Had to cut this chapter in half,will conclude along with the last short chapter in the next part
Drugging America
A Trojan Horse
By Rodney StichCHAPTER NINE
Sabotaging Government Contract Pilot
This chapter focuses on an unusual tool occasionally used by government
agencies to infiltrate drug operations as they seek evidence to bring
about arrests and termination of the operation: contract undercover
agents. Very few of them exist. They provide their own airplanes, they fund the
undercover operations, they take enormous risks, and they are paid on the basis
of missions accomplished.
They carry out undercover operations that require they act as drug traffickers so as to infiltrate the targeted drug operation. They rely upon the integrity
and trustworthiness of the government agents who direct and authorize their
undercover activities, most of the authorizations given verbally.
This chapter focuses on the bizarre and convoluted activities of Rodney
Matthews, one of those contract pilots who infiltrated the inner workings of
some of the top and most dangerous of all drug kingpins. He initially worked
undercover for the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and then for U.S.
Customs Service in San Antonio, Texas, with occasional work for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Matthews did not know about the problems within U.S. Customs that were
identified in a 1992 House report which revealed massive integrity problems
within that government agency, and which exist today. If he had known of the
internal problems, he would have realized that reliance upon the verbal authority given by Customs agents had grave consequences. For any number of reasons, the government agents giving him authority to haul drugs as part of undercover operations could deny having given the authorization. In a case like
this, a long prison term can follow, even life in prison.
Targeting America’s Number One
Drug Target: Pablo Escobar
Under his government authority, Matthews targeted top drug lords, including America’s most-wanted and dangerous drug trafficker at that time, Pablo
Escobar. Just as he was about to succeed in this endeavor, Department of Justice personnel blocked that operation, and through perjury and corruption,
caused Matthews to receive a life-in-prison sentence, while simultaneously rewarding part of the Escobar group.
Brief View of the Matthews Family History
First, a brief history of the Matthews family that goes back to George Washington’s time. One of Matthews’ relatives on his father’s side was a General under President James Madison in 1812: General George Matthews. An
article about General Matthews appeared in the Miami Herald, written by noted
Florida historian, Joe Crankshaw:
Things were looking bad for the Spanish governor of East Florida, Juan de Estrada, in 1812. Fernandina had fallen to a ragtag army of American Adventurers who proclaimed themselves to be the Republic of Florida. They had captured Fort San Nicolas near the St. Johns River and were now besieging St. Augustine.
On March 26, 1812, John Houston McIntosh, leader of the “Patriots,” as the ragtag army was known, sent a message to Estrada demanding the surrender of St. Augustine and the Castillo de San Marcos. He offered liberal terms, promised protection for Catholics, and assured the Spaniards that Florida would be quickly annexed to the United States.
On April 4, 1812, General George Matthews, an agent for President James Madison, left Fernandina promising to capture St. Augustine and then go on to liberate all of South America from Spain. It was brave talk. Matthews, McIntosh and others had also been working on the Indians. They had told the Indians that this was a white man’s war and to stay out of it. They rejected Indian offers of assistance in fighting the Spanish.
The besieging force numbered 300 militia and, due to the intrigues of the times, 100 regular soldiers from the supposedly neutral United States. Off shore, American privateers, private vessels licensed to capture foreign shipping, bottled up the port. Estrada had about 300 men, mostly untried blacks trained as colonial troops, with which to defend the town and fort. He was determined he would not surrender, and he sent to Havana for help. He also sent an agent, Sebastian Kindelan, out into the surrounding wilderness to seek help from the Seminole Indians who had moved onto the Peninsula.
Matthews fought alongside Washington in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown where he was wounded and spent four years on a British prison ship in New York harbor. The National Archives shows Matthews was a colonel under Washington and a Brigadier General in the militia.
Before the 1812 attempt to annex East Florida, George Washington traveled to Georgia and supported Matthews in his successful bid for governor. But in 1812, Matthews fell victim to corrupt politics and was betrayed and disavowed by elements in his own government. He was branded a pirate and a criminal, and lost everything, including his life.
In this capacity, the government paid Matthews only when his efforts proved successful. He was also paid by the trip when government agents instructed him to pick up drug loads in Colombia or other locations and deliver them to designated locations in the United States. For each of these trips, he was often paid $40,000 to $50,000. In many cases he was allowed to keep money obtained from the targeted drug lords to offset his expenses, and he kept records of these monies and the expenses incurred.
Government agents gave Matthews various aliases to keep his true identity from drug traffickers and also from other government agents and agencies. These aliases included such names as Bill Martin, Bill Miller, and “Shadow.”
Examples would be Air America, Nugan Hand Bank, and others listed in the third edition of Defrauding America. “Fronts” are corporations or companies that allow the government to secretly use their facilities in carrying out clandestine activities. These include law offices, public relations firms, banks, insurance companies, newspapers, magazines, publishers, and an endless list of other businesses. “Contract undercover agents” are individuals doing work for government agencies such as the DEA, Customs, FBI, or the CIA. They are sometimes called “cutouts.”
If the operation fails and gains media attention, the authorizing agencies and agents simply deny any knowledge, authority, or responsibility. To add credibility to this lie, Justice Department prosecutors will usually file criminal charges against the contract agent, and fraudulently state the person did not have government authority. Matthews, as with other agents in similar positions, were acting as government-authorized undercover agents in such places as Mexico, Jamaica, Bahamas, Guatemala, and Colombia.
To be effective, an undercover operative must be resourceful, flexible, able to think quickly on his feet, take immediate advantage of any opportunity that arises, act the part of a drug trafficker, and try to avoid being a government undercover agent and subsequently killed. Because of the complex and ever changing nature of undercover operations, and the lack of expertise in these areas by government bureaucrats, the undercover agent must have the freedom to function in various undercover roles outside of internal government guidelines.
I set up the 500-kilo load out of Cali to Panama in 1990. I set up the 600 kilo air-drop in the Gulf of Mexico in 1990 and I was on the Customs boat that received it. I set up the bust of the 300 kilos that caused Emmons to be busted in Florida in 1989. I flew in the cocaine and set up the 50 kilo bust in Ontario, California, where my $100,000 was seized in February of 1989. Between 1984 and 1986, I set up numerous grass [marijuana] loads, including a ship out of Colombia.
Fernando put me in touch with staff in the presidential palace in Mexico City who were part of the Presidential Task Force on Drug Trafficking. This Presidential Task Force would have to be notified before any major drug bust could occur, to preclude embarrassment to the President. This would be my protection or guarantee against arrest or interference. I had several meetings with these officials, which included a military officer.They furnished me with aerial photos of different airstrips I could use in the Pozo Rica area and offered to introduce me to the General who controlled the area. They also provided me with stacks of drawings and diagrams for an abandoned petroleum pipeline and associated landing strips on the Texas-Mexico border that they wanted to utilize for moving drugs. After meeting them at the Presidential Palace and going for lunch at a nearby restaurant several times, I became overwhelmed with the fact that the trail I had followed led to the Presidential Palace of Mexico.
I had questions, but I figured who am I to question the wisdom of my government. I walked away from the whole deal in amazement of what was going on in the Presidential Palace, and after all my work and expense the U.S. government simply said—forget it.
Escobar was credited, or blamed, for greatly expanding the drug trade by bringing together many individual drug shippers into a group. He terrorized the country, blowing up buildings, and played a key role in the bombing of an Avianca airliner 34 killing 110 people, and many other murders. In November 1985, Escobar joined forces with heavily armed guerrillas and took over the Palace of Justice in Bogota, killing many of the Colombian Supreme Court judges. He was responsible for killing many journalists, politicians and police. Matthews' activities were a threat to Escobar’s organization, including Escobar himself and one of his key aides, Jimmy Ellard.
34 Avianca Boeing 727, November 27, 1989. Ellard and Carlos Botero, both working with Pablo Escobar, were responsible for downing the Avianca airliner.
Between 1986 and 1988, Matthews made nearly two dozen trips to California in an attempt to infiltrate the Stadter organization—all funded by Matthews himself, taking all the physical risks. These attempts to infiltrate the group stalled, and it wasn’t until two years later, in 1988, that his attempts to infiltrate the group started making progress. He started associating with two of Stadter’s pilots, Greg Thompson and another pilot whose first name was Benjamin and known as “Crazy.”
Matthews ingratiated himself with one of Stadter‘s underlings, Diane Borden, becoming intimate and buying her a new Mercedes. She told Matthews that she counted as much as 15 million dollars of drug money at a time. She told him about Greek fishermen on Florida’s West Coast who brought ashore drugs that were air dropped into the Gulf of Mexico by the Escobar group working with Stadter. Matthews represented himself as a “player,” a polite term for a drug trafficker.
Borden’s husband, a pilot, was killed in a California plane crash while delivering a shipment of drugs for Stadter. Thompson had been waiting at the destination airstrip for Borden to arrive and had gone to the crash scene to remove the cocaine from the crashed aircraft.
When the King Air arrived at the drop zone, and after making radio contact to confirm everything was in order, bundles of cocaine were dropped into the water near waiting boats, and then the planes returned to San Andres Island. Several tons of drugs entered the United States in this manner every week.
Things were looking bad for the Spanish governor of East Florida, Juan de Estrada, in 1812. Fernandina had fallen to a ragtag army of American Adventurers who proclaimed themselves to be the Republic of Florida. They had captured Fort San Nicolas near the St. Johns River and were now besieging St. Augustine.
On March 26, 1812, John Houston McIntosh, leader of the “Patriots,” as the ragtag army was known, sent a message to Estrada demanding the surrender of St. Augustine and the Castillo de San Marcos. He offered liberal terms, promised protection for Catholics, and assured the Spaniards that Florida would be quickly annexed to the United States.
On April 4, 1812, General George Matthews, an agent for President James Madison, left Fernandina promising to capture St. Augustine and then go on to liberate all of South America from Spain. It was brave talk. Matthews, McIntosh and others had also been working on the Indians. They had told the Indians that this was a white man’s war and to stay out of it. They rejected Indian offers of assistance in fighting the Spanish.
The besieging force numbered 300 militia and, due to the intrigues of the times, 100 regular soldiers from the supposedly neutral United States. Off shore, American privateers, private vessels licensed to capture foreign shipping, bottled up the port. Estrada had about 300 men, mostly untried blacks trained as colonial troops, with which to defend the town and fort. He was determined he would not surrender, and he sent to Havana for help. He also sent an agent, Sebastian Kindelan, out into the surrounding wilderness to seek help from the Seminole Indians who had moved onto the Peninsula.
Matthews fought alongside Washington in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown where he was wounded and spent four years on a British prison ship in New York harbor. The National Archives shows Matthews was a colonel under Washington and a Brigadier General in the militia.
Before the 1812 attempt to annex East Florida, George Washington traveled to Georgia and supported Matthews in his successful bid for governor. But in 1812, Matthews fell victim to corrupt politics and was betrayed and disavowed by elements in his own government. He was branded a pirate and a criminal, and lost everything, including his life.
Love for Flying Motivated
Matthews to Transport Marijuana
Rodney Matthews was addicted to flying, having learned to fly at the
young age of 16, funding his flight lessons with odd jobs. To continue his love
for flying, he started transporting low-tech electronics into Mexico in 1970, and
eventually, this led to flying marijuana into the United States. This was before
the drug culture took on the extreme violence with hard drugs that exists today.
In 1984, Matthews‘ luck ran out. His airplane, being flown by another pilot, had just landed at Matthews’ private airstrip at Damon, Texas, with 600
pounds of marijuana when government agents showed up. That pilot was arrested by Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) agent Robert Nestoroff and
U.S. Customs agent Richard Nichols from the San Antonio Customs office.
Matthews was charged with marijuana smuggling when the pilot became a witness for the government and had charges dropped in exchange for testifying
against Matthews. Matthews believes his brother-in-law provided government
agents with information leading to the arrest in exchange for having his charges
dropped.
Matthews’ Talents
Wanted by the Government
Luckily for Matthews, he had talents wanted by the State of Texas and by
the federal government. Needing the services of someone with Matthews’
background to bring about the arrest of top drug traffickers, Nestoroff and
Nichols offered to expunge Matthews’ arrest record and allow him to keep his
assets in exchange for help obtaining evidence against several suspected drug
traffickers. They included Jimmy Norjay Ellard, John Phillips, Larry Manley,
and John McFarland.
Working for Pay After Immunity was Granted
After working off the deal for immunity against prior charges, Texas DPS
agents continued to use Matthews in other cases, paying him for his services.
Some of these cases originated from information Matthews acquired on his
own, and some targets or leads were given to him. As Matthews’ value became
known to other government agencies, they approached him to work for them as
well. Matthews started working for Customs agents in San Antonio, Houston,
and Miami, and occasionally for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
At the government’s request, Matthews started transporting cocaine, something
that he had not done before.
Routine Granting of Immunity
for Prior Drug Hauling
In a later trial, Charles S. Harrison from Customs headquarters in Washington testified that government agents gave drug traffickers immunity for prior
offenses if they cooperated in obtaining evidence on other drug traffickers. The
government has used undercover agents, sometimes called Confidential Informants (CI), for years in the so-called war-on-drugs. Matthews fell into a different category. He was a contract agent or “cut-out” for the government, funding
their investigations, providing his own expensive aircraft, incurring the high
expenses, and assuming the risks of being tortured or killed by the targeted
drug organizations. In this capacity, the government paid Matthews only when his efforts proved successful. He was also paid by the trip when government agents instructed him to pick up drug loads in Colombia or other locations and deliver them to designated locations in the United States. For each of these trips, he was often paid $40,000 to $50,000. In many cases he was allowed to keep money obtained from the targeted drug lords to offset his expenses, and he kept records of these monies and the expenses incurred.
Government agents gave Matthews various aliases to keep his true identity from drug traffickers and also from other government agents and agencies. These aliases included such names as Bill Martin, Bill Miller, and “Shadow.”
Shifting the Dangers, and
Deniability, to Contract Agents
To carry out its policy of denying responsibility for operations, U.S. agencies use proprietaries, fronts, or contract undercover agents. “Proprietaries” are
secret corporations or companies in which government ownership is hidden,
and are widely used by the Central Intelligence Agency. Examples would be Air America, Nugan Hand Bank, and others listed in the third edition of Defrauding America. “Fronts” are corporations or companies that allow the government to secretly use their facilities in carrying out clandestine activities. These include law offices, public relations firms, banks, insurance companies, newspapers, magazines, publishers, and an endless list of other businesses. “Contract undercover agents” are individuals doing work for government agencies such as the DEA, Customs, FBI, or the CIA. They are sometimes called “cutouts.”
If the operation fails and gains media attention, the authorizing agencies and agents simply deny any knowledge, authority, or responsibility. To add credibility to this lie, Justice Department prosecutors will usually file criminal charges against the contract agent, and fraudulently state the person did not have government authority. Matthews, as with other agents in similar positions, were acting as government-authorized undercover agents in such places as Mexico, Jamaica, Bahamas, Guatemala, and Colombia.
Confidential Informants (CI)
Another category of people who provide information but do not have the
knowledge, funding, and equipment that contract agents provide are called
“confidential informants” (CI). They can be a very onerous group, who openly
lie with full knowledge of Justice Department prosecutors, and are used as paid
witnesses against people targeted by Justice Department prosecutors. None of
the key individuals within these pages, including Richard Pitt, Rodney Matthews, and Barry Seal were in this category, even though the government may
have loosely referred to them as confidential informants.
Complex and Dangerous Operations
Great expense and complex planning are standard with the few contract
undercover agents that various government agencies use. Sophisticated aircraft
are often used that can cost a million dollars or more, and which are sometimes
lost during undercover operations. Replacement engines can run into hundreds
of thousands of dollars. An insurance claim for a lost aircraft often cannot be
made due to the undercover nature of the operation.
Acting Like a Drug Smuggler to Succeed
In order to infiltrate high-level drug organizations, Matthews obviously had
to act like a drug trafficker. This was expected of him and verbally authorized
by government agents. Even though drugs would occasionally hit the streets,
the intent was to get evidence on top-level people and bring down the entire
operation. Also, when drugs were allowed to reach their destination, arrests
would often be made down the distribution chain so as not to focus suspicion
on Matthews. To be effective, an undercover operative must be resourceful, flexible, able to think quickly on his feet, take immediate advantage of any opportunity that arises, act the part of a drug trafficker, and try to avoid being a government undercover agent and subsequently killed. Because of the complex and ever changing nature of undercover operations, and the lack of expertise in these areas by government bureaucrats, the undercover agent must have the freedom to function in various undercover roles outside of internal government guidelines.
Given Wide Latitude by
Government Bureaucrats
Government bureaucrats, sitting safely in their offices and without the experience possessed by people such as Matthews, do not understand the complexities of infiltrating powerful drug organizations. This lack of knowledge
and the constantly changing conditions required that Matthews and other contract agents in a similar capacity be given wide latitude and discretion in bringing about a successful infiltration of the targeted crime group.
Danger from All Directions
The combination of informal verbal authority and wide discretion to carry
out the task of infiltrating powerful drug groups carries great risks for the contract agents who assume there is a uniform procedure and recognition among
different government agents and agencies. They believe that an undercover
agent working under authority given by one agent will be respected by agents
of another agency or another office of the same agency. Many contract agents
discovered after the fact that this situation did not exist.
Matthews Set Up Many Sting Operations
For over a year, Matthews described to me in hundreds of pages of factual
information and documents undercover operations he carried out under the
blanket authority given by various government agents from U.S. Customs, the
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and U.S. attorneys. In one of the letters he wrote: I set up the 500-kilo load out of Cali to Panama in 1990. I set up the 600 kilo air-drop in the Gulf of Mexico in 1990 and I was on the Customs boat that received it. I set up the bust of the 300 kilos that caused Emmons to be busted in Florida in 1989. I flew in the cocaine and set up the 50 kilo bust in Ontario, California, where my $100,000 was seized in February of 1989. Between 1984 and 1986, I set up numerous grass [marijuana] loads, including a ship out of Colombia.
Matthews‘ Introduction into Mexican
Presidential Drug Protection
The type of work Matthews was doing required that he initiate investigations that could lead to drug busts. One of these self-financed investigations
took him, physically, into the presidential palace in Mexico City. In trying to
infiltrate a suspected drug smuggling operation known as the “Emmons group,”
Emmons introduced Matthews to a Cuban National referred to as “Fernando,”
who worked out of a real estate office, Symms Realty, located west of Miami
International Airport. Fernando was reportedly a middleman furnishing front
companies, bogus loans to facilitate money laundering, and various drug related activities. Fernando had good connections in Colombia and Mexico for
moving drugs. Matthews explained: Fernando put me in touch with staff in the presidential palace in Mexico City who were part of the Presidential Task Force on Drug Trafficking. This Presidential Task Force would have to be notified before any major drug bust could occur, to preclude embarrassment to the President. This would be my protection or guarantee against arrest or interference. I had several meetings with these officials, which included a military officer.They furnished me with aerial photos of different airstrips I could use in the Pozo Rica area and offered to introduce me to the General who controlled the area. They also provided me with stacks of drawings and diagrams for an abandoned petroleum pipeline and associated landing strips on the Texas-Mexico border that they wanted to utilize for moving drugs. After meeting them at the Presidential Palace and going for lunch at a nearby restaurant several times, I became overwhelmed with the fact that the trail I had followed led to the Presidential Palace of Mexico.
[U.S. Protecting High-Level
Mexican Drug Traffickers]
Before committing myself to any actual hands-on drug shipments using
Mexico for transshipping I thought it prudent to advise Customs Agent
Nichols, who was my contact for international-related operations at that
time. Because it involved top-level officials of the Mexican government, I
phoned Nichols from Mexico City for instructions whether or not to proceed. To my surprise, Nichols’ response was to back off, after I have invested several months of work, several hundred thousand dollars, and
waited for almost two years to reach this point. I had questions, but I figured who am I to question the wisdom of my government. I walked away from the whole deal in amazement of what was going on in the Presidential Palace, and after all my work and expense the U.S. government simply said—forget it.
Infiltrating the Victor Stadter Organization
In 1986, San Antonio Customs agent Richard Nichols recruited Matthews
to target the Victor Stadter group suspected of drug smuggling activities ranging from California to Florida, with operations in Texas and an auto dealership
in El Monte, California known as B and D Motors. It was suspected that the organization brought tons of cocaine into the United States. Matthews had first
met Stadter in 1981 during an aircraft trade in which Matthews was trading a
Cessna 210 for a Lake Buccaneer. When Stadter learned that Matthews was
rated to fly a DC-3, he started opening up about his drug activities.
Part of Pablo Escobar‘s Operation,
Top Target of U.S. Agencies
The Stadter organization was reportedly tied in with the Colombian drug
kingpin Pablo Escobar and his aide, Jimmy Ellard, bringing large quantities of
drugs into the United States. At that time, Escobar was considered the greatest
drug-smuggling threat to the United States, and guilty of hundreds of brutal
murders. Obtaining evidence against the Stadter group would assist in getting
to Escobar. Escobar was credited, or blamed, for greatly expanding the drug trade by bringing together many individual drug shippers into a group. He terrorized the country, blowing up buildings, and played a key role in the bombing of an Avianca airliner 34 killing 110 people, and many other murders. In November 1985, Escobar joined forces with heavily armed guerrillas and took over the Palace of Justice in Bogota, killing many of the Colombian Supreme Court judges. He was responsible for killing many journalists, politicians and police. Matthews' activities were a threat to Escobar’s organization, including Escobar himself and one of his key aides, Jimmy Ellard.
34 Avianca Boeing 727, November 27, 1989. Ellard and Carlos Botero, both working with Pablo Escobar, were responsible for downing the Avianca airliner.
Between 1986 and 1988, Matthews made nearly two dozen trips to California in an attempt to infiltrate the Stadter organization—all funded by Matthews himself, taking all the physical risks. These attempts to infiltrate the group stalled, and it wasn’t until two years later, in 1988, that his attempts to infiltrate the group started making progress. He started associating with two of Stadter’s pilots, Greg Thompson and another pilot whose first name was Benjamin and known as “Crazy.”
Matthews ingratiated himself with one of Stadter‘s underlings, Diane Borden, becoming intimate and buying her a new Mercedes. She told Matthews that she counted as much as 15 million dollars of drug money at a time. She told him about Greek fishermen on Florida’s West Coast who brought ashore drugs that were air dropped into the Gulf of Mexico by the Escobar group working with Stadter. Matthews represented himself as a “player,” a polite term for a drug trafficker.
Borden’s husband, a pilot, was killed in a California plane crash while delivering a shipment of drugs for Stadter. Thompson had been waiting at the destination airstrip for Borden to arrive and had gone to the crash scene to remove the cocaine from the crashed aircraft.
Escobar Organization Air-Dropping
Drugs to the Stadter Group
Matthews eventually became accepted by the Stadter group and discovered
further evidence that the group was transporting drugs for Pablo Escobar and
his close aide, Jimmy Ellard. The Stadter-Escobar group used Beech King Air
aircraft flying from San Andres Island, located north of Colombia between Jamaica and Honduras, flying to the drop-zone where one of Stadter’s boats
would be waiting. When the King Air arrived at the drop zone, and after making radio contact to confirm everything was in order, bundles of cocaine were dropped into the water near waiting boats, and then the planes returned to San Andres Island. Several tons of drugs entered the United States in this manner every week.
CIA Using San Andres Island
as a Drug Transshipment Point
Matthews thought the CIA had a drug transshipment operation on San
Andres Island. He explained that Escobar’s King Air would return to San
Andres Island and that U.S. aircraft following it would turn away as it approached the island.
Matthews, Customs and DEA
Agents, Retrieving the Drugs
As Matthews was slowly infiltrating the Stadter group he convinced Stadter
to allow him to pick up the drugs during one of the airdrops. Matthews was in
the receiving boat, along with Customs agent Peter Delsandro from the Ft.
Lauderdale office and another agent from the DEA, during one such pickup.
After the drugs were picked up, government agents ordered Matthews to personally deliver the drugs to Cubans at Broward Mall in Ft. Lauderdale, where
he then met Carlos Duque.
Duque was arrested on a drug charge and then released on bail pending
trial, at which time he promptly fled. A year later, Duque was captured in Costa
Rica. At his trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) Bill Shockly called Matthews to testify, which put Matthews at great risk since he was still infiltrating
major drug operations in Colombia.
Matthews Responsible for
Bringing About Ellard‘s Arrest
Several years earlier, in 1985, Matthews‘ undercover activities brought about the arrest of Pablo Escobar‘s partner, Jimmy Ellard. Ellard had flown a drug load into the United States from Belize in 1984 and was to have landed at San Marcos Airport in Texas where Matthews was waiting with government agents, who would then arrest Ellard. Instead of landing at San Marcos, Ellard landed at Eagle Lake, Texas, about 70 miles west of Houston, apparently to rip off the drug load. Despite this diversion, government agents accidentally discovered Ellard and his drug load, and arrested him. Shortly after his arrest, Ellard was released on bail and fled back to Colombia, rejoining the Escobar operation.
Ellard had been a former deputy sheriff in Fort Bend County, Texas. He was again arrested in 1990 while living under a false name in Florida. He pled guilty in 1991 to his leadership in a large smuggling operation that flew nearly 30 tons of cocaine from Columbia to Florida.
During questioning, Ellard told government agents how he was able to evade the government’s radar interdiction system.
While living in Colombia in the late 1980s, he provided Dandy Munoz Mosquera—Pablo Escobar‘s assassin—knowledge on how to put a bomb on board a Colombian airline, Avianca, which killed over 100 people, including the two police informants that were their targets.
Uncomfortable Working Sensitive
Operations with New Agents
Matthews had been working with Customs agent Richard Nichols in the San Antonio office, relying upon his verbal authorization to fly drugs as part of government-authorized undercover operations. He felt uncomfortable about this verbal arrangement and his discomfort surfaced in June 1988 when Nichols told Matthews that he would be gone for several months attending job-related training at Marana, Arizona. Nichols told Matthews he would be working under Customs agents Thomas Grieve and Jim Dukes during this time.
An Irresponsible Request of
Matthews by a Customs Agent
Before Nichols left, Grieve asked Matthews to fly a drug load into the United States without being granted immunity, and take the chance of getting caught. This was an irresponsible suggestion. Grieve was playing it safe. If the operation backfired and received media attention, Grieve could easily lie. Unknown to Matthews, lying was part of the Customs’ culture. The Customs agent could say he knew nothing about the drug flight, and Matthews could end up with a life-in-prison sentence.
Another possible reason for Grieve’s request was that U.S. Customs was trying to set up Matthews for an arrest and get rid of an undercover agent who had learned too much about the involvement of government personnel in drug trafficking.
“I’m getting in too deep”
Matthews refused Grieves’ request: “I’m getting in too deep. I’m afraid some of this stuff will come back on me down the road.” Matthews told Nichols that he needed authorization from higher authority. Matthews later explained:
Nichols assured me if I would continue my efforts he would arrange that I hear the authorization from someone higher up. We discussed the possibility that if I had authority to fly loads in myself, perhaps we could wrap up the case in a few loads. Otherwise, it could go on for years. The meetings were set up and I was assured by a special prosecutor out of Main Justice in Washington, AUSA David Hall, that I could fly loads in myself.
A second meeting was held on August 23, 1988, seeking to reach an agreement where Matthews would be willing to continue the undercover efforts to infiltrate the Stadter organization. This meeting, held at a San Antonio restaurant, was attended by Customs agents Richard Nichols, Thomas Grieve and Jim Dukes; Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) agents Robert Nestoroff and Kenneth Dismukes, and Justice Department AUSA David Hall. Dismukes advised Matthews that the authority to authorize such operations was with federal agencies, that Texas agents could not grant such authorization.
Carte Blanche Authority to
Fly Drugs—But Don’t Tell Us!
Hall stated that Matthews had carte blanche authority to fly drugs into the United States as part of his government-authorized undercover activities. Grieve then told Matthews, “You have carte blanche from the special prosecutor to do whatever it takes. You can’t tell us everything, or we will have to interdict the load and the load will never reach the target.” Matthews asked Grieve, “What if it takes more than one load?” to which Grieve replied, “Do whatever it takes.” After Grieve said this, Dismukes’ face turned beet-red and he walked out. (Matthews had been given specific authority to fly drugs into the United States as part of normal sting operations in 1986, 1987, and 1989.)
Top-Level Justice Department Authority
Dave Hall, who had given Matthews authorization to fly drug loads, was a former trial attorney assigned to the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, and head of a multi-agency task force based in San Antonio that consisted of agents from Customs, DEA, and IRS. Being Washington-based in a key Justice Department position, his authorization to fly drugs came from the Justice Department’s highest offices.
Unknown to Matthews, Hall was encountering a great amount of problems in the San Antonio Customs office, and particularly from SAC Neil Lageman. As stated in earlier pages, a 1553-page report prepared by the House Committee On Government Operations detailed mismanagement, internal bickering, corruption, and interference with major drug busts throughout U.S. Customs in the southwestern part of the United States. This was not the environment for a government undercover agent to put his faith in the verbal authority given by a Customs agent. But Matthews was unaware of these serious internal problems.
Prophetic warning, “In the end,
they’re gonna screw you.”
After the meeting, Dismukes warned Matthews that in every case that he personally knew of, where a contract undercover agent participated in that type of operation, he would eventually be charged and prosecuted, despite the authority given him by government agents. Matthews wrote:
Dismukes approached me in the hall. He was visibly upset that the feds were allowing drugs to hit the street. His face was red and his eyes were also red and watery. He was having trouble restraining himself. He told me it was my choice, but if I “went along with the feds on this and got in any deeper, eventually they will hang you out to dry; it always happens like this. In the end, they’re gonna screw you.”
Matthews later wrote, “I should have listened.”
Holiday Drug Loads Plan to
Catch Escobar and Stadter
In mid-1988, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and San Antonio Customs agents asked Matthews to again try to infiltrate the Stadter organization. Through his earlier connections with the Stadter group, Matthews managed to have the group allow him to fly two loads of cocaine into the United States before committing larger loads to him. Matthews advised Texas DPS and Customs agents of the two test loads and that he planned to fly one load on Christmas day, 1988, and the next load on January 1, 1989. No objection was raised.
“It’s gonna be a white Christmas”
Nestoroff, acting as communication liaison, received a message from Matthews on his answering machine on Christmas Eve stating, “It’s gonna be a white Christmas.” That was the code indicating Matthews would be flying to Colombia and bringing in a load of cocaine the next day, as part of the previously discussed plan.
Matthews landed in Florida on Christmas day with 1,400 pounds of cocaine. A member of the Escobar -Stadter group, “Chicha,” received the bulk of the load in Fort Lauderdale. One hundred ten pounds of the original cocaine shipment (50 kilos) were driven to California by Douglas “Dancer” Voet, a member of the Stadter organization. DEA agents in California, unaware of the undercover operation, seized the drugs.
The Second Load Went Badly
On December 30, 1988, Matthews left a message on Nestoroff‘s answering machine advising him that he would bring in a load of cocaine the next day. Nestoroff passed the word to Customs in San Antonio, and Customs assured Nestoroff that the information would be passed on. Either through bureaucratic carelessness, or deliberately, that wasn’t done. On this flight, Matthews had one of Stadter‘s pilots with him, Greg Thompson. Matthews landed his Merlin turbo-prop plane at the remote Colombian airstrip and trouble started immediately. Matthews explained:
As soon as the plane landed, another group or faction moved in and attempted to take the load, the plane, and anything else of value. A small arms firefight ensued during the loading and fueling, about a half mile away on the only road leading to the strip. I left the engines running for the fueling and loading, with Greg Thompson, the copilot, holding the brakes. Special outboard fuel receptacles had been installed for this purpose. As I deplaned and stepped away from the plane, I heard the shooting start. Max jumped in the jeep with four or five others and headed down the road to lend support to those guarding the road. After about 25 minutes, the jeep returned. Max was sitting on the passenger side of the jeep, being held up in the sitting position by a person sitting behind him. Max’s chest was covered with blood. Max had taken a high caliber round, probably from the back as the hole in his chest was near the size of my fist. Max and the guy holding him up were Italians who had lived in Colombia for many years. When I walked over to the jeep to talk to Max, the guy holding him up said, “Max finito,” meaning Max is finished [dead].
Matthews finally was able to take off from the airstrip, but there were other problems. As he approached Florida, his radar-detection equipment showed his plane had been picked up on radar. Thompson wanted to dump the load into the ocean, but Matthews wanted to save the undercover operation. He changed heading for his home strip at Damon, Texas.
Arrested by the Same Agency
That Authorized the Operation
Matthews hoped that if an interdiction plane had gotten close enough to get the registration number on the side of his aircraft, Customs would realize he was carrying out an undercover operation and cover for him. After landing at Damon, Matthews and Thompson moved the 700-kilo drug load onto a pickup truck and drove from the airstrip. About five miles away, on Farm Road 1462, they were stopped and arrested by Houston Customs agents. This arrest occurred despite the fact that San Antonio Customs agents had notified Houston that Matthews would be arriving with a load of drugs as part of the two test runs. Or was it planned that way? Matthews was getting a taste of how undercover operations authorized by agents in one office were not recognized by agents in another office of the same agency.
Houston Chronicle Protecting
Drug Traffickers
Greg Thompson contacted Stadter‘s attorney, who in turn contacted Stadter. Stadter then contacted his newspaper friend, Bob Sablatura who then wrote several Houston Chronicle articles favorable to Stadter that sought to shift blame to federal agents. Sablatura contacted the television program, 60- Minutes, to play up the angle of corrupt state and federal officials attempting to entrap his friend, Victor Stadter.
Stadter‘s Interesting Background
Shown by the Movie, “Breakout.”
Stadter had purchased a ranch near Leakey, Texas in the 1980’s where he controlled a small newspaper. Information given to me showed Stadter orchestrating a scheme to free someone falsely accused of a murder and incarcerated in a Mexican prison. A book was written about it, followed by a 1975 movie, “Breakout,” starring Charles Bronson. The movie was allegedly based upon Stadter orchestrating the 1971 rescue by helicopter of a prisoner (Kaplan) in a Mexican prison.
Stadter had been a thorn in the side of the CIA and State Department since he brought about Kaplan’s escape. Kaplan was an heir to a vast fruit company in Latin America and he was at odds with the CIA. The agency then reportedly orchestrated the murder of his grandfather and with the cooperation of corrupt Mexicans, arrested and sentenced Kaplan to 28 years in prison. The other heirs to the fruit company operation were amenable to CIA activities, and it was felt that Kaplan’s imprisonment would bring about a management change favorable to the CIA. Kaplan’s wife paid to have a pilot free her husband from the Mexican prison.
Back to Matthews
After the arrest, Texas DPS and San Antonio Customs made it known that Matthews was conducting an undercover operation. AUSA Dave Hall also got involved, making it known that Matthews had carte blanche authority to engage in his undercover drug-related activities. Charges against Matthews and Thompson were eventually dropped. Matthews’ Merlin propjet aircraft (N707PK), his truck, and his car, which had been seized, were returned. However, the publicity given to the arrest was an embarrassment to Customs officers in the southwestern division, and they sought to deny Matthews had authority to fly the drugs. Matthews explained the reason why certain Customs officials refused to provide him the support following the holiday drug bust:
I’m saying that after it hit the newspapers that cocaine was smuggled in and no one was charged, it was a terrible embarrassment to the government that they would have to admit the cocaine hit the street; that they allowed cocaine to hit the street; that they were allowing those kind of things in order to get convictions, to get people busted, or to get to certain targets.
Secret San Antonio
Customs Cover-Up Report
In an effort to make it appear in Customs records that the test runs were not known or authorized by Customs agents, and unknown to Matthews, an 18- page report (February 16, 1989) was prepared in the San Antonio Customs office by Agent James King. This was sent to the U.S. Customs Regional Enforcement Commissioner. That report was followed by a Customs cover-up memorandum written by San Antonio Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Neil Lageman. These reports charged Mathews with unlawfully flying drugs into the United States, omitting all reference to the authority given by AUSA Dave Hall and Customs agents. The reports ended up in Washington and intended to protect U.S. Customs supervisors. That report remained hidden from Matthews for several years.
If Matthews had actually flown the drugs into the United States without authority and for his personal use, Customs would have been required to promptly charge Matthews with drug-related offenses and DOJ prosecutors to file charges against him. This was not done.
Another Problem
The person who took the 50-kilo drug load to California after the drugs were unloaded in Florida had $100,000 of Matthews‘ money on him when arrested, which was to be returned to Matthews. Matthews asked Texas DPS Captain Don Cohn to send a letter to Washington explaining that the drug seizure in California, and seizure of the $100,000, was part of an authorized undercover operation. Cohn instructed DPS Agent Robert Nestoroff to write the letter. This would justify releasing the $100,000 to Matthews. The letter created a major problem.
Igniting an Internal Customs Firestorm
The two Customs reports falsely implying that Matthews‘ test runs were not a Customs-authorized operation—which had gotten to Washington, were then contradicted by the letter sent by the Texas Department of Public Service. This contradiction created problems within U.S. Customs. It also created problems for Matthews.
Multiple Reasons to Put
Matthews out of Commission
Matthews‘ later discoveries of high-level corruption, and his threat to a major Colombian drug lord with CIA connections, would generate other reasons for government officials to get rid of Matthews. It was necessary to also discredit—and possibly imprison—the Texas DPS agent who wrote the letter to Washington stating that Matthews had authority to fly the drug loads: Robert Nestoroff.
Seizure of New Year’s Load
Resulted in a Kidnapping
There was other fallout from the loss of this second load. The daughter of one of Matthews‘ friends in Colombia was kidnapped, and Matthews acted to bring about her release. Matthews explained the kidnapping:
The kidnapping was a result of the New Year’s eve 700-kilo load being leaked to the Houston Chronicle. That newspaper article literally started a war in Colombia between those who believed I was furnishing valid AWACS schedules and those who believed I was an informant. The two owners of that load were Molina, who controlled the Colombian emerald industry and Gaucho Rodriguez, a.k.a. “The Mexican.”
They furnished a Howard 500 [airplane] that was based at the Santa Marta airport. It was a motley crew that I picked up on the Guijira east of Rio Hacha at a clandestine airstrip. Some of the men were dressed in neat military uniforms with automatic weapons and others were shabbily dressed with old bolt-action rifles and shotguns. They loaded some of the heavier weaponry in the forward cargo compartments. We landed on the ranch northwest of Bogotá before dark, and I waited with the plane.
The following day the group returned. I was assured by my girlfriend’s brother that the girl had been released and was in safe hands in Medellin, Colombia, where she had been held at a small farm outside of town. I flew the crew back to the strip on the Guijira and returned the plane to the Santa Marta airport, where I took an airliner back to Bogotá.
The gist of the meeting was ‘Let’s put this behind us and move on.’ Houston Customs advised me they had some specific operations they wanted me to help them with. In return, I would be given a ‘clean slate.’ I accepted part of the responsibility of the holiday loads fiasco and agreed to assist them using my planes, assets, and skills. This came to be known as the ‘clean slate meeting’ I set up a load of cocaine out of Cali, Colombia, to be delivered to a military base in Panama using my wife’s Aztec. Everything went like clockwork.
While I was negotiating with the Colombians in New York to receive their load, I learned of a newspaper article in the Panama newspapers that fingered me as an informant. The Houston people I worked with said it was the Panamanians they worked with who had leaked the information to the press. I didn’t suspect anything because I thought I was back in the good graces of Customs.
I didn’t know about the 18-page report yet that was just sitting there smoking, it was so hot, and they couldn’t prosecute me for fear of embarrassment. I had been hearing about an official letter or memo from Customs, black-balling me from any further work for them. It didn’t make sense because Customs kept using me over and over and over. I continued to do some operations for Houston “free-gratis”. I eventually settled into flying contract smuggling flights for Houston HIDTA. On many of the flights as I previously indicated, it looked as though I was deliberately being set up to be killed. At that time, I didn’t know of any reason why anybody in the government would be trying to kill me.
This was not true, but the ruse was used to gain Emmens’ confidence. Matthews then had to confirm that the initial two loads were actual drug loads and not dummy runs, a tactic drug traffickers sometimes use to check the security of a run. If this was done, and a non-drug-load was busted, Matthews’ usefulness would cease, and the target would be alerted and escape punishment. In November 1989, Matthews had accumulated enough evidence to bring about Emmens’ arrest.
The seizure of the New Year’ test run by Customs undermined the operation to get evidence against Stadter and indirectly, the Pablo Escobar organization, requiring that the focus be put on other targets. Houston Customs personnel met with Matthews at the Lakeside Airport conference room in Houston (November 1990), purporting to use him against other targets.
Of the five drug flights, three were to Guatemala and two were to Colombia. Jerry Garner and Mike McDaniels were the DEA lead agents for these flights. The first of these flights was to a hay field type landing area in Central Guatemala from my hangar in Delray Beach, Florida to Guatemala, where I picked up the cocaine and delivered it to agents waiting at my Texas hangar. Jerry or Mike were always waiting, usually accompanied by other Customs or DEA agents.
I made an inspection run in my MU-2 to identify the surrounding terrain, look the strip over and obtain the GPS coordinates. At that time I didn’t even know Jerry or Mike. Tony Singleton with Houston Customs put me in touch with them and we made all the arrangements by phone and fax. They faxed me a hand-drawn map and other instructions one after-noon. On each of these cocaine flights the agents, Jerry and Mike, provided me with a hand-drawn map of the strip area. On a couple of occasions afterwards I was given a numbered government form to fill out concerning the clandestine airstrip and what transpired.
After the holiday loads fiasco, it was almost always government agents on the receiving end here in the United States or at a military base outside the United States. After going to work for Houston HIDTA in 1990, most of the cocaine loads were handled by the government on both ends. I was just a contract pilot flying cocaine for the government. On the pickup end, the government made the arrangements.
There are little patches of marijuana growing all over Belize with some larger fields in the south. I never flew over the Coca-Cola property specifically and looked. However, I can confirm that at one time one of the foremen or managers for the Coca-Cola plantations was heavily involved in loading airplanes with marijuana and facilitating smuggling flights.
Upon landing at the naval station, the drugs would be unloaded by military personnel or DEA agents. They would then be loaded onto a U.S. Customs Beech King Air and flown to Homestead Air Force Base by Customs pilots, one of whom Matthews knew by the name of Dornak.
Richard Pitt, another contract pilot whose exploits are described in the next chapter, also told me about the many drug flights that he flew into and out of this navy base. [I thought to myself, how things have changed; during World War II, when I was a Navy flight instructor in PBY seaplanes, I flew many training trips to that same naval base. At that time, the sinister activities that started with the formation of the CIA in 1947 did not exist.]
On one flight in April 1992, Matthews noticed the technician entered into his records the number C-38, which stood for the 38th flight to Colombia that year. It seemed that Matthews was not the only pilot used by government agents to fly drugs from Colombia to the United States facilities.
Matthews explained his plan to bring about Escobar’s arrest:
The first attempt to capture Pablo Escobar was a quasi-sanctioned operation. The plan was to lure Escobar to a clandestine airstrip about a hundred miles from Colombia’s border in Brazil. This would cut off his support in the Colombian military and reduce his cadre of personal body-guards. My group out of Barranquilla, Colombia, had an HF [high frequency] radio setup near the strip and were in touch with my girl friend in Barranquilla who would call me at my hotel in Boa Vista, Brazil, when Escobar was ready to be picked up.
The strip was 140 miles from Boa Vista. I notified Peter Delsandro in Miami Customs by fax the day before the Panama invasion that I would be bringing the fugitive into San Juan, Puerto Rico, less than 1000 miles from the strip. My phone call from Barranquilla did not come that day because the hotel phone lines were down.
I assumed there was a delay and waited. I didn’t know the lines were down. The plan had gone like clockwork. Pablo and his group arrived in a helicopter that carried only six people. My group easily got the drop on them. With me being more than a day late, the group under my Colombian partner began to panic. Pablo offered them more money than I was paying, a lot more. My partner hit the jungle with his hand-held aircraft radio. My delayed phone message caused me to arrive a day late in the middle of a situation that was not friendly. I was circling over the strip trying to make radio contact with my guy on the ground to get the OK-to-land signal.
Suddenly the left engine was ablaze [from ground fire]. It felt like someone hit the plane with a sledgehammer. The left engine began surging and the feathering control was jammed solid. I saw pieces of metal protruding through the cowling. We were loaded with fuel and loaded for bear. It was a slow descent to find the nearest clandestine gold mining/smuggling strip along the river.
The strip was soft, the nose wheel sunk in and broke off. The left wing went down on the tip tank and we were sliding 10 degrees to 15 degrees to the left of the strip toward the trees. As we began to slide off the left side of the strip, I locked up the right brake and she changed direction enough that it came to rest slightly to the right of the strip, partly on the strip. The right main gear had partially collapsed and the left wing pointed upward at about a 30 to 40 degree angle. The tip tank had been ripped open and fuel was pouring down the leading edge of the left wing onto the burning engine.
We all got out of the plane and for about 20 minutes it was like the fourth of July. One of the passengers had a camera and was able to photo-graph the different stages of burning and the marks on the dirt strip to indicate what had occurred. When the fireworks began to die down, the Indians began slowly emerging from the jungle.
These were real Indians with the tattoos on their faces and stretched bottom lips, wearing leather straps. There was a Colombian on the strip who had an HF radio in the jungle nearby. He knew the whole deal and tried to turn the Indians on me. He called me “Del Norte Americana agente.” I had some friends standing by or working the gold fields nearby. They saw the smoke and came to rescue us in a Bell 205, just in time.
The next day, I faxed Delsandro of Miami Customs a photo of what was left of the plane and told him to disregard delivering the fugitive to San Juan Puerto Rico Customs.
At that time, Rozan was a nominee for the political U.S. Attorney position at Houston. Rosenblatt authorized Matthews to engage in money laundering and smuggling electronics to finance and facilitate the operation.
At the urging of Rozan, it was agreed that Matthews would be paid $5 mil-lion if he could bring about the successful kidnapping of Pablo Escobar. Secretly, Rozan demanded that Matthews give him half the reward money. That plan fizzled out for various reasons. At a later meeting, Matthews was represented by attorney F. Lee Bailey.
In 1999 I sent two letters to Congressman Rangel, one of them certified mail, asking Rangel for his comments on the plan. He refused to respond to either letter.
But the insurance company refused to pay. Matthews could have filed a lawsuit, but this would require testifying in court and exposing his undercover status. This decision caused Matthews to lose $700,000, one of the downsides to being a contract undercover agent for the government. Matthews filed an accident report with the Federal Aviation Administration at Ft. Lauderdale, which included the affidavits of two Brazilian pilots who were on board the aircraft. Matthews had taken the Brazilian pilots along because they were familiar with the area, the people, and their language. One pilot, Jorge Rogerio, was well known in the Brazilian media as “Marijuana George.”
Before taking off from the naval base, a DEA agent instructed Matthews to arrive and land after dark, using the makeshift runway lighting provided. As a precautionary measure, Matthews left the base early so he would arrive while there was still light, permitting him to inspect the airstrip from the air. To his surprise, there were two high hills at each end of the dirt strip, requiring a much steeper approach to the short runway. If he had arrived at night and made a normal approach to the relatively short airstrip with the unlighted hill on the approach end, it is very possible he would have crashed.
My last flight to Europe in the Merlin III-B was a far cry from earlier flights where every minute was a struggle for survival in the old round engine planes. With the Merlin cruising at 24 to 26 thousand, the cabin pressure was about 3000 feet. It was a very quiet and comfortable plane, kind of like sitting on your favorite chair in your living room watching TV. I had enough fuel to go non-stop straight across the Atlantic from Gander to Shannon with enough IFR reserve to go to Paris or London, which cut the stress factor considerably.
I had the same autopilot flight director system as the space shuttle, coupled to Omega-Loran-GPS and all the other good stuff. At a glance I could take my position with three different navigation systems and if all three agreed within a quarter mile, one could be fairly confident that was where you were at. It was really a super low-stress flight compared to some of the earlier flights with two and three pilots, totally stressed out to the point where when you finally reached your destination, you felt like you had rowed across the Atlantic.
Matthews‘ description of flying the North Atlantic reminded me of the many flights I flew as captain on the North Atlantic in Boeing Stratocruisers, Lock-heed Constellations, DC-4, and even two-engine C-46 aircraft.
The purpose of the ad was to bring about the defection of an Iraqi pilot and an Iraqi aircraft by offering to pay $100,000 to any Iraqi pilot who defected with an Iraqi aircraft. As a result of the ad, Houston television station KHOU, a CBS affiliate, had Matthews appear, and with his face blacked out, describing the purpose of the reward. The purpose of the operation was to demoralize Saddam Hussein and his military and provide an impetus for other Iraqis to defect. It was a long shot by Matthews that he thought up on the spur of the moment. An Iraqi pilot did respond. Matthews wrote:
Nobody, including myself, believed it would work until I got the call. It ended up that I paid the Iraqi pilot $100,000 out of my own pocket. It was a crazy deal that changed as it developed. The Iraqi pilot’s mother was Jewish and was under investigation with her brother, who also lived in Iraq. The pilot wanted the money to get his family out of Iraq to save their lives.
When the pilot was told the deal about the photo that would be in the world news, he refused the money and threatened suicide right there on the spot. He explained that he did this to save his family and now they would be killed for sure. We had the highway blocked off with traffic backed up for miles both ways, and the Iraqi pilot gets down on his knees and starts praying to Allah in Muslim fashion.
Within minutes, during refueling, a new deal was cut right there on the highway. The pilot was given asylum in Israel where he was debriefed. The pilot’s family also was given asylum in Israel after their successful departure from Iraq. I believe the Brits ended up with the Mig-29. Everyone involved knew if the U.S. State Department were consulted, they would have opted to go with the propaganda and let the pilot’s Jewish mother and her brother die in Iraq. Turns out the pilot’s uncle in Iraq was working for Israel and that’s what started the investigation of his Jewish mother.
At first, Matthews didn’t want me to write about this Iraqi operation for fear of alienating those who helped the defecting Iraqi pilot. I managed to convince him that we could keep certain names secret and still get the message out.
Matthews didn’t have a copy of the ad that he placed in the tabloid-size Trade-A-Plane. I took a chance and asked the people at Trade-A-Plane to search for that ad and send me a copy, a monumental task. Very obligingly, they found the issue, the second February issue in 1991. I also contacted Aviation International News, asking them to locate the ad, but they did not respond to my request.
Copy of half-page ad appearing in worldwide circulated Trade-A-Plane, placed by Rodney Matthews, as a public-spirited effort.
Matthews Responsible for
Bringing About Ellard‘s Arrest
Several years earlier, in 1985, Matthews‘ undercover activities brought about the arrest of Pablo Escobar‘s partner, Jimmy Ellard. Ellard had flown a drug load into the United States from Belize in 1984 and was to have landed at San Marcos Airport in Texas where Matthews was waiting with government agents, who would then arrest Ellard. Instead of landing at San Marcos, Ellard landed at Eagle Lake, Texas, about 70 miles west of Houston, apparently to rip off the drug load. Despite this diversion, government agents accidentally discovered Ellard and his drug load, and arrested him. Shortly after his arrest, Ellard was released on bail and fled back to Colombia, rejoining the Escobar operation.
Ellard had been a former deputy sheriff in Fort Bend County, Texas. He was again arrested in 1990 while living under a false name in Florida. He pled guilty in 1991 to his leadership in a large smuggling operation that flew nearly 30 tons of cocaine from Columbia to Florida.
During questioning, Ellard told government agents how he was able to evade the government’s radar interdiction system.
While living in Colombia in the late 1980s, he provided Dandy Munoz Mosquera—Pablo Escobar‘s assassin—knowledge on how to put a bomb on board a Colombian airline, Avianca, which killed over 100 people, including the two police informants that were their targets.
Uncomfortable Working Sensitive
Operations with New Agents
Matthews had been working with Customs agent Richard Nichols in the San Antonio office, relying upon his verbal authorization to fly drugs as part of government-authorized undercover operations. He felt uncomfortable about this verbal arrangement and his discomfort surfaced in June 1988 when Nichols told Matthews that he would be gone for several months attending job-related training at Marana, Arizona. Nichols told Matthews he would be working under Customs agents Thomas Grieve and Jim Dukes during this time.
An Irresponsible Request of
Matthews by a Customs Agent
Before Nichols left, Grieve asked Matthews to fly a drug load into the United States without being granted immunity, and take the chance of getting caught. This was an irresponsible suggestion. Grieve was playing it safe. If the operation backfired and received media attention, Grieve could easily lie. Unknown to Matthews, lying was part of the Customs’ culture. The Customs agent could say he knew nothing about the drug flight, and Matthews could end up with a life-in-prison sentence.
Another possible reason for Grieve’s request was that U.S. Customs was trying to set up Matthews for an arrest and get rid of an undercover agent who had learned too much about the involvement of government personnel in drug trafficking.
“I’m getting in too deep”
Matthews refused Grieves’ request: “I’m getting in too deep. I’m afraid some of this stuff will come back on me down the road.” Matthews told Nichols that he needed authorization from higher authority. Matthews later explained:
Nichols assured me if I would continue my efforts he would arrange that I hear the authorization from someone higher up. We discussed the possibility that if I had authority to fly loads in myself, perhaps we could wrap up the case in a few loads. Otherwise, it could go on for years. The meetings were set up and I was assured by a special prosecutor out of Main Justice in Washington, AUSA David Hall, that I could fly loads in myself.
A second meeting was held on August 23, 1988, seeking to reach an agreement where Matthews would be willing to continue the undercover efforts to infiltrate the Stadter organization. This meeting, held at a San Antonio restaurant, was attended by Customs agents Richard Nichols, Thomas Grieve and Jim Dukes; Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) agents Robert Nestoroff and Kenneth Dismukes, and Justice Department AUSA David Hall. Dismukes advised Matthews that the authority to authorize such operations was with federal agencies, that Texas agents could not grant such authorization.
Carte Blanche Authority to
Fly Drugs—But Don’t Tell Us!
Hall stated that Matthews had carte blanche authority to fly drugs into the United States as part of his government-authorized undercover activities. Grieve then told Matthews, “You have carte blanche from the special prosecutor to do whatever it takes. You can’t tell us everything, or we will have to interdict the load and the load will never reach the target.” Matthews asked Grieve, “What if it takes more than one load?” to which Grieve replied, “Do whatever it takes.” After Grieve said this, Dismukes’ face turned beet-red and he walked out. (Matthews had been given specific authority to fly drugs into the United States as part of normal sting operations in 1986, 1987, and 1989.)
Drug Loads Picked up and
Delivered for U.S. Customs
Although Grieve said they would have to interdict the drug load if they
knew about it, Customs agents knew of many drug loads entering the United
States without being interdicted. These included CIA drug loads being clandestinely shipped into the United States, and drug loads that Customs agents specifically directed Matthews to pick up and deliver to destinations in the United
States. For flights like these, for which Matthews simply provided transportation for the drugs, the government paid him $40,000 to $50,000 per trip. Top-Level Justice Department Authority
Dave Hall, who had given Matthews authorization to fly drug loads, was a former trial attorney assigned to the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, and head of a multi-agency task force based in San Antonio that consisted of agents from Customs, DEA, and IRS. Being Washington-based in a key Justice Department position, his authorization to fly drugs came from the Justice Department’s highest offices.
Unknown to Matthews, Hall was encountering a great amount of problems in the San Antonio Customs office, and particularly from SAC Neil Lageman. As stated in earlier pages, a 1553-page report prepared by the House Committee On Government Operations detailed mismanagement, internal bickering, corruption, and interference with major drug busts throughout U.S. Customs in the southwestern part of the United States. This was not the environment for a government undercover agent to put his faith in the verbal authority given by a Customs agent. But Matthews was unaware of these serious internal problems.
Prophetic warning, “In the end,
they’re gonna screw you.”
After the meeting, Dismukes warned Matthews that in every case that he personally knew of, where a contract undercover agent participated in that type of operation, he would eventually be charged and prosecuted, despite the authority given him by government agents. Matthews wrote:
Dismukes approached me in the hall. He was visibly upset that the feds were allowing drugs to hit the street. His face was red and his eyes were also red and watery. He was having trouble restraining himself. He told me it was my choice, but if I “went along with the feds on this and got in any deeper, eventually they will hang you out to dry; it always happens like this. In the end, they’re gonna screw you.”
Matthews later wrote, “I should have listened.”
Holiday Drug Loads Plan to
Catch Escobar and Stadter
In mid-1988, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and San Antonio Customs agents asked Matthews to again try to infiltrate the Stadter organization. Through his earlier connections with the Stadter group, Matthews managed to have the group allow him to fly two loads of cocaine into the United States before committing larger loads to him. Matthews advised Texas DPS and Customs agents of the two test loads and that he planned to fly one load on Christmas day, 1988, and the next load on January 1, 1989. No objection was raised.
“It’s gonna be a white Christmas”
Nestoroff, acting as communication liaison, received a message from Matthews on his answering machine on Christmas Eve stating, “It’s gonna be a white Christmas.” That was the code indicating Matthews would be flying to Colombia and bringing in a load of cocaine the next day, as part of the previously discussed plan.
Matthews landed in Florida on Christmas day with 1,400 pounds of cocaine. A member of the Escobar -Stadter group, “Chicha,” received the bulk of the load in Fort Lauderdale. One hundred ten pounds of the original cocaine shipment (50 kilos) were driven to California by Douglas “Dancer” Voet, a member of the Stadter organization. DEA agents in California, unaware of the undercover operation, seized the drugs.
The Second Load Went Badly
On December 30, 1988, Matthews left a message on Nestoroff‘s answering machine advising him that he would bring in a load of cocaine the next day. Nestoroff passed the word to Customs in San Antonio, and Customs assured Nestoroff that the information would be passed on. Either through bureaucratic carelessness, or deliberately, that wasn’t done. On this flight, Matthews had one of Stadter‘s pilots with him, Greg Thompson. Matthews landed his Merlin turbo-prop plane at the remote Colombian airstrip and trouble started immediately. Matthews explained:
As soon as the plane landed, another group or faction moved in and attempted to take the load, the plane, and anything else of value. A small arms firefight ensued during the loading and fueling, about a half mile away on the only road leading to the strip. I left the engines running for the fueling and loading, with Greg Thompson, the copilot, holding the brakes. Special outboard fuel receptacles had been installed for this purpose. As I deplaned and stepped away from the plane, I heard the shooting start. Max jumped in the jeep with four or five others and headed down the road to lend support to those guarding the road. After about 25 minutes, the jeep returned. Max was sitting on the passenger side of the jeep, being held up in the sitting position by a person sitting behind him. Max’s chest was covered with blood. Max had taken a high caliber round, probably from the back as the hole in his chest was near the size of my fist. Max and the guy holding him up were Italians who had lived in Colombia for many years. When I walked over to the jeep to talk to Max, the guy holding him up said, “Max finito,” meaning Max is finished [dead].
Matthews finally was able to take off from the airstrip, but there were other problems. As he approached Florida, his radar-detection equipment showed his plane had been picked up on radar. Thompson wanted to dump the load into the ocean, but Matthews wanted to save the undercover operation. He changed heading for his home strip at Damon, Texas.
Arrested by the Same Agency
That Authorized the Operation
Matthews hoped that if an interdiction plane had gotten close enough to get the registration number on the side of his aircraft, Customs would realize he was carrying out an undercover operation and cover for him. After landing at Damon, Matthews and Thompson moved the 700-kilo drug load onto a pickup truck and drove from the airstrip. About five miles away, on Farm Road 1462, they were stopped and arrested by Houston Customs agents. This arrest occurred despite the fact that San Antonio Customs agents had notified Houston that Matthews would be arriving with a load of drugs as part of the two test runs. Or was it planned that way? Matthews was getting a taste of how undercover operations authorized by agents in one office were not recognized by agents in another office of the same agency.
Houston Chronicle Protecting
Drug Traffickers
Greg Thompson contacted Stadter‘s attorney, who in turn contacted Stadter. Stadter then contacted his newspaper friend, Bob Sablatura who then wrote several Houston Chronicle articles favorable to Stadter that sought to shift blame to federal agents. Sablatura contacted the television program, 60- Minutes, to play up the angle of corrupt state and federal officials attempting to entrap his friend, Victor Stadter.
Stadter‘s Interesting Background
Shown by the Movie, “Breakout.”
Stadter had purchased a ranch near Leakey, Texas in the 1980’s where he controlled a small newspaper. Information given to me showed Stadter orchestrating a scheme to free someone falsely accused of a murder and incarcerated in a Mexican prison. A book was written about it, followed by a 1975 movie, “Breakout,” starring Charles Bronson. The movie was allegedly based upon Stadter orchestrating the 1971 rescue by helicopter of a prisoner (Kaplan) in a Mexican prison.
Stadter had been a thorn in the side of the CIA and State Department since he brought about Kaplan’s escape. Kaplan was an heir to a vast fruit company in Latin America and he was at odds with the CIA. The agency then reportedly orchestrated the murder of his grandfather and with the cooperation of corrupt Mexicans, arrested and sentenced Kaplan to 28 years in prison. The other heirs to the fruit company operation were amenable to CIA activities, and it was felt that Kaplan’s imprisonment would bring about a management change favorable to the CIA. Kaplan’s wife paid to have a pilot free her husband from the Mexican prison.
Back to Matthews
After the arrest, Texas DPS and San Antonio Customs made it known that Matthews was conducting an undercover operation. AUSA Dave Hall also got involved, making it known that Matthews had carte blanche authority to engage in his undercover drug-related activities. Charges against Matthews and Thompson were eventually dropped. Matthews’ Merlin propjet aircraft (N707PK), his truck, and his car, which had been seized, were returned. However, the publicity given to the arrest was an embarrassment to Customs officers in the southwestern division, and they sought to deny Matthews had authority to fly the drugs. Matthews explained the reason why certain Customs officials refused to provide him the support following the holiday drug bust:
I’m saying that after it hit the newspapers that cocaine was smuggled in and no one was charged, it was a terrible embarrassment to the government that they would have to admit the cocaine hit the street; that they allowed cocaine to hit the street; that they were allowing those kind of things in order to get convictions, to get people busted, or to get to certain targets.
Secret San Antonio
Customs Cover-Up Report
In an effort to make it appear in Customs records that the test runs were not known or authorized by Customs agents, and unknown to Matthews, an 18- page report (February 16, 1989) was prepared in the San Antonio Customs office by Agent James King. This was sent to the U.S. Customs Regional Enforcement Commissioner. That report was followed by a Customs cover-up memorandum written by San Antonio Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Neil Lageman. These reports charged Mathews with unlawfully flying drugs into the United States, omitting all reference to the authority given by AUSA Dave Hall and Customs agents. The reports ended up in Washington and intended to protect U.S. Customs supervisors. That report remained hidden from Matthews for several years.
If Matthews had actually flown the drugs into the United States without authority and for his personal use, Customs would have been required to promptly charge Matthews with drug-related offenses and DOJ prosecutors to file charges against him. This was not done.
Another Problem
The person who took the 50-kilo drug load to California after the drugs were unloaded in Florida had $100,000 of Matthews‘ money on him when arrested, which was to be returned to Matthews. Matthews asked Texas DPS Captain Don Cohn to send a letter to Washington explaining that the drug seizure in California, and seizure of the $100,000, was part of an authorized undercover operation. Cohn instructed DPS Agent Robert Nestoroff to write the letter. This would justify releasing the $100,000 to Matthews. The letter created a major problem.
Igniting an Internal Customs Firestorm
The two Customs reports falsely implying that Matthews‘ test runs were not a Customs-authorized operation—which had gotten to Washington, were then contradicted by the letter sent by the Texas Department of Public Service. This contradiction created problems within U.S. Customs. It also created problems for Matthews.
Multiple Reasons to Put
Matthews out of Commission
Matthews‘ later discoveries of high-level corruption, and his threat to a major Colombian drug lord with CIA connections, would generate other reasons for government officials to get rid of Matthews. It was necessary to also discredit—and possibly imprison—the Texas DPS agent who wrote the letter to Washington stating that Matthews had authority to fly the drug loads: Robert Nestoroff.
Seizure of New Year’s Load
Resulted in a Kidnapping
There was other fallout from the loss of this second load. The daughter of one of Matthews‘ friends in Colombia was kidnapped, and Matthews acted to bring about her release. Matthews explained the kidnapping:
The kidnapping was a result of the New Year’s eve 700-kilo load being leaked to the Houston Chronicle. That newspaper article literally started a war in Colombia between those who believed I was furnishing valid AWACS schedules and those who believed I was an informant. The two owners of that load were Molina, who controlled the Colombian emerald industry and Gaucho Rodriguez, a.k.a. “The Mexican.”
[Matthews Helping to
Rescue Kidnapped Girl]
The girl was kidnapped and held until they were paid for the loss of the
load. My girlfriend’s brother worked with a military colonel in the Colombian army. I personally turned over several hundred thousand dollars to
the colonel. I was asked to fly a group of about 25 men from the North
Coast of Colombia to a ranch about 75 miles northwest of Bogotá. They furnished a Howard 500 [airplane] that was based at the Santa Marta airport. It was a motley crew that I picked up on the Guijira east of Rio Hacha at a clandestine airstrip. Some of the men were dressed in neat military uniforms with automatic weapons and others were shabbily dressed with old bolt-action rifles and shotguns. They loaded some of the heavier weaponry in the forward cargo compartments. We landed on the ranch northwest of Bogotá before dark, and I waited with the plane.
The following day the group returned. I was assured by my girlfriend’s brother that the girl had been released and was in safe hands in Medellin, Colombia, where she had been held at a small farm outside of town. I flew the crew back to the strip on the Guijira and returned the plane to the Santa Marta airport, where I took an airliner back to Bogotá.
[Executing 18 People]
It was not until the next morning, while I was drinking coffee and reading the newspapers in the Hotel Tacandama, that I saw where Molina and
at least 17 of his leading security force members were handcuffed and removed from the house where a large party had been in progress with a Mexican and a Colombian band. Those 18 people were executed. No one
else was harmed, according to the Colombian newspaper. The ranch was in
the area northwest of Bogotá where I had landed. I later learned that
someone at the party was forced to call via high frequency radio the ranch
where the girl was being held, and order her released. The people who
were holding the girl in Medellin were all killed by the military, according
to the newspapers. The girl was never mentioned in the newspapers. Gaucho, the Mexican, met his demise shortly thereafter, and the pressure was
off of me in reference to the “Chronicle” article about the 700 kilos which
only hinted I may be an informer.
[DOJ Informing Colombians
Matthews was U.S. Informant]
It was when AUSA Thompson sent out a two-page fax to major media
around the country, officially notifying the world that I was a U.S. government informant, after I refused to cooperate in the cover-up and the prosecutor’s request to falsely name other people, that really did me in. This was
done while my case was still under seal and Thompson knew my wife and
child were in Latin America, easily accessible to the cartels of drug traffickers I had burned. I’m sure Thompson, Customs and DOJ officials
thought I would be killed or be begging to cooperate in their cover-up that
would protect them from embarrassment and censure. The 1998 ABC news
documentary only opened the door to the cover-up.
Government Agents Again Give
Matthews a Clean Slate
Present at this meeting were Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)
agents Robert Nestoroff, Don Cohn, Jim Fields, and David Davis, and Customs
Special Agent in Charge (SAC) John Farley, Agents Richard Cardwell and
Tony Singleton. During this meeting, Farley offered Matthews a clean slate if
he would agree to do undercover work for Houston Customs and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task force. It wasn’t really necessary to
be given a clean slate as Customs personnel authorized the holiday drug loads.
The statement by Customs personnel that they were giving Matthews a clean
slate appeared to be another attempt to show the holiday loads were not authorized.
Clean-Slate Meeting
The “clean-slate” immunity was for the holiday drug load arrest and all the
previous operations connected to the Stadter group (that had already been authorized by Justice Department’s Dave Hall and Customs agents from the San
Antonio office), or any other drug load. Matthews had this to say about the
meeting: The gist of the meeting was ‘Let’s put this behind us and move on.’ Houston Customs advised me they had some specific operations they wanted me to help them with. In return, I would be given a ‘clean slate.’ I accepted part of the responsibility of the holiday loads fiasco and agreed to assist them using my planes, assets, and skills. This came to be known as the ‘clean slate meeting’ I set up a load of cocaine out of Cali, Colombia, to be delivered to a military base in Panama using my wife’s Aztec. Everything went like clockwork.
While I was negotiating with the Colombians in New York to receive their load, I learned of a newspaper article in the Panama newspapers that fingered me as an informant. The Houston people I worked with said it was the Panamanians they worked with who had leaked the information to the press. I didn’t suspect anything because I thought I was back in the good graces of Customs.
I didn’t know about the 18-page report yet that was just sitting there smoking, it was so hot, and they couldn’t prosecute me for fear of embarrassment. I had been hearing about an official letter or memo from Customs, black-balling me from any further work for them. It didn’t make sense because Customs kept using me over and over and over. I continued to do some operations for Houston “free-gratis”. I eventually settled into flying contract smuggling flights for Houston HIDTA. On many of the flights as I previously indicated, it looked as though I was deliberately being set up to be killed. At that time, I didn’t know of any reason why anybody in the government would be trying to kill me.
Continuing to Work Undercover Operations
Matthews had several undercover operations going. He shifted his attention from the Stadter project, which had been undermined by Customs, to the Nelson Emmens group that he had been trying to infiltrate since 1986. Part of Mat-thews’ tactics to infiltrate the group was to broker the purchase of two airplanes for Emmens through Matthews’ front company, Rod Aero. Matthews, trying to have Emmens use him for drug transporting, told Emmens he had a safe route to the United States based upon his access to AWACS schedules (Airborne Warning and Control System). This was not true, but the ruse was used to gain Emmens’ confidence. Matthews then had to confirm that the initial two loads were actual drug loads and not dummy runs, a tactic drug traffickers sometimes use to check the security of a run. If this was done, and a non-drug-load was busted, Matthews’ usefulness would cease, and the target would be alerted and escape punishment. In November 1989, Matthews had accumulated enough evidence to bring about Emmens’ arrest.
The seizure of the New Year’ test run by Customs undermined the operation to get evidence against Stadter and indirectly, the Pablo Escobar organization, requiring that the focus be put on other targets. Houston Customs personnel met with Matthews at the Lakeside Airport conference room in Houston (November 1990), purporting to use him against other targets.
Furnishing Transportation for
Government Cocaine Flights
As Matthews previously described to me, the contract drug flights were flights where he simply provided transportation requested by government agents, flying to remote Colombian airstrips designated by Customs agents and delivering the drugs in the United States to people designated by the same agents. At that time, Matthews didn’t realize the flights were a small part of a much larger practice of government agents and agencies flying drugs into the United States, as explained to me for the past decade by a long list of under-cover agents. I asked Matthews about these flights, and he confirmed that he did not know what was done with the cocaine for which he had provided transportation and which he delivered to Customs and DEA-designated parties in the United States.
Juan Carlos Facholos Operation
In another undercover operation Matthews carried out for Houston Customs (1990), it ultimately resulted in the seizure of 491 kilos of cocaine from the Juan Carlos Facholos operation. In that operation, Matthews used his wife’s Piper Aztec to carry a drug load from Cali, Colombia to New York via Panama. However, U.S. agents in Panama seized the drugs. While Matthews was negotiating to get the drugs released and simultaneously negotiating with the Colombians in New York to bring about delivery, Panamanian newspapers printed in-formation indicating Matthews was a U.S. government informant. Matthews suspected this information came from Customs personnel in the San Antonio office.
Flying Captured Drug Traffickers
Into the United States
Besides flying undercover operations to ensnare drug traffickers and flying drug loads arranged by government agents, Customs agents paid Matthews to provide personnel transportation. One such flight was flying government agents from his Damon, Texas airstrip to Aruba in his Merlin and then from Aruba, flying two Colombians who had been previously arrested with the cooperation of Aruban authorities to Hooks Airport near Houston, Texas. He received a $40,000 government check for this flight.
Suspicious Government-
Ordered Drug Flights
Other flights for which Matthews merely provided transportation had serious overtones that Matthews did not recognize at the time. Matthews said several of his drug hauling flights were directed by government agents who directed him to specific airstrips to pick up and then deliver a load to government agents at various places in the United States. Government agents sometimes gave Matthews hand-drawn maps of airstrips showing the pickup location. Matthews was given government questionnaires to fill out after the flight. Mat-thews’ only involvement in these flights was to provide transportation for which he was paid by the U.S. government, with government checks. There was no effort to infiltrate any drug group.
Far More Drugs Shipped Than
Required for Sting Operations
The excuse given by government supervisors when Matthews asked about why drugs are being shipped into the United States was that the drugs were being used for sting operations. Unknown to Matthews at that time, those flights were part of an overall drug smuggling operation involving the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. military. Matthews described several of these drug-hauling flights for which he provided transportation: Of the five drug flights, three were to Guatemala and two were to Colombia. Jerry Garner and Mike McDaniels were the DEA lead agents for these flights. The first of these flights was to a hay field type landing area in Central Guatemala from my hangar in Delray Beach, Florida to Guatemala, where I picked up the cocaine and delivered it to agents waiting at my Texas hangar. Jerry or Mike were always waiting, usually accompanied by other Customs or DEA agents.
I made an inspection run in my MU-2 to identify the surrounding terrain, look the strip over and obtain the GPS coordinates. At that time I didn’t even know Jerry or Mike. Tony Singleton with Houston Customs put me in touch with them and we made all the arrangements by phone and fax. They faxed me a hand-drawn map and other instructions one after-noon. On each of these cocaine flights the agents, Jerry and Mike, provided me with a hand-drawn map of the strip area. On a couple of occasions afterwards I was given a numbered government form to fill out concerning the clandestine airstrip and what transpired.
Government Agents at
Both Ends of Drug Loads
In answer to one of my questions about drug load pickups ordered by government agents for which he provided transportation, Matthews replied: After the holiday loads fiasco, it was almost always government agents on the receiving end here in the United States or at a military base outside the United States. After going to work for Houston HIDTA in 1990, most of the cocaine loads were handled by the government on both ends. I was just a contract pilot flying cocaine for the government. On the pickup end, the government made the arrangements.
Sham Excuses Given to Drug Cartels
for Successful Drug Runs
Several times, drug cartels asked Matthews to explain his success at bringing drugs into the United States without being caught. To avoid suspicion that he was a government undercover agent, Matthews told them that he was obtaining AWACS schedules from his U.S. Customs connections. They offered to pay him for copies of these schedules, which he then fabricated. Escobar and Ellard paid Matthews $500,000 each time he provided the bogus schedules. Because of the large time slots when there were no AWACS planes covering the particular area, the success rate at not being interdicted—with or without AWACS schedules—provided Matthews a certain amount of credibility.
Drug Cartels Funding Part of
Matthews‘ Undercover Operations
By being recognized as a successful drug transporter, Matthews had his targeted drug traffickers provide him money to buy planes and other expensive equipment. In one case, a targeted drug lord gave Matthews $300,000 to improve his airstrip at Damon, Texas, in preparation for transporting 10,000 to 15,000 kilos of marijuana aboard a DC-6. DPS agents inspected the property at Damon, Texas and approved the plan.
Coca-Cola in the Drug Business?
A low-key contract undercover agent working for the DEA and CIA, who hauled arms to Central and South America during the Contra operation in the 1980s, Basil (Bo) Abbott, frequently talked about how he flew drugs for the DEA in DEA-provided aircraft. During one conversation, Abbott told me that the land owned by Coca Cola in Belize was heavily planted with marijuana. I asked Matthews if he knew anything about this. He wrote: There are little patches of marijuana growing all over Belize with some larger fields in the south. I never flew over the Coca-Cola property specifically and looked. However, I can confirm that at one time one of the foremen or managers for the Coca-Cola plantations was heavily involved in loading airplanes with marijuana and facilitating smuggling flights.
Guantanamo Naval Air Station and Drugs
Customs agents frequently directed Matthews to fly drugs from Colombia into Guantanamo Naval Air Station in Cuba. During these flights into the naval base, the procedure was to radio to the Navy control tower using code names given to him by the DEA, including “Hot-Rod” and “Dark-Cloud.” Upon landing at the naval station, the drugs would be unloaded by military personnel or DEA agents. They would then be loaded onto a U.S. Customs Beech King Air and flown to Homestead Air Force Base by Customs pilots, one of whom Matthews knew by the name of Dornak.
Richard Pitt, another contract pilot whose exploits are described in the next chapter, also told me about the many drug flights that he flew into and out of this navy base. [I thought to myself, how things have changed; during World War II, when I was a Navy flight instructor in PBY seaplanes, I flew many training trips to that same naval base. At that time, the sinister activities that started with the formation of the CIA in 1947 did not exist.]
Placing Tracking Devices
on Matthews‘ Aircraft
Matthews explained how DEA and Customs agents placed tracking devices on his aircraft, including flights from Guantanamo Naval Air Base to Colombia. Matthews said the devices were basically transponders that emitted a particular code displayed on the radar screens of air traffic controllers. He explained that one type of device emits the signal “suspect” on the controllers’ screens. On one flight in April 1992, Matthews noticed the technician entered into his records the number C-38, which stood for the 38th flight to Colombia that year. It seemed that Matthews was not the only pilot used by government agents to fly drugs from Colombia to the United States facilities.
Plan to Capture Pablo Escobar
In 1990, Matthews suggested a plan to Customs agents for him to capture Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and fly him into the United States. At that time, Escobar was America’s Number One drug target. They approved the plan; it was Matthews’ life at risk, using his own plane, and his own money, with no risk to U.S. government agents. In trying to carry it out, Matthews set up money laundering and electronic smuggling operations with the Escobar group. The plan to kidnap Escobar was based upon luring him to a place where he could be kidnapped and flown to the nearest U.S. military base. Escobar was considered the biggest drug trafficker and the most brutal, and considerable efforts were exerted by the United States to bring about his capture.
Escobar Bombing Hilton
Hotel in Cartagena
In an earlier attempt to bring about Escobar’s arrest, Matthews met with Escobar and other cartel members in the Cartagena Hilton Hotel over a three-day period. Escobar had been on the “wanted” list for some time and Matthews thought this was a good time to bring about Escobar’s arrest. He called Texas DPS agent Robert Nestoroff, advising that Escobar was at the hotel. Nestoroff then notified EPIC (El Paso Information Center) and this information was then given to Colombian authorities. Before they arrived at the hotel, someone alerted Escobar to the imminent arrival of Colombian police, allowing him to escape. Thinking that someone on the hotel staff had reported his presence, Escobar had the hotel bombed. Matthews explained his plan to bring about Escobar’s arrest:
The first attempt to capture Pablo Escobar was a quasi-sanctioned operation. The plan was to lure Escobar to a clandestine airstrip about a hundred miles from Colombia’s border in Brazil. This would cut off his support in the Colombian military and reduce his cadre of personal body-guards. My group out of Barranquilla, Colombia, had an HF [high frequency] radio setup near the strip and were in touch with my girl friend in Barranquilla who would call me at my hotel in Boa Vista, Brazil, when Escobar was ready to be picked up.
The strip was 140 miles from Boa Vista. I notified Peter Delsandro in Miami Customs by fax the day before the Panama invasion that I would be bringing the fugitive into San Juan, Puerto Rico, less than 1000 miles from the strip. My phone call from Barranquilla did not come that day because the hotel phone lines were down.
I assumed there was a delay and waited. I didn’t know the lines were down. The plan had gone like clockwork. Pablo and his group arrived in a helicopter that carried only six people. My group easily got the drop on them. With me being more than a day late, the group under my Colombian partner began to panic. Pablo offered them more money than I was paying, a lot more. My partner hit the jungle with his hand-held aircraft radio. My delayed phone message caused me to arrive a day late in the middle of a situation that was not friendly. I was circling over the strip trying to make radio contact with my guy on the ground to get the OK-to-land signal.
Suddenly the left engine was ablaze [from ground fire]. It felt like someone hit the plane with a sledgehammer. The left engine began surging and the feathering control was jammed solid. I saw pieces of metal protruding through the cowling. We were loaded with fuel and loaded for bear. It was a slow descent to find the nearest clandestine gold mining/smuggling strip along the river.
The strip was soft, the nose wheel sunk in and broke off. The left wing went down on the tip tank and we were sliding 10 degrees to 15 degrees to the left of the strip toward the trees. As we began to slide off the left side of the strip, I locked up the right brake and she changed direction enough that it came to rest slightly to the right of the strip, partly on the strip. The right main gear had partially collapsed and the left wing pointed upward at about a 30 to 40 degree angle. The tip tank had been ripped open and fuel was pouring down the leading edge of the left wing onto the burning engine.
We all got out of the plane and for about 20 minutes it was like the fourth of July. One of the passengers had a camera and was able to photo-graph the different stages of burning and the marks on the dirt strip to indicate what had occurred. When the fireworks began to die down, the Indians began slowly emerging from the jungle.
These were real Indians with the tattoos on their faces and stretched bottom lips, wearing leather straps. There was a Colombian on the strip who had an HF radio in the jungle nearby. He knew the whole deal and tried to turn the Indians on me. He called me “Del Norte Americana agente.” I had some friends standing by or working the gold fields nearby. They saw the smoke and came to rescue us in a Bell 205, just in time.
The next day, I faxed Delsandro of Miami Customs a photo of what was left of the plane and told him to disregard delivering the fugitive to San Juan Puerto Rico Customs.
Covert Publicity Resulted
in Operation Shanghai
Since Escobar was the top drug lord targeted by the United States, Mat-thews‘ nearly successful plan to capture him caused U.S. officials to authorize Matthews to conduct another attempt. This plan was called Operation Shanghai. Key people involved in approving the plan included Congressman Charles B. Rangel, who headed at that time the Congressional committee on narcotics; Customs Commissioner Tom McDermott, who named the plan Operation Shanghai; Special Agent in Charge Charles Rosenblatt ; six Miami Customs officials, and former U.S. Attorney Steven Rozan. At that time, Rozan was a nominee for the political U.S. Attorney position at Houston. Rosenblatt authorized Matthews to engage in money laundering and smuggling electronics to finance and facilitate the operation.
At the urging of Rozan, it was agreed that Matthews would be paid $5 mil-lion if he could bring about the successful kidnapping of Pablo Escobar. Secretly, Rozan demanded that Matthews give him half the reward money. That plan fizzled out for various reasons. At a later meeting, Matthews was represented by attorney F. Lee Bailey.
In 1999 I sent two letters to Congressman Rangel, one of them certified mail, asking Rangel for his comments on the plan. He refused to respond to either letter.
Loss of $700,000 Insurance on the Plane
In the first attempt to capture Escobar, Matthews lost his plane from gun-fire, as previously mentioned. That plane, a Mitsubishi MU-2 Solitaire, registration number N25GM, was covered by a $700,000 insurance policy. Former AUSA Steven Rozan, then an attorney who worked with Matthews, suggested that Matthews have the Rozan-Berger law firm file a loss-claim with the insurance company, and this was done. But the insurance company refused to pay. Matthews could have filed a lawsuit, but this would require testifying in court and exposing his undercover status. This decision caused Matthews to lose $700,000, one of the downsides to being a contract undercover agent for the government. Matthews filed an accident report with the Federal Aviation Administration at Ft. Lauderdale, which included the affidavits of two Brazilian pilots who were on board the aircraft. Matthews had taken the Brazilian pilots along because they were familiar with the area, the people, and their language. One pilot, Jorge Rogerio, was well known in the Brazilian media as “Marijuana George.”
Government Plan to Kill Matthews ?
Toward the end of his career as a government contract agent, there were a number of incidents where it appeared government agents were trying to bring about his death. One incident occurred when Customs agents directed Mat-thews to pick up a drug load at a short airstrip on the Colombian island of Provendencia in the Central Caribbean. This was one of many flights in which government agents directed Matthews to pick up a drug load in Colombia and then fly it to a designated destination either in the United States or to Guantanamo Bay Naval Air Station. Before taking off from the naval base, a DEA agent instructed Matthews to arrive and land after dark, using the makeshift runway lighting provided. As a precautionary measure, Matthews left the base early so he would arrive while there was still light, permitting him to inspect the airstrip from the air. To his surprise, there were two high hills at each end of the dirt strip, requiring a much steeper approach to the short runway. If he had arrived at night and made a normal approach to the relatively short airstrip with the unlighted hill on the approach end, it is very possible he would have crashed.
Dissatisfied With His Safe Return
Upon his return to Guantanamo Bay Naval Air Station, and while taxiing with his drug load to a hangar near the coffee shop, an obviously angry Customs pilot Matthews knew by the name of Dornak rushed toward the plane, shouting, “Why did you go in before dark and land?” Matthews said that it appeared Dornak was surprised he had made it back. Matthews said that Dornak flew the cocaine from the naval station to Homestead Air Force Base on at least two occasions that he knew of. He said that Dornak followed him one evening as they landed at Matthew’s airstrip, and that Dornak almost lost control of the King Air as he landed. (Matthews said that Dornak often drank heavily while at Guantanamo Bay Naval Air Station and had been working closely with AUSA Terrence Thompson, who later filed sham charges against Matthews.)253s
European Undercover Operations
In 1991, Matthews expanded his undercover operations to Europe, flying his Merlin to carry out several operations. His Palm Beach, Florida, company, Rod Aero, had a contract to provide pilot and aircraft services for a pending contract with Disney Corporation in France, which never materialized. Mat-thews wrote: My last flight to Europe in the Merlin III-B was a far cry from earlier flights where every minute was a struggle for survival in the old round engine planes. With the Merlin cruising at 24 to 26 thousand, the cabin pressure was about 3000 feet. It was a very quiet and comfortable plane, kind of like sitting on your favorite chair in your living room watching TV. I had enough fuel to go non-stop straight across the Atlantic from Gander to Shannon with enough IFR reserve to go to Paris or London, which cut the stress factor considerably.
I had the same autopilot flight director system as the space shuttle, coupled to Omega-Loran-GPS and all the other good stuff. At a glance I could take my position with three different navigation systems and if all three agreed within a quarter mile, one could be fairly confident that was where you were at. It was really a super low-stress flight compared to some of the earlier flights with two and three pilots, totally stressed out to the point where when you finally reached your destination, you felt like you had rowed across the Atlantic.
Matthews‘ description of flying the North Atlantic reminded me of the many flights I flew as captain on the North Atlantic in Boeing Stratocruisers, Lock-heed Constellations, DC-4, and even two-engine C-46 aircraft.
Secret Tracking Device Disrupted
European Air Traffic Control
During one of his European flights, unknown to Matthews, Customs had installed a secret tracking device on Matthews’ plane. This tracking device emitted a signal that appeared on the air traffic controller’s radar screen as two planes flying side by side, and this caused serious air traffic problems. From Europe, Matthews telephoned Texas DPS agent Robert Nestoroff, asking him to find out what government agency and what agent had put the tracking device on his aircraft, and for instructions and permission to disconnect the device. Nestoroff found out that Houston Customs agent Richard Cardwell had in-stalled the device, and with Cardwell’s permission, Matthews had it disconnected.
Funding the Defection of an
Iraqi Pilot and Iraqi Aircraft
Matthews initiated and carried out a complex plan that had significant international implications but received no publicity. Acting on his own, Matthews placed ads in two publications in 1991: Trade-A-Plane, a widely read aviation publication listing all types of aircraft, parts, and services for sale, and Aviation International News. The purpose of the ad was to bring about the defection of an Iraqi pilot and an Iraqi aircraft by offering to pay $100,000 to any Iraqi pilot who defected with an Iraqi aircraft. As a result of the ad, Houston television station KHOU, a CBS affiliate, had Matthews appear, and with his face blacked out, describing the purpose of the reward. The purpose of the operation was to demoralize Saddam Hussein and his military and provide an impetus for other Iraqis to defect. It was a long shot by Matthews that he thought up on the spur of the moment. An Iraqi pilot did respond. Matthews wrote:
Nobody, including myself, believed it would work until I got the call. It ended up that I paid the Iraqi pilot $100,000 out of my own pocket. It was a crazy deal that changed as it developed. The Iraqi pilot’s mother was Jewish and was under investigation with her brother, who also lived in Iraq. The pilot wanted the money to get his family out of Iraq to save their lives.
When the pilot was told the deal about the photo that would be in the world news, he refused the money and threatened suicide right there on the spot. He explained that he did this to save his family and now they would be killed for sure. We had the highway blocked off with traffic backed up for miles both ways, and the Iraqi pilot gets down on his knees and starts praying to Allah in Muslim fashion.
Within minutes, during refueling, a new deal was cut right there on the highway. The pilot was given asylum in Israel where he was debriefed. The pilot’s family also was given asylum in Israel after their successful departure from Iraq. I believe the Brits ended up with the Mig-29. Everyone involved knew if the U.S. State Department were consulted, they would have opted to go with the propaganda and let the pilot’s Jewish mother and her brother die in Iraq. Turns out the pilot’s uncle in Iraq was working for Israel and that’s what started the investigation of his Jewish mother.
At first, Matthews didn’t want me to write about this Iraqi operation for fear of alienating those who helped the defecting Iraqi pilot. I managed to convince him that we could keep certain names secret and still get the message out.
Matthews didn’t have a copy of the ad that he placed in the tabloid-size Trade-A-Plane. I took a chance and asked the people at Trade-A-Plane to search for that ad and send me a copy, a monumental task. Very obligingly, they found the issue, the second February issue in 1991. I also contacted Aviation International News, asking them to locate the ad, but they did not respond to my request.
Copy of half-page ad appearing in worldwide circulated Trade-A-Plane, placed by Rodney Matthews, as a public-spirited effort.
ATTENTION IRAQI PILOT'S
U.S. Dollars
Aircraft Broker Will Pay Pilots $100,000.00 Cash On Delivery For First Line Iraqi Fighter Aircraft And Provide Attorneys For Political Asylum in U.S.
Aircraft Needs To Be Delivered
Friendly Country Where It Can Be
Disarmed and Disassembled For
shipment
On Arrival To Friendly Country With Aircraft,
Call 305-772-3326 For For Emergency
Funds and Hotel Accommodations
Second and Third Line Iraqi Military
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Matthews‘ Description of
Iraqi Pilot Defection
In response to my questions about the particulars involving the defecting Iraqi pilot, Matthews wrote:
It all started with a phone call from an Israeli, Abe, who saw my ad in Trade-A-Plane. He wanted to know if I was serious and mentioned that if the pilot’s family could be resettled in another country with financial assistance and if I had a place to land, it might be possible. I felt it was my patriotic duty to do anything I could to help my country, and my government had been good to me. And these kinds of operations were my specialty.
Subsequent to talking to Abe several times and after he furnished me with some pretty impressive travel documents, I delivered the first hundred thousand dollars in cash to show him I was serious. I sent my ex-wife Judith from New York City to Israel with money, and equipment purchased in Miami. On the first trip she carried battery operated fuel pumps, filters and two hand-held FM transmitters-communication receivers.
She also carried two transponders and a top of the line (T-CAD) Terminal Control Avoidance device. The small five-watt transcom’s low power output could not be monitored more than five miles away and is used for close-in clandestine air-ground communications.
Abe and Colonel E.G. met her at the airport and assisted her through Israeli Customs. (Matthews wanted to avoid publicity for the Israeli General, “E.G.” who assisted in the operation.)
The next trip she carried two small hand-held GPS units. One was modified with suction cups on the top side so that it could be quickly stuck to the top of the inside of the aircraft’s Plexiglas canopy for unobstructed satellite reception through the Plexiglas.
This was state-of-the-art at the time and sometimes there were not enough satellites up and in position for it to function. The precise navigation equipment was necessary to eliminate a situation where the pilot would be required to fly around searching for the landing area, creating unwanted attention. This was a non-export item at the time, but Customs had authorized me to smuggle electronics at the Operation Shanghai meeting so I reasoned that I could justify it if push came to shove.
Abe, a former Air Force mechanic, came up with Mig-29 flight and maintenance manuals that were partially translated into English. According to him, it was compliments of the British, who seemed to be amused at the effort. A London-based pro-coalition media group or propaganda group, financed to the hilt, was biting at the bit to jump on this issue if it came to fruition. The sudden change in plan could have caused sour grapes among some in the skullduggery community. The Israeli authorities Abe talked to would not consider allowing an armed Iraqi aircraft to enter their territory under any circumstances.
[Kurd's Assisted the Operation]
A well-known Lebanese-Colombian family out of Barranquilla, Colombia provided me with the drug trafficking connection in Syria, to block off a road and refuel the plane. This group was originally led to believe it was a drug flight-refueling stop from Afghanistan. The logistics were S.O.P. for Latin American clandestine flight operations. Fake auto-truck accidents were used to block off about 2-2 miles of road. On each end of the landing area, a group of well-organized Kurd's accomplished this with precision and persuasion. I doubt they ever made this much money before, even in drug smuggling operations. It was necessary for me to obtain the coordinates in advance, using the G.P.S. for each end of the landing area, the magnetic direction of the landing area, and a way point aligned with the landing area 3 to 4 miles out, for the approach. I walked every foot of the landing area inspecting it carefully, measuring width, checking for obstructions, an area for fueling, and an area for turning around to take off. The night before the landing, we removed the necessary obstructions.
The landing was set up for first light of day while most people would still be sleeping. The plan was to make one low-level inspection pass at 100 to 150 meters and a back-to-basics wide racetrack pattern return for landing, using the way point. It was less than a 30-minute flight from his Iraq departure point. The refueling was necessary for a reduced landing weight on a questionable surface. Only the Colombians could have matched the speed and efficiency of the clandestine fueling operation.
[Discharging the Ammunition
Before Landing in Syria]
The heavy ordnance was discharged before arrival. When he touched down at about 140 knots slightly off center, he had to shove the nose down as we had previously discussed in order to see to stay in the center of the narrow road. This lengthened his landing roll to more than 5000 feet. As soon as he shut her down we were on it before he cleared the cockpit, pumping in the mixture of kerosene and aviation gas.
Abe had his act together from talking to the pilot and studying the maintenance manual. We used both of the battery operated fuel pumps to reduce fueling time. Once fueling was in progress, Abe and one of his crew started removing live ordnance. Balahson, a young Israeli officer in Levis manned the camera.
Military personnel were stationed in surrounding areas and the Syria-Iraq border was lined with military lookouts. Syria was a participant in the coalition against Iraq during the Desert Shield, Desert Storm campaigns. The AWACS were up on a regular basis, the whole flight was under 500 feet (150 meters), but the AWACS still could have tracked it to the landing site under the right conditions. The morning of the landing we told the Kurd's we would be using a military plane for the drug flight so they wouldn’t fire on it or abandon their posts.
[The Mig Didn’t Look Like a Drug Plane!]
When the Kurdish spokesman or leader drove up during the fueling and saw the ominous looking Mig-29 straddled the road while Abe removed ordnance from under the wing, the look on his face was as if he were witnessing the second coming of the Lord. [They had earlier been led to believe that this was a drug plane from Afghanistan that needed to be re-fueled.] Two fighters made a pass over our location. I looked at Abe for a reaction, it didn’t bother him so it didn’t bother me. The Kurd was stunned by the Mig-29; you didn’t have to know about airplanes to see this was a weapon of mass destruction. The Iraqi pilot was attempting to explain in broken English that his mother and uncle were still in Iraq, contrary to the plan. One of Abe’s crew was trying to get a photo of the Iraqi pilot standing by the plane with the suitcase of money and told him he would be on the world news that evening.
[Iraqi Pilot Threatening to Commit Suicide]
The Iraqi pilot threatened suicide saying his mother would be tortured and killed. He wanted to return the balance of the money. The Kurd leader was watching all this and went into a rage about how we were all going to be killed because of the CIA. The pilot got down on his knees in the Islam tradition and began to pray. It was at this time that I thought to myself, “Only when I get back to the U.S. will I be sure I made it out of this mess.”
Little did I know at this very time a U.S. prosecutor in Fort Lauderdale was plotting my destruction. I would be betrayed and disavowed by elements in my own government! I took the camera and gave it to the pilot, explaining no pictures would be taken. Abe explained to the pilot, everything would be done that could be done to save his family and they would still receive the promised assistance.
I promised the Kurd's double the original amount, which helped to calm them down. They were about ready to go off on us. From start to finish the operation costs me close to a million and I was asked to return the travel documents. The Kurd's had taken a couple of distant photos that were turned over after they were paid. The photos showed the tail section of the aircraft protruding beyond the rear-end of the fuel truck. One of these photos was in my house when it was seized. Balahson has the other.
The restart went OK for this particular plane had a small battery start APU [auxiliary power unit] for starting the big engines. There was no question it was a Mig-29. It matched the maintenance manual of another Mig-29 in detail with the large twin vertical stabilizers, conventional controls, and 3,500 pounds of thrust, capable of MACH 3. The landing gear appeared to be much beefier than similar U.S. fighter aircraft.
The flight manual specs were scary in that the U.S. had several different aircraft that can match it in a specific area but we don’t have any one plane that can match it in all areas. Because of the rugged simplicity and conventional controls, it couldn’t require much special flight training. The Iraqi pilot only had 450 hours of flight time total. It can also be operated in the bush without a specialized ground crew or ground power unit.
The aircraft departed and that’s all I want to say about it. There were some unconfirmed news reports of an Iraqi fighter being shot down or missing. There was some talk the British ended up with it.
I traveled by airline with the bogus travel documents to avoid attracting attention when I went over to do the deal. Some of the cash went over on the Merlin trip in hundred dollar bills.
“To God and My People”
When it was all over, I asked Abe, “Who is it that you ultimately answer to?” He responded, “Ultimately, to God and my people.”
Further Explanation on Iraqi Pilot
and Iraqi Plane Defection
Over a period of time and after many back and forth letters, Matthews added more details. He explained that the Iraqi pilot in Iraq was contacted through the pilot’s uncle, and the uncle worked closely with Abe, who provided the maps and Global Positioning System unit that enabled the pilot to accurately find the improvised landing strip.
Matthews said that Abe and an Israeli general, who Matthews would only identify as General E.G., handled the many complex arrangements, including arranging for a fuel truck at the landing site and paying the necessary bribes.
Changing Plan to Avoid
Hostility Between Iraq and Israel
Matthews explained that almost one million dollars were expended to obtain the pilot’s defection. His Trade-A-Plane advertisement offered $100,000 to the defecting pilot. To this amount, Abe managed to obtain additional money for the expenses incurred by the defection process made more complex to avoid political repercussions if the pilot landed in Israel. For political reasons, another plan was developed to avoid hostility between Israel and Iraq. It was also necessary to change the original plan to first get the pilot’s mother and uncle out of Iraq when it was realized that their departure would focus attention on the Iraqi pilot. The plan was changed to have all of them leave at the same time.
Original Plan Was to Get
Publicity from Pilot’s Defection
Matthews said his original idea was to get maximum adverse publicity for Saddam Hussein by publicizing the pilot’s defection. The plan was to get a picture of the defecting and the aircraft for publicity purposes. By changing the plan, Matthews said, “It appeared to me the greater impact for the U.S. had been lost, but there was the consolation of taking one more weapon away from Saddam Hussein.”
I asked why there was so much secrecy at keeping Israel‘s role secret during the defection. Matthews explained:
This would give Saddam Hussein one more reason on a long list to attack Israel diplomatically and/or militarily. The publicity could have increased tension between the United States and Syria, a coveted coalition member at the time, if conflict had erupted between Syria and Israel due to the fallout. There was no coordination between Israel and the Alawite minority-controlled Syrian government. Despite coalition membership there was too much friction and distrust between the Syrian government and Israel to co-ordinate anything. Israel obviously still had people in Iraq that could be connected to that operation that could be jeopardized. I doubt they now want publicity.
I thought it was quite an accomplishment to take out one of Saddam’s top-line fighters without a fight at a time when the United States was risking American lives to accomplish this objective. On a personal basis it didn’t do anything but cost me money that I could certainly use now.
Matthews explained he made fueling arrangements through a Lebanese family in Colombia and Kurd's in Syria. Matthews had to pay $75,000 for fuel and the use of a fuel truck to fuel the Mig-29 when it landed in Syria. He said that the Lebanese family living in Barranquilla, Colombia cut the deal with elements in the Alawite minority-controlled Syrian government, which involved bribes so that no one interfered with the refueling flight which had been described as a drug flight from Afghanistan.
Drug Money Links to a Major Political Party
After the Iraqi pilot defection, Matthews went back to his undercover activities. During these investigative activities he discovered money being paid to the Democratic Party in Texas to pay for a U.S. Attorney nomination. Mathews had received $500,000 from the Pablo Escobar group in return for bogus AWACS schedules, and placed the money for safe keeping with attorney Steven Rozan, a former AUSA in Houston and a nominee for U.S. Attorney in that office. The understanding was that Rozan would hold this money until Matthews needed it.
Matthews explained that money is occasionally needed for emergencies associated with government undercover operations such as an arrest in a foreign country, an aircraft accident, the need for a replacement engine, and anything else that requires money. Matthews said, instead of holding Matthews’ money for safekeeping, Rozan used the money to pay off his own political friends and personal debts. Matthews had already paid him for legal services and Matthews considered this diversion of emergency funds to be theft.
Drug Money for Political
and Judicial Appointments
Matthews said he discovered Rozan was sending briefcases of money to the chief financial officer of the Republican Party for political and judicial appointments and other favors. Matthews made this information known to Houston Customs agents who in turn notified U.S. Attorney Roberto Martinez in Miami, advising that Matthews was recording conversations supporting the bribe money. Matthews described how the bribe money worked:
The drug money went to political campaign chief financial officer Robert Holt, by way of Steven Rozan, who was a former Assistant U.S. Attorney vying for a U.S. Attorney appointment in Houston. I had flown Rozan to Midland on more than one occasion to deliver a briefcase to two gentlemen at the airport. Rozan explained to me how he visited Holt’s office, described his secretary, etc.
Rozan had asked for additional funds of $500,000 from the same drug trafficking group to give to Holt. Rozan claimed this would buy him friends in high places and guarantee that he would be appointed the U.S. attorney’s position in Houston or a position just as important.
I met the man in Midland, Texas who received the briefcases of money from Rozan when I flew Rozan to Midland, Texas. Rozan would not risk carrying the briefcases of money on the airlines.
I advised Customs agents Singleton and Farley what was going on, and they suggested I obtain incriminating tape recordings, which I did. I also set up a deal with Rozan to deliver the $500,000 in drug money he requested in Houston, a sting operation targeting Rozan and his political friends. Houston proposed the operation to the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office, and I was arrested after that.
When the sting operation on Rozan and his incumbent political friends was proposed by Houston Customs agents to Miami U.S. Attorneys’ office under Martinez, it set off an alarm. Martinez was a strong supporter in the Bush camp. He knew Holt had run the campaign for Bush and Quayle in ‘88 and ‘92. The sting operation was to deliver another $500,000 of obvious drug money to Rozan in Houston and go from there to get Holt. Miami’s U.S. Attorney’s office not only squashed everything, but Thompson took it even further and scuttled the Montana trial against Rozan, which was the link to Holt. As it stands, there is only scant circumstantial evidence against Holt and the Republican finance committee, thanks to Miami U.S. Attorney’s office and Thompson.
The whole thing came to a dead end when I was arrested. The thrust of the trial in Montana was to convict Rozan and then get him to set up and roll on Holt. When Rozan was acquitted through Thompson‘s maneuvers, the threat to Holt and the campaign finance committee was cut.
After I gave Greg Laughlin (Democrat) a copy of the Matthews papers indicating the Republican presidential campaign leadership may be involved in taking large amounts of drug money in return for political appointments, he switched over to the Republican party and gained the sup-port of Haley Barbor, the head of the Republican campaign funding. I never heard a word back from him. He lost his seat in the following election. Robert Dornan out of Orange County, California, was the only one to lift a finger to help me, after I sent letters to over 140 U.S. representatives and senators. [Dornan also lost his seat after investigating Matthews’ charges.]
Matthews explained he had originally flown Rozan and his law partner, Sid Berger, from Fort Lauderdale to Andrau Airpark in Houston with the $500,000 contained in two silver metal suitcases. (Later turned into a golf course.)
The Montana Property
Known as Top Gun
Matthews acquired the Montana ranch known as Top Gun from Jimmy El-lard, the aide to Pablo Escobar, and then placed the documents for the property transfer with Rozan for safe keeping while Matthews advertised in a Costa Rican newspaper seeking to trade the Montana property for land in Costa Rica. The intent of seeking Costa Rica property was to entice Pablo Escobar to visit the property and then be arrested.
Forging Signatures to Montana Ranch
Matthews said Rozan then used the Montana ranch as if it was his own property, as Rozan reportedly had done with Matthews’ $500,000, and placed the property into the name of his law partner, Side Berger.
Matthews said Rozan forged the signature of Ellard‘s girlfriend, Miriam Heins, who was on the title, and had his office secretary, Chris, notarize the forged signature. If this is correct, there is the possibility that whoever owns that ranch could lose it if a legal attack was made on the title based upon the forged signature. The Montana ranch was located near Kalispell on the west side of Glacier National Park. It was eventually divided into several parcels.
Analyzing Taped Conversations
Between Matthews and Rozan
Matthews provided me with the transcript of a taped conversation (May 8,1992) between himself and Rozan at Matthews’ Cancun, Mexico, residence. Matthews explained that Rozan and his law partner, Sid Berger, visited him several times in Cancun and this taped conversation was made during one of those visits. The transcript was bits and pieces of the conversation and I asked Matthews to explain what was said. The transcript was explained by Matthews as follows:
• Conversation between Rozan and Matthews concerning the bribe money paid to the Democratic Party to purchase a U.S. Attorney’s position in Houston.
• Funneling of drug money to the Republican Party at Midland, Texas.
• Rozan encouraging Matthews to move to Brazil and not return to the United States so as to avoid a pending Justice Department prosecution of Matthews and keep Matthews away from a criminal trial in Montana in which Rozan was the defendant.
• Discussed the $240,000 the government owed Matthews for the last five trips that he made hauling government people and drugs.
• Discussed the Montana ranch, which was formerly owned by Jimmy Ellard using the alias, Joe Cernoch. That was the name of the deceased husband of his girlfriend, Miriam Hiens, who lived in Barranquilla, Colombia.
to be continued...same chapter
Retaliating Against “Uncooperative” Members of Congress p252
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