
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994                   TAG: 9407130049
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: AUSTIN, TEXAS                                 LENGTH: Short

AGENT: NORTH KNEW OF CONTRA-DRUG LINK

Oliver North knew large shipments of cocaine were being smuggled into the United States by mercenary pilots he had hired to assist Contras in Nicaragua, according to a former federal agent.

Celerino ``Cele'' Castillo, who was a supervisory agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration in El Salvador, said he told a U.S. ambassador to El Salvador as well as then-Vice President Bush in 1986 about the drug smuggling in North's Contra supply operation.

No action was taken, Castillo said.

``[Former Marine Lt. Col.] Oliver North was running the operation. His pilots were known drug traffickers listed in government files, and these people were being given U.S. visas,'' Castillo said Thursday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Castillo's account was first told to The Texas Observer, a 10,000-circulation magazine that carries the story in today's issue. He also has written a book due out next month on the North case.

North, the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat from Virginia, denied Castillo's allegations.

``It's totally garbage, absolutely, 100 percent untrue,'' North spokesman Dan McLagan said. ``It's a nutty conspiracy theory with not one scintilla of truth.''

Messages left with DEA officials in Washington went unreturned, and a secretary in Bush's Houston office said he was out of the country.

by CNB