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THE MIAMI MAFIA IN CANADA
A drug trafficking “right-hand man”
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD
—Special for Granma International—
THE
“right-hand man” of Ismael Sambra, current leader of
the Cuban Canadian Foundation, was arrested in
December 1990 as chief of a drug trafficking gang,
resulting in the most important seizure of cocaine
in Montreal’s history.
On
May 7, 1993, Máximo Morales, aged 57 and of Cuban
origin, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and
importing 115 kilograms of the drug; just a small
quantity of the huge volume of drugs that his
organization had trafficked.
At
that time, Morales represented the French-speaking
province of Quebec on the executive of a “human
rights” faction founded by Sambra, whose was located
in Toronto. However, according to various sources,
the drug trafficker was aspiring to take over the
presidency of the small organization.
Owner of the Les Aliments Morales, a food import
firm with offices in the Quebec neighborhood of
Montreal-Est, Máximo Morales had financed the
creation of his business during the 1980s with the
profits from various drug trafficking operations he
had carried out.
On
December 2, 1990, the Montreal municipal police
seized several packets containing a total of 115
kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value
of $80 million and subsequently arrested Morales and
some of his accomplices.
The
drugs were hidden under the flooring of a vehicle
that belonged to the drug trafficker. Efforts to
conceal the goods had been carried out in such a
“professional” manner, that it took detectives and
experts two hours to discover the drugs stashed
between two metal panels.
The
drugs were wrapped in newspapers from Medellín, the
notorious drug trafficking city in Colombia.
According to statements by police officers at the
time of the arrest, detectives assessed that
Morales’ organization – a mafioso group led by César
Riviera from Toronto – had imported 1,500 kilograms
of cocaine the year before the “businessman’s”
arrest and earnings worth $3.4 million during the
six weeks prior to that event.
In
that period, the Rivera-Morales network controlled
half the cocaine market for the Canadian province of
Ontario, according to information circulated at the
time of the police operation.
Morales was also accused of firing shots at another
individual on a separate occasion outside his
business, in an incident linked to his criminal
activities.
The
arrest of the Cuban-born “business man” for drug
trafficking surprised many people, given that
Morales presented himself as a “defender of freedom”
and was the leader of the Canadian section of the
Democratic and Independent Cuba group, under the
treacherous Cuban commander Huber Matos. Some days
before his arrest, he had played host to Matos on
the latter’s much talked about visit to Montreal.
Morales, who received a lengthy prison term, left
jail suspiciously quickly in order to once again
take up control of his businesses.
For
his part, CCF leader Ismael Sambra passed himself
off as the “writer in residence” at the University
of York in 2000, without the center awarding him
this accreditation and despite numerous protests to
the institution’s dean from other lecturers.
Sambra is regularly quoted by the Canadian press as
a “spokesperson” for Cubans resident in Canada, even
though his organization cannot rally more than a
handful of members, and introduces himself to the
press as a “human rights defender.”
SPAWNED BY THE TERRORIST CANF
Granma International
revealed in 2003 how Sambra’s arrival in Canada was
sponsored by a mysterious “anonymous donor” who had
urged the head of York University to “provide him
with a cover,” and how he went on to create his
organization with the support of Miami’s
Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF).
The
CANF is the most significant anti-Cuban organization
in Miami, founded by CIA agent Jorge Mas Canosa at
the request of the Reagan-Bush administration, and
is closely linked to a whole series of terrorist
acts committed against Cuba.
In
an interview with U.S. daily, The New York Times,
published on July 12 and 13, 1998, international
terrorist Luis Posada Carriles confessed to having
organized the bombing campaign against tourist
facilities in Cuba the previous year and
acknowledged that CANF leaders had financed his
operations. He also confessed that its president
Jorge Mas Canosa had personally supervised the flow
of money he had benefited from.
Posada Carriles is currently imprisoned in Panama
with three accomplices from Miami, awaiting the
result of a case in which they were tried for an
attempted terrorist attack. The conspirators tried
to blow up the lecture hall at the University of
Panama where the Cuban president was going to speak.
The attack could have caused as many deaths as the
attack on the Twin Towers in New York, according to
experts. The Cuban-American National Foundation has
helped to fund the team of lawyers responsible for
defending the terrorists.
Another counterrevolutionary “leader” resident in
Canada for many years is Antonio Tang Baez – who has
been linked to Máximo Morales on several occasions –
is exhibiting himself as a representative of the
Alpha 66 terrorist organization and acknowledged as
such in its publications. In 1985, Tang took part in
a plot to assassinate the Cuban president, according
to an Internet article by the group that openly
reveals how “during one of his frequent visits to
Miami, he received military training for terrorist
activities.”
CANADA, VICTIM OF ANTI-CUBA TERRORISM
The
link between Ismael Sambra’s group and the CANF in
Miami, the criminal history of Máximo Morales who
trafficked drugs through his accomplices in Florida
and “activist” Antonio Tang’s appointment as Alpha
66 representative in Canada, allows us to recall how
anti-Cuba capos in the United States have used
Canada to develop terrorist activities as well as
attacking companies and organizations from that
country linked to Cuba.
Cuban and Canadian press archives make it possible
to establish a list of at least 15 Miami attacks on
the island perpetrated by Miami terrorist mafia who
have ties with Canada.
•
August 9, 1964: attack on the Cuban boat María
Teresa in the port of Montreal. Attributed to
Guillermo Novo Sampoll, leader of the Cuban
Nationalist Movement (MNC), currently detained in
Panama with ringleader Luis Posada Carriles.
•
October 5, 1966: bombing of the offices of the Cuban
trade delegation in Ottawa resulting in considerable
damage.
•
September 22, 1966: bazooka attack on the Cuban
embassy in Ottawa. Attributed to MNC leader
Guillermo Novo Sampoll.
•
March 11, 1967: bomb explodes in Montreal at the
warehouses of Fraser Brothers, a Canadian firm that
traded with Cuba.
•
That same March 11, 1967: an explosion at Ruby Foo’s
restaurant in Montreal. Guillermo Novo Sampoll and
his brother Ignacio were arrested on April 7 of that
year and interrogated by the FBI in relation to both
attacks, according to declassified documents.
Neither of them charged.
•
May 31, 1967: an explosive device detonated at the
Cuba Pavilion in the Universal Exhibition in
Montreal, an attack attributed to Cuban Nationalist
Action (ANC), headed by Orlando Bosch. MNC leader
Felipe Rivero Díaz was arrested in connection with
the attack but never charged.
•
October 15, 1967: another bomb explodes at the
offices of the Cuban trade delegation in Montreal,
attributed to Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll
from the MNC.
•
January 31, 1968: Guillermo Novo Sampoll affirmed
that the MNC had terrorist groups in several
different countries, including Canada, threatening
embassies and merchant banks. The details came from
an interview with Alfredo Izaguirre from La
Prensa daily in New York, according to a
declassified FBI document.
•
July 4, 1968: attack on a Canadian tourist office in
the United States, carried out by Poder Cubano
(Cuban Power).
•
October 18, 1968: attack on the offices of a
Canadian airline in Miami.
•
May 29, 1969: explosive device placed in the doorway
of Cuba’s General Consulate in Montreal.
•
July 12, 1971: explosion at the offices of the Cuban
trade delegation in Montreal, attributed to the
Gobierno Secreto Cubano (GSC) organization.
•
April 4, 1972: explosion at the trade section of the
Cuban delegation in Montreal kills Sergio Pérez
Castillo. Seven people wounded and significant
material damage. The crime was attributed to Antonio
Calatayud, then an MNC terrorist and currently
leader of the Cuban National Congress in Miami.
•
December 13, 1972: GSC plants a bomb at the office
of Canadian firm Michael’s Forwarding in the United
States that traded with Cuba.
•
January 21, 1974: bomb at the Cuban embassy in
Ottawa attributed to Orlando Bosch.
•
June 1974: Bosch creates the Secretariat of United
Revolutionary Organizations (CORU) and later
confessed to having sent a letter bomb to the Cuban
embassy in Ottawa, according to a declassified FBI
document.
•
September 22,1976: explosive device lobbed from a
car at the Cuban Consulate in Montreal. Orlando
Bosch’s CORU held responsible for the attack.
•
February 10, 1978: Canadian diplomats threatened by
Orlando Bosch’s CORU organization.
•
January 14, 1980: bomb goes off at the Cuban
consulate in Montreal causing considerable damage to
the building.
•
December 1980: Pedro Remón linked to the campaign of
attacks by Omega 7 for the first time after being
interrogated by immigration officers at the
U.S-Canadian border on his way back from Montreal
accompanied by Ramon Saúl Sanchez Rizo.
None
of the suspects have ever been charged by the courts
for any of these acts of terrorism.
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