Troilo Sánchez Herdocia was a playboy brother of [[FDN]] leaders [[Aristides Sanchez|Aristides]] and [[Fernando Sanchez|Fernando Sánchez]] who served as a cocaine supplier for [[Norwin Meneses]]'s Contra drug network. The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] identified him in November 1982 as a source of cocaine for the [[Frogman Case|Frogman drug ring]] in [[San Francisco]].[^1] ### Background Troilo had been a partner of Norwin Meneses in one of Norwin's nightclubs in [[Managua]] and was one of his drinking buddies. A pilot, Sánchez claimed he flew for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] in [[Nicaragua]] in the early 1960s during preparations for the [[Bay of Pigs]] invasion, which was partly staged from Nicaragua. By the late 1970s he was a hopeless drug addict, spending large sums of his family's fortune on heroin, cocaine, women, and gambling. The [[Sandinistas]] seized what remained, and Troilo and his wife Isanaqui fled to [[Costa Rica]], where they became partners with Norwin Meneses in a bean-processing factory.[^2] Norwin Meneses described the relationship as familial: "We are like family. [Isanaqui] came many times to visit my brother Mundo, who was a general and the police chief of Managua and was later assassinated in [[Guatemala]] for the Sandinistas."[^2] ### Role in Contra Drug Trafficking In December 1981, Troilo and [[Horacio Pereira]] met with [[Carlos Cabezas]] in Costa Rica and proposed selling cocaine to raise funds for the [[Contras]]. The FBI identified Troilo as operating out of Costa Rica alongside Horacio Pereira and Fernando Sánchez as a source of cocaine for the San Francisco drug ring. Former Contra official Leonardo Zeledón Rodríguez told UPI in 1986 that "Troilo sold 200 pounds of cocaine and received $6.1 million for it."[^2] ### Legal Troubles Troilo was arrested on drug charges in Costa Rica in the mid-1980s but was acquitted. He recovered from his drug addiction and was living in Nicaragua as of 1998.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Cast of Characters [^2]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Chapter 5: "God, Fatherland and Freedom"