Dark Alliance Players 1

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DANILO BLANDONAGE: 45NATIONALITY: NicaraguanPERSONAL: Youngest son of wealthy Nicaraguan landowners.Married, wife Chepita. Twodaughters. Bachelor of artsdegree, National University,Nicaragua. Master's degree inmarketing, University of Colombia, Bogota. Has relatives in Bay Area and

Miami.CURRENT RESIDENCE: Managua and San Diego.POLITICAL: Supporter of former dictator Somozasince college. In-laws were prominent figures inSomoza's Liberal Party. Worked for Somozagovernment in late 1970s. Raised money forContra army in U.S. during 1980s.PROFESSIONAL: Full-time DEA informant. Runstimber export company in Managua. Ownedrental car business in Miami, Tampa, FortLauderdale and Orlando, which went bankrupt in

1991. Owned restaurants in Miami and San Diego,car lots in Los Angeles and Florida, import-exportbusinesses on both coasts, motels in Managua.CRIMINAL: Pleaded guilty to conspiracy todistribute cocaine in 1992. Shows up in DEA filesas a drug trafficker as early as 1981. Admitsdistributing coke for Norwin Meneses and sellingit to Rick Ross. Sold cocaine in California, Florida,Oklahoma City, and New Orleans. Arrested inpolice raids on home and businesses in 1986, butno charges filed. Arrested by Los Angeles police

in late 1991 on money laundering charges, butcase was dropped at federal request.QUOTE (from a DEA undercover tape): "Justremember, your daddy has the connections, allthe connections down there ...''

NORWIN MENESESAGE: 48

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NATIONALITY: NicaraguanCURRENT RESIDENCE: TipitapaPrison outside of Managua,serving his fourth year of a 12-year sentence for cocainetrafficking.PERSONAL: One of 10 brothers.Married five times. Fluent in

English and Spanish. Three of his brothersmurdered since the late 1970s. Many relatives inthe Bay Area. Friends with Colombian cocainecartel bosses, Nicaraguan politicians andAmerican agents.POLITICAL: Family close to deposed Nicaraguandictator Anastasio Somoza and his NationalGuard. Fled Nicaragua in 1979 after Sandinistatakeover and became adviser to the militarycommander of U.S.-backed Contra forces.PROFESSIONAL: Businessman and investor. Owns

properties … including motels, restaurants, acanning factory, used car dealerships and homes… in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, San Francisco, Floridaand elsewhere.CRIMINAL: Linked by Nicaraguan police toColombian drug dealers since 1972. Allegedly rana ring that stole luxury cars from the U.S. duringthe mid-1970s, reportedly on behalf of Nicaraguan government officials. Known toAmerican law enforcement agencies since 1974 asa drug smuggler. Indicted by U.S. grand jury for

cocaine trafficking in 1989, but never arrested.Convicted by a Nicaraguan court of conspiracy toimport cocaine in 1992, his only conviction.Eligible for release summer 1996.QUOTE: "I'm not going to tell you I'm an angel.''

"FREEWAY" RICK ROSSAGE: 36NATIONALITY: American

PERSONAL: Grew up poor inTroup, Texas, and then moved toSouth-Central L.A., where hismother and family still live.Dropped out of Dorsey HighSchool in his senior year. Droppedout of L.A. Trade-Tech to take upcocaine dealing. Has seven children by fourdifferent women.CURRENT RESIDENCE: Metropolitan CorrectionalCenter, San Diego, where he has been held


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without bond since March 1995.POLITICAL: No political involvement or interests.PROFESSIONAL: Successful cocaine traffickersince he was 19. Bought massive amounts of realestate, including hotels and several businesses.By 1987, had one of the largest crack cocainedistribution networks in the country, selling inCalifornia, Louisiana, Texas, Ohio, Missouri andIndiana.CRIMINAL: Arrested on auto theft charges in1979. Convicted of cocaine charges in Cincinnati,Ohio, in 1991 and sentenced to 10 years. Hissentence was cut in half after he agreed to testifyagainst L.A. narcotics agents accused of corruption. Also served eight months on a Texasnarcotics charge in 1994. Arrested as part of aDEA sting in 1995 … a sting his old supplier,Danilo Blandon, helped arrange. Convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in March 1996;sentencing scheduled for Nov. 19.QUOTE: "You know how some people feel thatGod put them down here to be a preacher? I feltthat He had put me down to be the cocaine man.''

ADOLFO CALEROAGE: 65NATIONALITY: NicaraguanPERSONAL: A 1953 Notre Damegraduate, Calero was the managerof the Coca-Coca bottling plant inManagua before the SandinistaRevolution.CURRENT RESIDENCE: After theSandinistas lost the 1990Nicaraguan Presidential elections, Calero returnedto Nicaragua.POLITICAL: Had been political leader of theContras.PROFESSIONAL: Though an outspoken opponentof the Somoza regime, he has always been closelytied to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.According to an affidavit filed with the WorldCourt on Sept. 15, 1985 by former FDN directorEdgar Chamorro, Calero "had been working forthe CIA in Nicaragua for a long time. He servedas, among other things, a conduit of funds fromthe United States Embassy to various studentandlabor organizations." Testimony during the Iran-Contra hearings showed he was receiving$12,500 a month from the CIA while he was


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serving as the Contra's political leader. In hismemoirs, former Contra leader Eduardo Pardo-Maurer said Calero held "the key position betweenthe Contras and the Americans. He remained thepivot around which the military and civilian wingsof the Contra movement turned. He controlled thecash, the stores, the camps and the bureaucracyin Miami."CRIMINAL: NoneQUOTE: "He is a creation of the USG (U.S.government) and so he is the horse we havechosen to ride." -- Robert Owen, a courier for Lt.Col. Oliver North, wrote to North in 1986

COL. ENRIQUE

BERMUDEZAGE: 58NATIONALITY: NicaraguanPERSONAL: Two shots to thehead in the parking lot outsidethe Intercontinental Hotel inManagua killed him on Feb. 16,1991, a murder that is stillunsolved.POLITICAL/MILITARY: A 1988General Accounting Office document showed thatBermudez earned at least $2,750 monthly in CIAsalary. When he joined the Contras' political armin August 1988, Bermudez received $180,000 amonth in CIA "political funds."PROFESSIONAL: A career officer in Somoza'sNational Guard, he later became the militaryleader of the FDN. In the years before theSandinista Revolution in 1979, he was thedictator's military attache in the NicaraguanEmbassy in Washington, where he worked withthe American military establishment to maintainthe high levels of U.S. support for the Guard.After the revolution, Bermudez and other ex-Guardsmen took to the hills and beganassembling a guerrilla army to combat theSandinistas. But it wasn't until 1980, when theU.S., Argentine and Honduran governments cameto the rescue that Bermudez and his ragtag bandbecame a legitimate military threat. Bermudezwas selected by the CIA as the FDN's militarycommander and remained so throughout the war.But it was mostly a title. In actuality he carried outthe orders of his American CIA handlers, former


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Contras have said.CRIMINAL: NoneQUOTE: "There were a lot of people who wouldhave benefited from having my dad put away --the Sandinistas, the (Chamorro) government, theUnited States. My dad died with a lot of information." -- Bermudez's daughter Claudia, aBay Area resident in a 1994 interview with theMiami Herald

MARCOS AGUADOAGE: UnknownNATIONALITY: NicaraguanPERSONAL: Married to Marisol, daughter of former Sandinistsa war hero Eden Pastora.CURRENT RESIDENCE: El SalvadorPOLITICAL/MILITARY: Has a long, surprisinglypublic, history of working with the CIA. A 1994book by journalist Martha Honey said Aguado wasone of a number of Contra pilots trained inPanama by the CIA, and received about $5,000 amonth from the CIA for his services.PROFESSIONAL: According to Honey's book,Hostile Acts, Aguado and other pilots who flewfor the Contra's southern army (ARDE) "underwenttraining at Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador, wherethey gained combat experience by going onbombing raids with the Salvadoran Air Force.From late 1982 on, ARDE had munitionswarehouses and transport planes at Ilopango.According to an ARDE official based at llopango,all the logistics were handed on a rotation basisby six CIA agents from the US Embassy."Testimony in Norwin Meneses' 1992 Nicaraguancocaine trafficking trial said Aguado was the chief aide to the deputy commander of the Salvadoranair force.CRIMINAL: Meneses' former secretary, EnriqueMiranda, testified that Aguado had bragged of using Salvadoran Air Force bombers to attackcocaine warehouses owned the cocaine cartel of Medellin, on behalf of the rival Cali cartel. Aguadowas implicated, but never charged, in Meneses'alleged conspiracy to import 750 kilos of cocaineinto Nicaragua in 1991. Meneses testified thatAguado sold him an auto transport trailer, whichprosecutors said Meneses was going to use tohaul cocaine-laden Mercedes Benzes into the U.S.


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