Celerino "Cele" Castillo is a former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Special Agent stationed in Central America during the 1980s. During his years in El Salvador and Guatemala, Castillo was an eye-witness to drug and arms trafficking operations supervised by the CIA on behalf of the FDN -- the Nicaraguan Contras. C-123 transports regularly flew into El Salvador's Ilopango Air Base; weapons from the U.S. were exchanged for vast quantities of cocaine, a cozy arrangement with profits for all.
TARPLEY: What did George Bush know, and when did he know it?
CASTILLO: Before my arrival in Guatemala, we had received intelligence that the Contras were heavily involved in narcotics trafficking. Basically, I was forewarned by the country attache' in Guatemala, Bob Stia, upon my arrival, that there was a covert operation being conducted by the White House, and run by Oliver North at Ilopango in El Salvador.
TARPLEY: So this was your official superior in the DEA?
CASTILLO: That's correct.
TARPLEY: And the first thing he did when you arrived in the country was to tell you: Look, this is now the scene of a covert operation with Oliver North, and they're running drugs.
CASTILLO: That's correct, and since we had obtained intelligence already about the Contras being heavily involved in narcotics trafficking, he advised me to stay away from it and not to get involved in the investigation, because that would mean that if I started reporting that information to Washington, I would be kicked out of El Salvador and Guatemala very quickly.
TARPLEY: Now, when you say the "Contras," does that mean “all” the Contras? Were there groups that were more into it, that were less into it? Was there Calero, were there others in that group?
CASTILLO: It was a universal thing. The DEA refused to accept that answer, but we had intelligence gathered from all parts of Central and South America in regard to the narcotics trafficking going on. We had cables from the country attache', Bobby Nieves in Costa Rica, advising us to look into Hangars 4 and 5 at Ilopango. And of course, Hangars 4 and 5 were bought and paid for by the U.S. government -- the CIA and the National Security Council.
TARPLEY: Ilopango Airport: What is that? Is that a large commercial airport?
CASTILLO: No. Ilopango Airport is the military airport with civilian small planes that arrive at Ilopango. And it's a military base, but most international pilots who fly small planes get to arrive at Ilopango.
TARPLEY: Tell us what the atmosphere was at Ilopango in the middle of this Contra dirty war, 1985, '86, '87.
CASTILLO: We had major narcotics trafficking going through Ilopango from Costa Rica, which is further south. We had obtained a lot of intelligence. We had an informant placed at Ilopango who actually did the flight plans for the Contra pilots, and everybody spoke freely about the loads that they carried, the monies that they took to the Bahamas and to Panama for laundering.
All this was reported to the U.S. Embassy, to the CIA, to Washington, DEA headquarters; and nobody wanted to do anything about it.
TARPLEY: Tell me just briefly: what kinds of planes were these, where were they coming from, where were they going?
CASTILLO: The cable that we received from Costa Rica in April of 1986 came in from the country attache', Bobby Nieves, like I stated before, and was for us to check Hangars 4 and 5, that they had very reliable information pertaining to the trafficking from around Central and South America into those two hangars.
It turned out that of those two hangars, one was run by the CIA, and the other one was run by Felix Rodriguez, who ran the Contra operation at Ilopango.
TARPLEY: These, then, were not jets that you would see at an American airfield, but these were smaller planes?
CASTILLO: Yes, smaller planes, like Caravans, Pipers, Cessnas. They were coming in without being inspected by the Customs officials, or anybody else.
As it turned out, the informant who did the flight plans actually gave us copies of all the flight plans of all these Contra pilots, and when we ran checks on the names of all these pilots, they were all documented in DEA files as narco-traffickers. Yet they were being hired by the CIA, Felix Rodriguez, and everybody else, who were trying to obtain U.S. visas for them to go to the U.S. -- even though they were documented traffickers.
TARPLEY: So, these planes would then fly north. Could they make it all the way to Miami?
CASTILLO: They would go to Miami, they would go to Texas. They were going to California; anywhere that they were able.
For example, a Contra pilot was arrested in late '85 in south Texas with five-and-a-half million dollars cash. It was Contra money. You know, you carry credentials from the President of El Salvador, from the Chief of Staffs in El Salvador, the Chief of the Air Force and so forth; they were all very well protected, and every single pilot talked about how they had permission to run narcotics, because they were working for the Oliver North Contra operation.
TARPLEY: Now, you've mentioned Felix Rodriguez, Max Gomez... Certainly, Felix Rodriguez has been with George Bush for a very, very long time, and what you can see in that book is, he's got a signed photograph from George Bush telling him what a great patriot he is. Would you agree with that judgement on Felix Rodriguez/Max Gomez?
CASTILLO: No, sir. If you go back to the Vietnam War, we have intelligence where the CIA and those individuals were heavily involved in trafficking heroin into the U.S. in bodybags and so forth.
So, Felix Rodriguez was documented, in our DEA files, as a trafficker. He was a retired CIA agent, and they brought all these people who were heavily involved. If you go back, most of these Bay of Pigs operatives were all documented traffickers, who all served time for narcotics trafficking, for gun-running. They were all criminals; yet, they were being hired by the Oliver North Contra operation to run the illegal narcotics trafficking out of Ilopango [Airport].
TARPLEY: Now, Felix Rodriguez has a DEA file.
CASTILLO: That's correct, sir. I myself documented him involved in trafficking with the Contras, and so forth.
TARPLEY: Does Oliver North have a DEA file?
CASTILLO: That's correct, sir. As a matter of fact, there's a 1991 file on Oliver North for smuggling weapons from the U.S. into the Philippines with known narcotics traffickers, and I'm talking about a 1991 case. I'm not going back to the Contra issue.
TARPLEY: This is “after” the television appearance, after the great 1987 celebrity parade?
CASTILLO: That's correct, sir. Absolutely.
TARPLEY: Can you make a Freedom of Information Act request, to get hold of Oliver North's DEA file?
CASTILLO: I tried that already, and they cited the privacy act. I asked for my own files, that I wrote on the Contras and different individuals, and these requests were denied.
TARPLEY: So, I can imagine that there would be a lot of voters around Virginia and elsewhere who would like to have a look at Oliver North's DEA file again, with an incident from 1991?
CASTILLO: That's correct. One of the questions I've always been asked is, Why can't the White House get that?
Somebody else has to answer that. I don't know. It's there. They just need to get that. That file is out of the Washington office here in Washington, D.C.
TARPLEY: That certainly makes you think twice.
Now, did you ever see Felix Rodriguez running around Ilopango?
CASTILLO: Yes, sir. I saw him running around Ilopango. I used to see him around the U.S. Embassy, having lunch with the ambassador and others. Col. Steele from the U.S. Military Group [was] down there. I saw him everywhere...
TARPLEY: Could you just give us an idea of what kinds of people were telling you about these activities, and what they were telling you?
CASTILLO: Well, go back to Ilopango. We had an informant who had worked there, at Ilopango, for many years. He had given reliable information to the Consulate General there, Robert Chavez, at the U.S. Embassy, and some cocaine had been seized before. So, this guy was very reliable. He had been reporting all this activity on the Contras.
We had another informant who was also placed to work at Ilopango, Salvador, and Guatemala, who was a documented informer going back to 1981, who gave us a lot of the intelligence that we had on this Contra operation.
TARPLEY: Let's now turn to what you did with the information that you got, and how you reported it. I understand from your book that one of the first people you tried to tell about this was the U.S. ambassador to Salvador, Edwin Corr.
CASTILLO: That's correct. Once we obtained a lot of the intelligence and we started writing reports, we went to the U.S. ambassador, we went to the CIA Chief of Station, Jack McCavett, in Salvador, and Col. Steele, who was a U.S. Military Group commander.
There was an individual, an American, who lived in El Salvador, who was a civilian, and as it turns out, he was working for the Oliver North Contra operation. And when we received all this information, we reported it. I personally reported it to my boss, first of all, Bob Stia, who kept forewarning me about my reporting on the Contras because it was going to come back and hurt us in Guatemala.
TARPLEY: Did he suggest it was going to be bad for your career?
CASTILLO: It was going to be bad for my career and his career, and he had a couple of years left to retire, and not to make any waves. I told him that if I actually found any evidence, that I would continue to report the allegations that the Contras were involved in trafficking.
I went to the U.S. ambassador, Edwin Corr. He told me right off that it was a White House covert operation run by Col. Oliver North, and for me to stay away from it... I think people do not know the real fact that he was heavily involved in narcotics trafficking - his organization was heavily involved in narcotics trafficking. And he had knowledge that these people were involved in narcotics trafficking.
TARPLEY: That knowledge would be sufficient for him to have been convicted?
CASTILLO: Absolutely. But nobody ever contacted me down in Central
America. Now, why? Was there a conspiracy to protect him? Was there a conspiracy
to protect the President of the United States, George Bush, or the Vice
President at the time? Apparently there was.