Transcript
It's a great article and let's just go
through it. Um, uh, I want to begin with
how you open it. So, you're talking
about Marco Rubio as a teenager working
for his brother-in-law, Orlando Cecilia.
Explain.
Well, Marco Rubio has a sister who is
substantially older than him, maybe 10,
eight or 10 years older than him and got
married uh fairly young. She met a a man
named Orlando um in high school. He had
come over to Miami in the early '7s, I
want to say 1972.
Um they fell in love. uh his family
moved to Las Vegas in 1979.
Um and I'm not sure why he I think he he
has suggested that there was a strike.
He thought that he would get better um
opportunities. He was working as a
bartender um and a banquet waiter. So he
thought that there was um better
opportunity in the restaurant business
in Las Vegas. So they go to Las Vegas
and his sister doesn't want to go and
she stays in Miami with Orlando and many
of his happiest childhood memories are,
you know, times when they returned for
Christmas to Miami. They times they went
home and Orlando made them a big um, you
know, homestyle Cuban meal. He butchered
a whole pig.
um you know he he he put together Marco
Rubio's bicycle at Christmas when he was
8 years old. Um just this sort of
wonderful figure in um Marco Rubio's
life when they finally decide to move
back.
Let me just interrupt. This is this is
according to Marco Rubio's memoir.
Yes, this is according to Marco Rubio's
memoir.
There's been there's also been
biographies. Um there's a biography of
him written by the Washington Post
reporter Manuela Roy Franzia. Um so this
is sort of yes this is the the the
version of his life. Um, and
Orlando Cecilia begins working for a pet
store in 1983.
And he has um, you know, Marco, little
Marco, literal little little Marco doing
some odd jobs, um, building cages um,
and looking after his dogs, pet related
uh, jobs and and Marco Rubio makes
enough money to go see every single uh,
Miami Dolphins home game. um in you know
the 1985 season I think um maybe 1984 or
1985 season. I gotta get that right. But
um but anyhow turns out uh 1987 rolls
along and um uh Cecilia gets locked up.
Um he's one of I think 11 um individuals
indicted in this uh you know in
operation
um what is it? Operation Giraffe or
something like that. Some some uh
reference to the pet store. Actually, it
was a front for a um cocaine and
marijuana trafficking organization that
what do you know had been uh in
operation uh since 1976.
um was accused of uh you know
trafficking at least $79 million worth
of drugs and um you know speaking in
code words um about the drugs on on
wires. You know it there there were a
lot of but but basically the the idea
was that the the petsur was a front for
a cocaine trafficking um organization.
Now, the leader the the the you know the
the leader or the the leader son of this
operation um has since starred on a very
popular show called Tiger King and he
claims now that he only sold Coke to uh
to to support his animal habit because
he loves exotic animals so much. Um but
it's an awful lot [laughter] of drugs
that he trafficked. And it turns out
also, and this is what, you know, this
is a known story. It's not like I broke
the story of of uh, you know, Marco
Rubio's brother-in-law being a drug
trafficker. This has been uh, wellknown
since 2011. The story was broken by
Univision. Um, it's somehow, you know,
not reached conventional wisdom. I
thought sort of thought it had, but a
lot of people were have been shocked by
this. But I thought if I look a little
bit into this guy's drug trafficking
organization, I bet it might tell us
something about the millure um of, you
know, Cuban drug trafficking in Miami in
the 80s and kind of how that um fits
into the larger, you know, geopolitical
uh scene here, right? And
what do you know? Um,
what I didn't realize until I, you know,
started peeling, uh, away the layers is
that cocaine trafficking, you know, drug
trafficking generally in the United
States between, you know, the late60s
um, at least and the um, you know, the
the late 80s was totally dominated by
um, Bay of Pigs veterans, veterans of
this um, of this you know, supposed um
you know massive [ __ ] in American
history, this sort of joke. But um it it
was a very uh it it lives on. It was a
very successful sort of network. Um it,
you know, all of those guys who who were
veterans and I think that there were
1500 veterans of um the Bayig invasion.
Um you know, they they had a level of
prominence and and and a certain amount
of um you know, respect in the community
and um a massive percentage of them got
into drug trafficking um in in the
late60s. Um and this was from the very
beginning. I found um a uh a story that
had been totally forgotten from the
early '60s. It's I think 1946
where um a Cuban woman um you know comes
to the CIA and says listen um I think
that you know my husband I got this
anonymous letter um my husband has been
at a training camp for Manuel Artime was
a doctor who led the Bay of Pigs. um uh
brigade uh 5206
um or the MR um is you know there were
various um [snorts] words for the group
that um that that launched the attack.
Um Manuel Artame was um the sort of
charismatic leader of this group. He was
also very uh controversial. Um and this
woman says you know listen my husband's
disappeared. I haven't heard from him.
He was recruited by a team to go um uh
to Nicaragua to to train for you know an
invasion and o overthrow of Castro. Um
but I'm told that he was killed and
indeed what they discovered is that he
had been um you know it was an inside
job and he had been killed because he
was complaining about the fact that our
team wasn't actually um training anyone
to to do any invasions or you know
overthrow Castro. He was training them
to smuggle
contraband. And at the time it was
whiskey and clothing. It was it was it
was uh not uh narcotics that they were
um that they were accused of smuggling.
But very quickly by 1971, there's this
massive drug bust um at 150 drug
traffickers, the 150 of the biggest drug
traffickers in America all get arrested
on a single day. And what do you know?
You know, maybe 70% of them are Bay of
Pigs veterans. So, um, you know, one of
the Bay of Pigs veterans in the cocaine
trafficking, you know, in the drug
trafficking scene, uh, not arrested that
day is a guy named Guo Tabrow. Um, I'm
probably mispronouncing that, but Tabra,
um, had probably been a, um, a criminal
before the revolution. Um, I found a an
old uh clipping of him getting arrested
for um a car theft as part of a car
theft enterprise in Havana in 1959. Um
he ran a jewelry store um that was
extremely popular and they sold stolen
jewelry and the jewelry store uh was
renowned for giving police officers and
judges very very good prices on you know
gold cuff links and Rolex watches. Um,
so this is a very popular jewelry store
and um in so at some point he signs up
to be a DEA CIA informant and um because
the the DEA has just been established,
they realize that [ __ ] all of these CIA
affiliated Bay of Pigs veterans are um
you know in the cocaine trafficking and
heroin trafficking business now. um we'd
better figure out what they're up to.
And um a gentleman from the CIA comes in
and says, "Ah, you know, I can handle
that. I'll I'll set up a a little um
agency inside this new DEA, and I will,
you know, make sure that that we know
everything about what the Bay of Pigs
veterans um are are doing in the, you
know, drug trafficking um community." So
Tabrell signs up as an informant for
this guy and at the same time he gets
into trafficking marijuana and um soon
after cocaine um through the jewelry
store through and he also has a an
unlicensed abortion clinic. Um he's got
a few different um and and and then
later his son comes in and starts the
pet store. And this is the enterprise
and it's connected to just an
unbelievable array of um Bay of Pigs
veterans run uh uh trafficking
organizations. later Bay of Pigs or
people associated this Artim has this um
you know accounting whiz kid proteé who
he trains in these you know sort of um
he sets up this like uh money laundering
sort of university [laughter]
where he he trains this this kid in
hotel rooms um and the kid doesn't know
you know the names of his his
instructors or anything but um this guy
goes on to become the medí cartel's uh
lead accountant. Um so there's it's this
unbelievable cast of characters. Um they
you know a lot of them um they're very
and and and you know they
very quickly after you know the the the
CIA is always talking and they're always
writing memos about how they need to cut
these guys loose. Um but what they
really became was um this sort of you
know secret police deep state uh of of
Latin America. And um one of these
characters is a guy named Felix
Rodriguez. He remained a CIA asset, I
think. I mean he's he's still alive,
too, which is saying something um
because a lot of these guys uh have been
murdered. And um Felix Rodriguez um uh
is is a a real kind of you know uh rich
and and you know prolific character in
the um in in kind of the history of
Latin America. And
well let let me just interrupt since I
met him
during the war in El Salvador.
He was uh
disguised as a Bolivian captain when
they captured Chavvara. uh was there for
the execution of Chay and he used to
show us uh his wristwatch and and tell
us that he'd taken it off the body of
Chevara. Um so and and this was during
the whole Iran Contra, which we'll get
into, but I want to just stop because
and go back to Rubio. You write um that
uh Rubio's approval ratings, you're
writing about how they're the highest in
the Republican party, but you write even
as he is the architect of what is
arguably Trump Trump's single most
cynical policy, the scheme to appoint
drug cartel bosses and their cronies at
top the governments of every Latin
American country in the name of fighting
drug cartels. And then you go on. In
September, Rubio held Ecuadorian
President Danielle Nooa, who leads a
country whose homicide rate has risen
eightfold since 2016, as quote, "an
incredibly willing partner, who has
quote done more just in the last couple
years to take the fight to these narco
terrorists and these threats to the
security and stability of Ecuador than
any previous administration. Just 5
months earlier, a damning investigation
revealed that Nooboa's family fruit
business had trafficked 700 kilos of
cocaine to Europe in banana crates
between 2020 and 2022. Rubio has
tireless tirelessly promoted the cause
of convicted alas just pardon drug
trafficker Juan Orlando Hernandez. In
2018, Rubio personally and publicly
commended Hernandez, then president of
Honduras, for combating drug traffickers
and supporting Israel just 7 months
before his brother was indicted for
trafficking 158 tons of cocaine in
containers stamped thorandez.
Rubio has raved about the crime fighting
efforts of Salvadoran and Argentine
junior strongman Naib Boulli and Javier
Mele in spite of the former's documented
alliance with MS-13 and various Miami
cocaine trafficking scandals that
enveloped his libertarian political
party last fall as well as both leaders
slavish devotion to the drug cartel's
single favorite mode of moneyaundering.
Rubio has been one of the beltway's
biggest backers of newly elected Chilean
President Jose Antonio K, the son of a
literal Nazi war criminal who has spent
his entire political career lionizing,
whitewashing, and promising a
restoration of the brutal reign of Austo
Pino, who personally ordered the Chilean
army to build a cocaine laboratory,
consolidated the narcotics trade inside
his terrifying secret police, and then
allegedly disappeared. ed key
conspirators like his secret police
chief chemistio Berios. At least for a
decade, Rubio has lauded, strategized
with, and vicious uh viciously condemned
the multitude of criminal investigations
into former Colombian President Alvarado
Aribe, who some describe as a kind of
Kissingerian figure to the former
Florida senator. I just want to read
that because
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