Nicaragua, Meneses testified that Aguado sold him an auto transport trailer that Meneses's men were stuffing with cocaine when Nicaraguan police arrived. Aguado was not charged, and the newspaper could not reach him for comment.¹¹ Webb gives the price as $125,000, and writes that in an interview Aguado denied knowing how Meneses would use the trailer, although Miranda said he was present when Aguado and Meneses discussed drug trafficking one evening at Meneses's mansion.² The Justice Department Inspector General records that Miranda and Meneses were arrested by Nicaraguan authorities in November 1991 in connection with the seizure of 764 kilograms of cocaine bound from Managua to the United States.¹⁵

The 1992 bomb case

In April 1992 Semana reported that Salvadoran authorities had uncovered a plan to kill Escobar in the Envigado prison. An immigration officer at San Salvador's airport noticed two Colombians who had changed their names to re-enter El Salvador, and detectives followed them to a February 22, 1992 meeting with Roberto Antonio Leiva Jacobo, whom Semana identified as an army colonel. The Colombians were lost to surveillance on February 25. Semana reports that five 500-pound bombs were taken from a battalion at the San Salvador airport on February 26, that Leiva and his men were arrested on March 4 with one of the bombs, after a small aircraft they had used left with part of the cargo, and that Leiva and his associates confessed that they had been hired by members of the Cali cartel, which paid four million dollars for the bombs.¹⁶

Later record

Webb's cast of characters lists Aguado as "Currently in San Salvador," and describes John Hull as having worked closely with suspected drug traffickers Aguado and Dagoberto Nunez on Contra projects in Costa Rica.² Webb also writes that Aguado was a close associate of Hull, and that Morales said in testimony that Cesar and Aguado made clear that if he assisted them they could make his legal problems disappear.²

Footnotes

---

1. CIA Inspector General, Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Volume II (October 8, 1998), section on Marcos Antonio Aguado in the Southern Front chapter, https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/south.html ↩︎

2. Gary Webb, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (Seven Stories Press, 1998), Chapter 13, "The wrong kind of friends," and the Cast of Characters entry for Aguado. ↩︎

3. U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: The Cartel, Haiti and Central America, Part 3, hearing of April 7, 1988, testimony of Jorge Morales (pp. 297-300) and the videotaped deposition of Marcos Aguado taken October 31, 1987 (pp. 277-286 as cited in the subcommittee report), https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0005 ↩︎

4. U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Prt. 100-165 (December 1988), pp. 37, 50-52 and notes 74-84, https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras ↩︎

5. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy (December 1997), Chapter XI, section on the debriefing of George Morales, https://irp.fas.org/agency/doj/oig/c4rpt/ch11p1.htm ↩︎

6. Celerino Castillo III and Dave Harmon, Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War (1994), pp. 141 and 143 (p. 143 also reports that Aguado, Cesar and Karol Prado gave depositions to Senator Kerry in Costa Rica), archive.org lending copy powderburnscocai00cast_0. ↩︎

7. CIA Inspector General, Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Volume II (October 8, 1998), chapter on other individuals (John Hull; March 7, 1989 reporting; July 31, 1987 SSCI briefing transcript), https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html ↩︎

8. U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: Hearings Before the Subcommittees ... May 27, July 15, and October 30, 1987, Part 1 (1988), testimony of Jorge Morales, July 15, 1987, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0003 Gary Webb, in Dark Alliance (1998) and its chapter notes to Chapter 13, dates the "CIA agents" statement to "1986 congressional testimony" and gives the dates April 7, 1986 and March 27, 1987. ↩︎

9. CIA Inspector General, Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Volume II (October 8, 1998), chapter on pilots, companies and other individuals (October 24, 1984 Nicaraguan Program Summary; July 31, 1987 Fiers briefing; March 23, 1988 cable on Reyner Veliz Cruz), https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/pilots.html ↩︎

10. Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B, Volume 20, deposition of Robert Owen, pp. 849-850, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152840_0248 ↩︎

11. San Jose Mercury News, August 18, 1996 (Gary Webb, "Testimony Links U.S. to Drugs-Guns Trade Dealers Got Their 'Own Little Arsenal,'" the Dark Alliance series; newspaper text as reproduced at the URL), https://people.duke.edu/~ldbaker/clippings/da1.html. ↩︎

12. "Salvador airport said to be transfer point for arms to contras," Christian Science Monitor, October 10, 1986, https://proof.csmonitor.com/1986/1010/omerc.html ↩︎

13. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy (December 1997), Appendix F (glossary of names), https://irp.fas.org/agency/doj/oig/c4rpt/appf.htm ↩︎

14. Gary Webb, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (Seven Stories Press, 1998), chapter notes to Chapter 13 (notes on "they told me they were CIA agents" and the Morales hearing dates). ↩︎

15. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy (December 1997), Chapter VII, "Enrique Miranda-Jaime," sections A-E, https://irp.fas.org/agency/doj/oig/c4rpt/ch07.htm ↩︎

16. "¿Bombas contra Escobar?", Semana, April 12, 1992, https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/bombas-contra-escobar/17208-3. The Cali cartel link is Semana's report of an unnamed Salvadoran government source and of the arrested men's statements. ↩︎