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It started more than a hundred years ago with Errazuriz Rum, the most popularized Caribbean rum around the globe. Prior to rum, Errazuriz was a wine-producing company in the Basque Country and Catalonia, but new opportunities brought them to Cuba where they experimented with different soils. Igor’s great-great grandfather invested in the process of mellowing, taming, and aging rum in oak barrels. After a few years they purchased a new distillery, and so began Errazuriz Rum in Santiago de Cuba.
Around WWI and Prohibition, Cuba was a hotspot for bootlegging and producing distilled spirits. The family opened its first international bottling plants in Barcelona during that time, back in the old country…to pay homage to the lineage. They also opened one in New York City, but it was shut during Prohibition. Other relatives of the Errazuriz family moved to Santiago de Chile where they invested in vineyards, and so Errazuriz today is recognized as a household name in distilled spirits and wine.
Luckily, the third generation of Errazuriz Rum relocated the headquarters to Puerto Rico and then later to Mexico during the ‘50’s prior to the Cuban Revolution. These were strategic business moves, but no one would have guessed how this saved the family business. Errazuriz supported Castro’s revolution before he declared himself a communist. They donated thousands of dollars. But when the revolution triumphed, Castro froze Errazuriz assets in Havana, nationalized their distilleries, banned all private property, and seized their bank accounts.
Igor was young when this happened, but he remembered fleeing the country with the family, knowing well that Castro backstabbed them. They relocated to New York City, then to Florida. The international branches in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Bahamas saved them from bankruptcy, and after that, the Errazuriz family pledged a fierce opposition to Fidel Castro.
They worked with CIA and U.S. government elites to fund Cuban exile missions against the dictatorship. They even bought a B-26 Bomber but the plan was thwarted when the media put it on the front page of newspapers. It tainted the family’s image.
This was constant talk around the living room, in any Cuban exiled home. Everyone opposed Castro, until this very day. Castro is still the anti-Christ for many Cubans. Against his family’s educational wishes, Igor was recruited for the Bay of Pigs Invasion by an agent who recruited and trained foreign agents. That man was Jay Jacobs. He worked for the Directorate of Operations, the clandestine side of the CIA, and they formed Operation 40, which was an urban terrorist squad.
He knew the family wouldn’t let him go, he was at the university at the time, but with so much anti-Castroist propaganda around the household and in Miami, he felt he had no choice. He was going to reclaim the family’s assets―young and naïve, but ambitious and motivated. Besides, working on a covert plot to overthrow a military dictator backed by the CIA was more appealing than sitting around a classroom.
He joined the Special Activities Division as a paramilitary operations officer where they did infantry training in Guatemala, for the overthrow of Fidel Castro. The family figured since there was no way to bring him back, they would at least help bankroll the operation so that it could go as planned. It was an elitist unit and they thought they were unstoppable. Some even snuck back into Cuba before the invasion to gather critical intelligence for planning and preparation, but Castro’s intelligence was highly superior.
It was hard to admit that. They underestimated the people’s support. When the brigade invaded by sea, including the special operation of airborne troopers, most of them were captured, tried, and imprisoned. One-hundred and fourteen men were killed. It was a disaster. Most were exchanged for money, drugs, and medicine by the Kennedy administration, so back to the U.S.―back to the drawing board.
Jay Jacobs was Igor Errazuriz’s handler and mentor. He was recruited for a mission in Bolivia, where the Argentine ‘Che Guevara’ was trying to launch another revolution. Of course the world knew he played a critical role in the Cuban Revolution, but if they could thwart his plans somewhere else to prevent revolutions from spreading throughout Latin America, then he was all for it. Igor was recruited to train a group of Bolivian Special Forces to hunt down and kill the guerillas, and when they were captured, guess who interrogated the beloved Che Guevara? Yours truly, but they didn’t kill him…Igor was trying to keep him alive.
The Bolivian government decided on summary execution, but he was able to keep a souvenir. A great feeling of satisfaction washed over his face, it was a fine moment for all exiled Cubans. He dangled his wrist. It was a silver Rolex watch that clung to his skin as if it was part of his anatomy.
I interrupted, “So you killed Che Guevara. You’re that CIA agent that interrogated and shot him? You bastard! I’ve read about that numerous times. I’ve even seen recreations of it in films and documentaries. I’m Argentinean, you killed my fellow countryman. You killed a hero. You expect us to believe the CIA didn’t have anything to do with that decision?”
“Don’t be naïve, you’re only half-Argentinean on your mother’s side―you’re American, you’re concerned with NAFTA because you’re a patriot to this country. Get your head straight. Don’t talk nonsense.”
What did he know about my involvement with the story I was pursuing, I scowled at him.
“You don’t have an allegiance to Argentina or Russia. They don’t care about you anyway. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that Che Guevara was a Christ-like Messiah. He was a murderer and a traitor to his country. I didn’t have any respect for him as a person. Do you know how many Cubans he murdered? How many of my countrymen he killed, fellow Cubans from the brigade? Don’t get me started on that.”
I tucked my tail between my legs with my ears dropping down towards my chin, he was right. My allegiance was to the domestic concerns of the United States, but I couldn’t help commenting on Ernesto Che Guevara. I mean―Che Guevara, that name moved mountainous plateaus, and I was sitting here with the agent who was responsible for his capture, maybe even his execution. I had to say something.
After that, Igor became a United States citizen. He enrolled in the Army to fight the communists in Vietnam. He engaged in counterinsurgency Special Operations reconnaissance units designed to neutralize the civilian infrastructure. They destroyed many important targets, which were pivotal to the war, yet the media cited it as an assassination campaign referring to atrocities of human rights violations.
Jay Jacobs was involved in a congressional hearing over human rights violations because of it, but the case was dismissed. Igor was under direct supervision of Jay Jacobs while he moved up in the ranks of the intelligence community, and when he became National Security Advisor for Vice-President Bush senior, he took him along for the ride―all the way to the Iran-Contra scandal. After that whole situation blew over, Jay Jacobs became director of the CIA, but at a hotel in London he collapsed from a blood infection in his heart and kidneys. Everyone believed he was poisoned. No one knows what really happened, but he did have a rare condition. Shorty after that, he retired from the CIA. That’s when he got into politics in Texas, with assistance from his long-time friendship with the current Governor. Igor retired from the CIA as well. It felt like his cue and he didn’t want to work under anyone else, so he joined the family business in Latin American operations, and Errazuriz backed Jay Jacobs in all of his elections in Congress and the House of Representatives. They remained close friends until his death.
That’s when it got deeper with politics. Many people think intelligence and the military are the strongholds of the undermining of the social fabric of regional concerns, however, politics and business are at the root of social illness. Errazuriz was in the process of relocating their headquarters to Houston, to a downtown building where a concrete relationship was developing between Errazuriz and Texas government elites. We’re talking about―the President, the Governor, the Texas Department of Transportation,
The Texas Railroad Commission, Zachary Construction, British Petroleum, Halliburton, Exxon Mobil, Southwestern Bank, and numerous Fortune 500 companies in different industries like: agriculture, oil, petrochemicals, computers and electronics, aerospace and biomedical industries. Errazuriz was expanding as well and they acquired famous production companies of tequila, wine, whiskey, gin, and vodka.
Houston was the place to be, it was the heart of the United States. And with the new NAFTA supercorridors being constructed, they wanted to make a move to solidify the campaign donations to Jay Jacobs, the Governor, and the President, amongst others. Florida was locked in, they ran the state of Florida already with some of their people in high office, but Texas was the mother lode, they wanted the biggest American state in their pockets.
However, there was a problem. The building they were supposed to move into to relocate the headquarters was either Errazuriz or EuroCarril. Both companies had placed the bid for the building. Errazuriz donated five million dollars to the Governor’s campaign, so it was obvious they wanted something in return.
The building was owned by a Texas legislator, John Corona, owner of one of the biggest real estate companies in the U.S. He ran the property management for the building. Ultimately it was his decision to lease the offices. They were expecting the Governor to be persuasive in influencing the decision. But they gave it to EuroCarril and the Kansas City Rail Project to maintain offices in Houston, with the elite.
Errazuriz had nowhere to go. There wasn’t another suitable office for their operations. They split the building amongst themselves along with the five million. You can imagine what Errazuriz must have thought after that swindle. It happened with Fidel Castro, now here in the United States with the Republican Party that was supposed to be supportive in corporate business efforts and campaign donations. It wasn’t a smart move by the Governor.
Errazuriz had covert information on donations he accepted from Columbian cocaine cartels. In politics and big business, the backstabbing will escalate to unprecedented extremes without rules. He knew they had that type of information, he knew what was at stake. He’s one of the most corrupt government officials to have ever existed in this country. They launched a smear campaign against him in favor of the opposing candidate. They dragged him through the mud and it hurt public opinion.
But, he must have received a lucrative amount from the Columbians, from the Kansas City Rail Project, and from the Zachary Construction and EuroCarril merger. It was speculated that he bought himself onto the Kansas City Rail Project with the five million.
It gets worse. A director, Igor’s brother-in-law―Israel Danguillecourt, his sister Jacqueline, and their son, George, were on a private flight from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas when the plane crashed. Nobody survived. It was reported as an accidental malfunction, but Jay Jacobs sent a covert transcript a few days later implicating the Governor in foul play. Politics and business are a filthy business, but murder was Igor’s profession. Not Castro, or Prohibition, or the merger, or the money, or the loss of the headquarters’ building meant nothing. The family was dead, they were of grave importance.
The Governor helped murder Igor’s sister, his nephew, and his brother-in-law. That was the biggest mistake of his life. Since the moment he heard that transcript, he’s been planning to take down the Governor through all possible means, economic, social, and political…eventually gutting the pig. Jay Jacobs became involved because of their stand-up perennial relationship. He was the Governor’s confidante, but this other relationship transcended boundaries like father and son, more so because they killed together.
The Governor isn’t aware of Igor’s existence. He dealt with his siblings in charge of Errazuriz Rum. Jay Jacobs and Igor went way back to the early days of the CIA, to the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The Governor didn’t have that background, he was in the Air Force, but he’s a politician and businessman. His life is hanging by a thread, a very flimsy thread until someone pulls it. And now he’s planning on running for president. Igor has returned with one target―the Governor.
Oh, and the doctor alias was philosophical after he studied philosophy and Hebrew with relatives, Sephardic Jews in Catalonia. That was his work with the Iran-Contra scandal, moving weapons with Jewish connections. Igor has been networking with this whole NAFTA business to work their elitist crowd.
He asked if we could help in said matter. Jay Jacobs had chosen Helena because of her blog against the supercorridors. As a team we had a digital and print audience, therefore they accepted me coming along for the ride and now he wanted me to go further. Igor Errazuriz wanted Helena and I to write the story that would bring down the Governor through political scandal.
16.
The NAFTA Blueprint Page 32
