The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Frigorificos de Puntarenas.md

category	tags	relations	summary	location
Private Organization	Organization Drug_Trafficking Costa_Rica 1980s Contra_War	type with role fn founded Ramon Milian Rodriguez established the company as a cover for laundering drug money, per the Kerry report citing grand jury testimony and Milian's testimony 2 type with role fn owned Luis Rodriguez owned and operated the company from its creation, per the Kerry report 2 type with role fn owned Carlos Soto co-owner and operator, convicted drug trafficker, per the Kerry report 2	Frigorificos de Puntarenas was a Costa Rican shrimp company created by the Medellín cartel as a money-laundering front that was later hired by the U.S. State Department to distribute "humanitarian" aid to the Contras.	Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Frigorificos de Puntarenas, S.A., was a small fleet of fishing boats based in the Pacific Coast village of Puntarenas, Costa Rica, with a sister import company in Miami called Ocean Hunter. Gary Webb wrote that the firm was created by Medellin Cartel money-laundering wizard Ramon Milian Rodriguez as part of an interlocking chain of companies to launder cocaine profits. Drug money would go into one company and emerge clean through intercompany transactions. Webb wrote that in 1982 Frigorificos was taken over by a group of major Miami-based drug traffickers who began using it to help the Contras.¹ The Kerry subcommittee report says the firm was established by Milian, the convicted money launderer, as a cover for laundering drug money, and that it was owned and operated from its creation by Luis Rodriguez of Miami with Carlos Soto and Ubaldo Fernandez, two convicted drug traffickers.² Ocean Hunter, an American seafood company of which Luis Rodriguez was president, bought seafood from Frigorificos, and the report says Milian created it for Rodriguez.²

Creation, ownership and the State Department funds

Frigorificos de Puntarenas was created as a laundering cover, according to grand jury testimony by one of its partners and to the testimony of Ramon Milian Rodriguez, who established it.² The Kerry report says Soto testified before a federal grand jury that he knew Luis Rodriguez as a narcotics trafficker who had been smuggling drugs into the United States since 1979.² Ocean Hunter bought seafood from Frigorificos, and the report says the two companies used intercompany transactions to launder drug profits.²

The Kerry report records that $261,937 in humanitarian assistance funds from the State Department reached the Frigorificos account in 1986, and that Luis Rodriguez controlled the account and signed most of the orders transferring the money for the Contras.² At the February 1988 hearing the figure put to Milian was $230,000.³ Milian testified that he was "the key person setting up the interlocking chain of companies around" Frigorificos and that Ocean Hunter "was supposed to import shrimp into the United States." Asked whether arrangements had been made for the Contras to receive money through Frigorificos, Milian answered "Yes, sir," and said, "I, through my intermediaries, made it possible." Asked whether money he had supplied to Frigorificos was traceable to drugs, he answered "No, sir," and said "Because we were experts at what we do."³

The Kerry report says that Miami police told the FBI in September 1984 that Ocean Hunter was funding Contra activities through narcotics transactions, that the Justice Department declined in August 1986 to say whether allegations about Luis Rodriguez were true, and that a federal indictment of Luis Rodriguez on drug charges is dated September 30, 1987.² The report adds that Milian told federal authorities about Luis Rodriguez's narcotics trafficking before his arrest in May 1983, that Luis Rodriguez invoked the Fifth Amendment to every question from IRS agents in March and April 1984, that State Department use of the firm began in late 1985 with deposits from early to mid-1986, and that Luis Rodriguez was indicted on April 5, 1988 on tax evasion charges tied to laundering through Ocean Hunter.² Dick Gregorie told the subcommittee on July 12, 1988 that the Ocean Hunter charges against Luis Rodriguez had been dismissed that week because main witnesses refused to testify.⁴

State Department Contract

In 1985, the State Department's NHAO hired Frigorificos to distribute "humanitarian" aid to the Costa Rican Contras. The arrangement was engineered by Robert Owen, Oliver North's courier and a Central Intelligence Agency asset, who identified the company's operators as "people that were involved in Ocean Hunter in Costa Rica [who] had been helpful to the cause." These included Frank Chanes, reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a drug trafficker in 1984, and Moises Nunez, a CIA agent suspected by Interpol of drug trafficking. More than $260,000 in U.S. taxpayer funds flowed through Frigorificos's bank accounts during 1986. Some was wired in never-explained transfers to banks in Israel and South Korea.¹

Drug Trafficking Evidence

Former drug pilot Fabio Ernesto Carrasco testified as a U.S. government witness that Frigorificos was being used during the Contra war "to load cocaine inside the containers which were being shipped loaded with vegetables and fruit to the United States." A January 1986 DEA seizure confirmed that Núñez's partners shipped a 414-pound cocaine load to Miami amid crates of yucca. The FBI first learned of Frigorificos's drug involvement in September 1984 when the president of the Cuban Legion identified Chanes as an owner of Ocean Hunter who was giving financial support to the Contras from narcotic transactions.¹

CIA Cover-Up

When the CIA interrogated Núñez in March 1987 about drug trafficking through Frigorificos, Núñez revealed that "since 1985, he had engaged in a clandestine relationship with the National Security Council" and refused to elaborate because of "the specific tasks he had performed at the direction of the NSC." CIA headquarters immediately ordered the questioning stopped. Alan Fiers confirmed the halt was "because of the NSC connection and the possibility that this could be somehow connected to [North's] Private Benefactor program." For years afterward, the CIA shielded both Núñez and Felipe Vidal from criminal investigations, lying to the DEA that it had no information about Núñez's trafficking activities.¹

Footnotes

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1. Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 12: "This guy talks to God" ↩︎

2. Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Prt. 100-165, pp. 45-47 (section "Frigorificos de Puntarenas"). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras ↩︎

3. Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: Panama, hearing of February 11, 1988, S. Hrg. 100-773, Pt. 2, pp. 260-262 (testimony of Ramon Milian Rodriguez). https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0004 ↩︎

4. Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: The Cartel, Haiti and Central America, hearing of July 12, 1988, S. Hrg. 100-773, Pt. 4, pp. 169-172 (testimony of Dick Gregorie). https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0009 ↩︎