Ivan Gomez
Pseudonym of a Venezuelan CIA contract agent who handled logistics on the Southern Front for the Contras, identified by Carlos Cabezas as the conduit for drug money from the Meneses organization to the Contras.
"Iván Gómez" was the pseudonym of a Venezuelan Central Intelligence Agency contract agent who handled logistics on the Southern Front for the Contras in Costa Rica during the war. Carlos Cabezas identified Gómez as the conduit for drug money from the Meneses organization in San Francisco to the Contras in Costa Rica.1
Meetings with Cabezas
In April or May 1982, Horacio Pereira and Troilo Sánchez introduced Carlos Cabezas to Gómez at a San José hotel. Gómez told Cabezas he was with the CIA—the agency's "man in Costa Rica"—and was there to "ensure that the profits from the cocaine went to the Contras and not into someone's pocket." Cabezas saw Gómez only once more, in late summer 1982, when he was met at the San José airport by Pereira and the CIA agent, but Gómez did not speak during the second meeting.2
CIA Confirmation
Former CIA official Dewey Clarridge, who headed the Contra project from 1981 to 1984, told a British television crew in late 1996 he had never heard of Iván Gómez. The 1998 CIA Inspector General's report, however, confirmed that an agent using the name "Iván Gómez" was assigned to Costa Rica in 1982 as the CIA's liaison to the Costa Rican Contra armies.2
Gómez, a former Venezuelan military officer, admitted during CIA-administered polygraph tests in 1987 that he had been involved in laundering funds for drug dealers in March or April 1982, but claimed the drug dealers were relatives. The CIA Inspector General dismissed Cabezas's story as an invention, suggesting the timing didn't match, but the report failed to explain how a San Francisco cocaine dealer could accurately identify the alias of an undercover CIA agent stationed in Costa Rica, describe his role precisely, and pinpoint to within 30 days the period when the agent admitted laundering drug money.2
Termination
Gómez was fired by the CIA in 1989 because of his repeated inability to pass polygraph tests concerning drug dealing. The CIA considered reporting him to the Justice Department but decided against it and simply cut him loose. His former supervisor told CIA inspectors in 1997: "It is a striking commentary on me and everyone that this guy's involvement in narcotics didn't weigh more heavily on me or the system." His only interest, he said, was to help "salvage" a good agent.2
Gómez married the former girlfriend of Meneses lieutenant Marcos Aguado and was reportedly living in Spain.1
Sources
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