Title Quote: Augustin Barres
Photo: Antonio Veciana during an interview with E2 Films
Photo: Antonio Veciana during an interview with E2 Films
A study of the evidence from Veciana’s drug trial shows clearly why he never availed himself of the opportunity to “prove his innocence” as he told Fonzi he would. It all started in 1970 when Veciana became friendly with Augustin Barres, a former member of the Castro government who had emigrated to the US in 1961.1 In 1967, Barres started a company in Puerto Rico called Freca Imports that distributed automotive products. Additionally, he worked on the side doing land investments and FHA mortgages. Barres, who had met Veciana in 1963, would see him occasionally when he returned to the commonwealth from his time in Bolivia.
In 1967, Barres met a man named Ariel Pomares and hired him to work at Freca. By 1971, Pomares was essentially running the business and had become treasurer of the company and Barres’ “right-hand man.” During this time, Pomares also became involved in land deals and devoted less and less time to his duties at Freca which necessitated Barres offering him inducements to remain with the firm. In 1970, Barres and Veciana became friendlier through mutual contacts in the anti-Castro movement.
In the spring of 1972, both Barres and Veciana suffered major financial setbacks. Working with Felix Zabala Mas, Veciana and Barres arranged an exhibition between the Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburg Pirates in Venezuela that was unsuccessful with Veciana reportedly losing as much as $10,000. Similarly, both men lost money when a promising boxer that they had invested in was knocked out in the first round by the light-heavyweight champion. Specifically, Barres was strapped for cash that he needed to pay off business loans.
A later statement by Max Lesnik Menendez, the publisher of the Spanish-language weekly Replica, provided confirmation of a financial motivation for Veciana’s drug activities.2 Lesnik was a good friend of Veciana’s and supportive of the anti-Castro cause through his writings. On May 30, 1978, Fonzi and his assistant Albert Gonzales interviewed Lesnik and, at one point, he was asked his opinion of Veciana’s credibility:3
At times I say to myself, Yes, I believe Veciana. At other times, I am not so sure. For instance, do you believe Veciana when he says it is not true about the narcotics charge? If you ask me, I would say Veciana is not the type of man who would have anything to do with narcotics. Not at all. Yet, on the other hand, I know how dedicated Veciana is; I know that more than anything else he is dedicated to overthrowing the Revolution and to killing Castro. So, the question is, could it be that he might have thought that the money that could be gotten from narcotics could be used to a more noble purpose? I don't know...
Barres and Veciana had already discussed the availability of cocaine in late 1971 in a hypothetical sense. By April of 1972 in the wake of their financial losses, the two men weighed their options. They first discussed suing the Pirates and Reds but decided that was impractical. Then, the topic again returned to drug smuggling. Veciana assured Barres that he could “put a kilogram of cocaine” on his desk. Veciana told Barres that packages that went through the government APO system were not checked by customs, a fact that he became aware of through his USAID employment. Veciana told Barres that he would bring back more information when he returned from Bolivia.
While Veciana was in Bolivia, Barres discussed the situation with Pomares who told him that he could produce a buyer who would pay $12,000 per kilo for the drug. When Veciana returned to San Juan, he informed Barres that he had contacted a narcotics police chief in Bolivia who could obtain cocaine for $4,000 a kilo. This included $2,000 for the manufacturer, $1,000 for the police chief and $1,000 for the diplomat who would smuggle the drug through the APO system. This left a profit of $8,000 per kilo, of which Veciana would take $3,000 and Barres and Pomares $2,500 each.
Veciana and Barres bankrolled the first purchase of five kilos by each providing $10,000. In late August of 1972, Veciana returned from Bolivia and informed his co-conspirators that the cocaine had arrived with the diplomat in Miami. A short time later, Veciana delivered the cocaine to Barres and Pomares at a motel in Miami. There, Pomares weighed the drug and packaged it into one kilo bags and hid it in his hotel room. Pomares delivered the cocaine gradually to the buyers who were known only by the names of “the old lady” and “the midget.” When the deal was completed, Veciana received a profit of $15,000 for the five kilos with Barres and Pomares each netting $12,500.
Around October, Veciana informed his partners that the diplomat who had smuggled the cocaine out of Bolivia was being transferred out of the country. Fortunately, the diplomat would be able to do one last job for the trio since he could hide the drugs in his furniture which was being sent to the US for storage. But the news was not all good. Veciana also informed his co-conspirators that the price in Bolivia had gone up to $4,500 per kilo. This required Veciana and Barres to put up $22,500 apiece to purchase the second shipment of ten kilos. During this conversation, the trio agreed that precautions needed to be taken during phone conversations. It was decided that the code “acres” would be used to designate kilos and the phrase “papers are ready” or “documents are signed” would be used to signify that the cocaine was available for delivery. A safety deposit box was also secured at a Miami bank to hold the profits from the illicit venture.
The second shipment of cocaine did not arrive until April of 1973 since the diplomat’s furniture was delayed in Panama. After being informed by Veciana that the drugs had arrived, Barres and Pomares rented an apartment near the Miami Airport since they believed that ten kilos would be too much cocaine to keep in a hotel room. A handy feature Pomares built into the apartment was a kitchen cabinet wall that could be unscrewed to provide access to a hidden space used to store the cocaine. Veciana drove Barres to his house where the cocaine had been stored after receiving it from the diplomat. Veciana and Barres delivered the cocaine to Pomares who again weighed the drug and placed it in one kilo packets. Along with a new scale he had purchased, Pomares stored the cocaine in the secret kitchen cabinet space.
Pomares began delivery of the packets to “the midget” but this time their accomplice had more difficulty moving the drug. Nevertheless, by the end of April, the intermediary had sold enough product to allow Barres to deliver $13,000 to Veciana to use for the purchase of the next shipment. But the $13,000 was lost when Veciana’s rental car containing the money was stolen in San Juan.4 Because of the difficulty encountered by “the midget” in moving the cocaine, the conspirators decided a new middleman was needed to handle the third shipment which would proceed with a new diplomat handling the smuggling end of the operation.
Barres remembered an individual named Tony who he had met at a conference in New York in 1969 and had been described to him as a “grandson of a captain in the mafia.” Barres had a few dealings with Tony which included an offer from him to sell 200,000 cases for birth control pills at an extremely low price. This convinced Barres that Tony must indeed be mob connected since he believed the cases had to have been stolen. In June of 1973, Barres made the decision to contact Tony about the cocaine.5
Barres traveled to New York where he met with Tony and offered to sell him the cocaine for $20,000 per kilo. Tony said that he was not personally in the business but he had a cousin who was and promised to run the proposal by him. Tony later contacted Barres and arranged to introduce him to his cousin. On June 29, Barres met Tony’s “cousin” who was really New York City Police Detective John Bruno, a member of the New York Joint Narcotics Task Force. At the first meeting, Bruno agreed to buy five kilos of cocaine for $23,000 a kilo. At that first meeting, Barres informed Bruno about the telephone code used by the conspirators; “acres” for kilos and “documents” for cocaine. Bruno must have played his part well because Barres fully believed that the detective was a fearsome mobster.
On July 16th, Barres met Bruno at the Taft Hotel and delivered a sample of the drug concealed in a small Q-Tip box. The following night, Barres and Bruno met for dinner and Bruno told Barres that he wanted to buy an additional two kilos of cocaine for a total of seven kilos. On July 18th, Barres returned to the Miami apartment where he met Veciana who informed him that the cocaine had arrived. Barres phoned Pomares in San Juan and Pomares said that he could not appear in Miami until the 20th or 21st. Veciana agreed to hold the cocaine until Pomares arrived and in the meantime, Barres would purchase a train ticket so that Pomares could transport the drugs to New York on the 22nd.
Pomares arrived at the Miami apartment on Saturday, July 21st. Barres and Pomares summoned Veciana who arrived at the apartment with the cocaine in the trunk of his car and joined the other men. While in the apartment, Veciana was in the process of explaining how the new diplomat had smuggled the cocaine into the US using plastic tubes. In the middle of the conversation, two business associates of Barres, Jose Ramon Lopez and Guillermo Figueroa, arrived at the apartment. As the two men entered the apartment, Veciana and Pomares acted as if they had to leave and exited promptly. Lopez and Figueroa talked to Barres a short time before leaving themselves.
Barres then phoned Pomares who told him that Veciana had transferred the cocaine from the trunk of his car to the trunk of Pomares’ car and left. Barres and Pomares brought the cocaine into the apartment and removed the scale from its hiding place behind the kitchen cabinet and packaged the drug into the usual one kilo packets. Pomares then placed seven kilos of cocaine in a suitcase ready to be delivered to Bruno in New York on the 23rd.
In New York, Barres reserved two rooms at the Taft Hotel, one for himself in which to meet Bruno and the other to store the cocaine. Barres then made an appointment to meet Bruno on the 23rd to complete the sale. On the appointed day, Barres met Pomares at the Americana Hotel and gave him the key to the room which contained the cocaine. In the meantime, Bruno and his fellow agents prepared to arrest Barres. At 1:30 pm, Bruno met Barres at the Taft Hotel where the former produced a suitcase with seven kilos of cocaine. Bruno gave a prearranged signal over a KEL transmitter and task force agents broke into the room and seized the evidence and arrested the stunned Barres. After learning of Barres’ arrest, Pomares immediately took a flight back to Miami.
After his arrest, Barres agreed to cooperate with the government and began to provide details of the operation. Acting on this information, a search warrant was obtained on July 24th for the Miami apartment. There, agents found the scales used to weigh the drug along with three ounces of cocaine in the kitchen cabinet hiding space. The same day, Veciana was arrested at his Miami home where agents seized “foreign passports belonging to several subjects” as well as documentation showing Veciana possessed Swiss bank accounts. Veciana was able to post bail and was released two days later. Veciana’s claim to authorities that he was “destitute” was likely true and buoys the prosecution’s contention that the motive for the crime was money. The bulk of the $100,000 bail was put up by Veciana’s cousin Dr. Pablo Zalduendo of Detroit. The remainder was provided by various family members and friends who cashed out insurance policies and closed children’s savings accounts. Pomares was arrested July 29th at his home in Puerto Rico.
Veciana always maintained his innocence in the drug conviction case saying that he had been set up.6 Suffice it to say that Veciana’s contention of innocence is obviously dubious and was undoubtedly inspired by the extreme humiliation that he must have felt after his conviction. In addition to the preceding narrative of how the crime unfolded, consider the following summary of the evidence:
- The Amtrak ticket with Pomares’ name dated July 22, 1973 was introduced at the trial proving that he was in the city during the correct timeframe. Also introduced as evidence were documents proving that Pomares was in Miami on the 21st, in New York the 22nd and flew back to Miami the night of the 23rd.
- The record of the safety deposit box in Miami confirmed visits by Barres and Pomares during May of 1973.
- The conversations between Barres and Bruno were recorded by authorities and played for the defense counsel. When the government attempted to introduce the recordings as evidence, the attorneys for Pomares and Veciana stipulated that the conversations were accurate as described by Bruno and Barres during their testimony.
- Barres’ bank check to Veciana in the amount of $10,000 to cover his half of the purchase of the cocaine was introduced at trial.
- Lopez and Figueroa testified that they had arrived unexpectedly at Barres’ apartment to speak with him and confirmed the presence of Veciana and Pomares at the apartment on the 21st and the fact that they had left in a hurry and at the same time. But even more damaging was the fact that Veciana approached Lopez a few days before the trial and asked him to say that he and Pomares’ departure from the apartment had been “a few minutes” apart. Lopez told Veciana that he “would say just the truth.”
- Veciana supporters may claim that Barres lied about Veciana’s involvement in the drug scheme to obtain a deal for himself. But what about Pomares who provided an oral confession that confirmed Barres’ account of the third cocaine shipment? Pomares received no deal and was tried alongside Veciana.7
- Veciana told Fonzi that there was only one witness against him (presumably referring to Barres) but the prosecution presented seven witnesses.
- Finally, one of the most persuasive pieces of evidence against Veciana was the testimony of Francisco Carpio who worked as an accountant at Freca Imports. Carpio remembered a day that he answered the telephone in the absence of Pomares. This call occurred after Veciana received the cocaine but before he had told Barres that the drug had arrived. The call Carpio answered was from Veciana who wanted to leave a message for Pomares. “Tell him my name is Veciana and I received the documents,” was the simple message. When Carpio delivered the message to Pomares the latter asked no questions and merely said, “thank you very much.”
The only evidence presented by Veciana’s defense was the testimony of his seventeen-year-old daughter Ana who is now known as Ana Veciana-Suarez, a well-regarded columnist and author. Although the purpose of the girl’s statement was to say that she did not see her father and Pomares retrieve a suitcase from the car that day, her testimony confirmed that Veciana was at the apartment on the day in question. She testified that Veciana was at the residence for approximately 20 minutes which provided plenty of time for Veciana to arrive, speak briefly with Pomares and Barres, the interruption by Lopez and Figueroa and finally the departure of Pomares and Veciana. It should be noted that since Ana was seated in the car, she would likely not have seen her father retrieve the suitcase since her view would have been obstructed by the open trunk and there would be no reason for her to take special notice of her father getting something out of the trunk in any case.
Veciana was found guilty on two counts; possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and conspiracy to do so. After an appeal was denied, he was sentenced to two seven-year terms to run concurrently and three years parole thereafter. Pomares received five years and three years parole while Barres pled guilty to conspiracy. Veciana’s incarceration represented the culmination of a stunning decline for a man who had frequently been in the headlines of the world’s leading newspapers during his time as an Alpha 66 leader.
Veciana’s conviction was an extreme embarrassment to him, so much so that when he was injured in 1979 during an assassination attempt the “most disturbing thing” was not the attack itself but the newspaper reports alleging the incident might have been drug related.8
His drug trial presented the perfect motive for Veciana to prove his CIA “connections,” including his ties to the mysterious Maurice Bishop, once and for all. And Veciana at least half-heartedly tried to raise the specter of his government “employment” as a defense for his drug smuggling. During a pre-trial conference on October 4, 1973, Veciana’s attorney mentioned his employment with the “International Development Agencies” and implied that his drug activities (which the attorney evidently believed had occurred as the prosecution alleged) might have been at the behest of the CIA. Judge Dudley Bonsal told Veciana’s attorney that he would “have a little trouble finding a relationship [with the CIA] unless it is spelled out pretty clearly.” Ultimately, Veciana’s defense team never produced any evidence regarding his employment with USAID nor did they try to prove that he dealt drugs for the CIA or had any relationship with the agency or Bishop whatsoever.
Veciana’s drug conviction provided a powerful motive for him to seek Fonzi’s help in casting doubt on the veracity of that verdict.
Go to Chapter 5
The Bishop Hoax: Table of Contents
Notes
1. Unless otherwise indicated, all information regarding Veciana’s cocaine conviction is taken from the United States Court of Appeals Docket # 74-1219, United States vs. Ariel Pomares and Antonio Veciana, on Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, May 7, 1974. Brief in Behalf of the Appellants, Appellee’s Brief, Appellant’s Reply Brief, Appellant’s Appendix 1 and Appellant’s Appendix 2.⏎2. Barres told the FBI that Veciana had covered boxing matches for Replica and traveled outside the US as a “front” for contacting “Cuban societies” in unnamed countries.⏎
3. Memo to G. Robert Blakey from Fonzi and Gonzales Re: Interview with Max Lesnik. May 30, 1978, 5. RIF 180-10065-10373. Another Veciana friend who had mixed feelings about his drug activity was Rufo López-Fresquet. “At the time, I believed he was framed,” he told investigators in 1977. “Now, I’m not sure anymore,” he admitted. López-Fresquet went on to say that Veciana had told him he was framed by the CIA because the agency had ordered him to stop the assassination attempt against Castro in 1971 and he had refused (Transcript of HSCA Interview with Rufo López-Fresquet, May 19, 1977, 13. RIF 180-10086-10456).⏎
4. Barres and Pomares need not have worried that Veciana made up the story about the stolen car and pocketed the money. An associate of Veciana later confirmed that he had lost around $13,000 when his car was stolen. Veciana had shown the man the money which he disingenuously said was to be donated to an anti-Castro organization.⏎
5. Veciana may have been involved in the planning and financing of an unrelated terrorist operation that occurred in 1973. On August 2nd of that year, a bomb exploded in a hotel near Paris that killed Juan Felipe De La Cruz. In Trained to Kill, Veciana stated that he was a planner for the operation, which was intended to kill Ramiro Valdés, a key Castro aide. De La Cruz was to have planted the bomb in the Cuban Embassy in Paris but the device apparently exploded when he was assembling it. Although Veciana’s assertions must always be viewed with skepticism, there is support for at least part of his story in government documents. See, for example, RIF 124-90102-10024. Note that this document does not characterize the operation as an assassination but rather as a “sabotage.”⏎
6. In his book, Veciana insinuates that the presiding judge, Dudley Bonsal, was in on the conspiracy to frame him. Veciana’s “evidence” for this assertion is the fact that Bonsal’s brother Phillip was US Ambassador to Cuba during the time that he allegedly met Bishop in that country (Veciana with Harrison, Trained to Kill, 187).⏎
7. Because of a legal technicality, Pomares’ statement was not used by the prosecution at trial.⏎
8. FBI report of interview with Antonio Veciana on November 6, 1979. Obtained from Muckrock.com.⏎
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