Enrique Miranda Jaime was a former [[Sandinistas|Sandinista]] intelligence officer who became a double agent for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] during the Contra war and later worked as a [[DEA]] informant. From 1989 to 1991, he served as [[Norwin Meneses]]'s emissary to the cartels of [[Colombia]] and as his right-hand man.[^1] ### Testimony on the Ilopango Drug Pipeline Miranda testified in a 1992 trial in [[Nicaragua]] that "Norwin was selling drugs and tunneled the benefits to the Contras with help of high-ranking military officials of the Salvadoran Army, especially with the help of the head of the Salvadoran Air Force and a Nicaraguan pilot named [[Marcos Aguado]]." Miranda said the cocaine brought from Colombia by [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín cartel]] pilots arrived in [[Costa Rica]] in square twenty-five-kilo packages, was unloaded at various airstrips including one on CIA operative [[John Hull]]'s farm, and was placed aboard Contra planes flown into [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]].[^1] Once at Ilopango, Miranda said, Aguado and Meneses supervised loading the cocaine onto U.S.-bound aircraft owned by the Salvadoran Air Force and the Miami-based CIA contractor [[Southern Air Transport]]. Miranda said Meneses told him U.S. military hardware stockpiled at Ilopango was loaded onto Salvadoran transport planes and flown south, where guns were traded for cocaine and flown back.[^1] ### Aguado's Cartel Operations Miranda met CIA pilot Marcos Aguado for dinner at Meneses's mansion in [[Managua]] in 1991, where Aguado described flying for the Colombian cartels. Aguado claimed he once took a Salvadoran Air Force bomber and leveled a warehouse full of Medellín cartel cocaine on behalf of the rival Cali cartel. He also made plans to bomb the prison where Medellín cartel chief Pablo Escobar was briefly imprisoned. Aguado boasted of flying weapons from the Salvadoran military to the Colombian cartels—claims Miranda said he doubted until a Salvadoran Air Force colonel and associates were arrested in 1992 for selling bombs and high explosives to Colombian drug dealers.[^1] ### Background Miranda was arrested by former Nicaraguan antidrug czar Roger Mayorga. He and Mayorga told interviewers the U.S. air base where drugs from Ilopango were flown was near Fort Worth, Texas—likely the now-closed Carswell Air Force Base, home of a Strategic Air Command bomber squadron.[^1] ### Escape from Prison and DEA Recruitment In early 1996, journalist [[Georg Hodel]] requested permission from the Nicaraguan Ministry of the Interior to interview Miranda, who had been moved to a prison in the city of Granada after Meneses allegedly hired someone to kill him. Miranda "escaped" the same day Hodel made his request, leaving on a weekend furlough and never returning. Prison officials called it "extremely out of character" for a model inmate nearing the end of his sentence. The police had not been notified of the escape, and Hodel's discovery became front-page news in Managua.[^2] Miranda was captured in [[Miami]] in December 1996, where he was living with his wife. He had entered the [[United States]] with a visa the U.S. Embassy in Managua issued him the day he escaped. Despite being listed in the State Department's computers as a convicted drug trafficker and therefore ineligible for a visa, the State Department claimed two simultaneous computer failures resulted in him "erroneously" receiving one. The DEA denied involvement but admitted Miranda was placed on the DEA payroll as an informant "soon after he came to Miami" and was sent to Central and South America to work drug cases. The DEA never informed Nicaraguan authorities it was harboring one of their fugitives.[^2] ### Footnotes [^1]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends" [^2]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Chapter 25: "Things are moving all around us"