"In protecting Prado, the CIA arguably allowed a new type of mole -- an agent not of a foreign government but of American criminal interests -- to penetrate command," writes author Evan Wright.
Below is an excerpt from the new "How to Get Away with Murder in America," published by Byliner Originals.In 2008, Jon Roberts, a convicted cocaine trafficker, made a startling claim to me: that more than three decades earlier he had participated in a murder with a man named Ricky Prado, who later entered the Central Intelligence Agency and became a top American spy. The murder to which Roberts referred was one of Miami's most infamous, that of Richard Schwartz, stepson of the legendary mobster Meyer Lansky. Schwartz was killed on the morning of October 12, 1977, behind a restaurant near Miami Beach. He was exiting his car when a person unknown approached him and fired twice with a shotgun, at such close range that cotton wadding from the shells impregnated Schwartz's flesh. The murder has never been solved.
Roberts claimed that Prado was the shooter, provided by a local Cuban drug kingpin named Alberto "Albert" San Pedro, for whom Prado worked as an enforcer and occasional hit man. Roberts confessed to planning the murder with two mafiosi, Gary Teriaca and Robert "Bobby" Erra. According to Roberts, the three of them waited near the scene of the shooting in his boat, in order to take Prado's weapon and dispose of it in Biscayne Bay.
The politics of Roberts's story made sense. Months earlier, Schwartz had fatally shot Teriaca's younger brother in a dispute at the Forge restaurant, in Miami Beach. As Roberts explained it, the three of them participated in the murder to avenge the death of Teriaca's brother. Prado entered the picture because his boss, San Pedro, was eager to prove his loyalty to the Mafia.
What made Roberts's story unbelievable was his claim that four years after the shooting, Prado joined the CIA. In Miami, thugs often claim ties to the CIA. The agency recruited hundreds of Cuban immigrants for the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and many of them later became drug traffickers. But Roberts's story was different. He claimed Prado was a criminal first and then became a career CIA officer. This seemed doubtful until I discovered that there was a CIA officer named Enrique Prado ("Ricky" or "Ric" for short), whom federal agents had targeted in a 1991 RICO and murder investigation into his alleged career-before he entered the agency-as an enforcer for San Pedro.
The investigators had obtained evidence implicating Prado in the murder of Schwartz and several others, as well as in numerous acts of extortion and arson undertaken in support of San Pedro's drug-trafficking enterprise. Prado was interviewed by federal investigators at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and served with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury.
But somehow the subpoena was quashed. No charges were ever filed against him. Within a few years, the CIA promoted Prado into the highest reaches of its Clandestine Services and made him a supervisor in the unit tasked with hunting Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, he was the chief of counterterrorist operations. With the rank of SIS-2-the CIA equivalent of a two-star or major general-he was among a small circle of officers who helped implement the CIA-led invasion of Afghanistan and directed SEAL Team Six on missions there. Throughout his later years at the agency and then at Blackwater, the private military contracting firm where Prado held a senior position, he worked closely with J. Cofer Black, now a top adviser to Mitt Romney.
The story Roberts told, and the two halves of Prado's life in the 1990s-murder suspect/stellar CIA officer-made no sense. When I initially searched for the case files of the investigation into Prado -conducted jointly by the FBI and the Miami-Dade Police Department-I discovered they'd disappeared from the MDPD's records bureau. When I located them elsewhere through a tip from a federal investigator, they were far more extensive than I had expected. There were some three thousand pages, including interviews with eyewitnesses who placed Prado at numerous crimes. I eventually interviewed more than two dozen people involved with the investigation-cops, FBI agents, federal prosecutors, and witnesses-who provided a disturbing portrait of a case abandoned because of CIA intervention, political maneuvering, and possibly corruption. The evidence against Prado was so compelling that one investigator from the case described him as "technically, a serial killer."
"It was a miscarriage of justice that Prado never faced charges," says Mike Fisten, the lead homicide investigator on the case. "The CIA fought us tooth and nail, and basically told us to go fuck ourselves."
Another investigator from the case, who is now a Florida law enforcement official, said, "You can't indict people like Prado. It doesn't work that way."
Later he e-mailed me: "Your target is bad news and dangerous. Be careful."
When I phoned him, he said, "Forget this story. I dropped Prado's name on a friend of mine from the CIA and he said, 'Leave this one alone. You don't want to fuck with this guy.' "
"What do you think?" I asked him.
"You're going to get whacked."
No public official I've interviewed had ever made such a comment. Yet his warning is in keeping with the amazing story of Ricky Prado and his rise from the criminal underworld into the top echelons of the national-security establishment. It's a story you'd expect to encounter in the twilight stages of a corrupt dictatorship, but this one takes place mostly in Miami. It centers on Prado's long relationship with San Pedro, and on the cop who began pursuing them more than two decades ago and still hopes to put them in prison for murder. In protecting Prado, the CIA arguably allowed a new type of mole-an agent not of a foreign government but of American criminal interests-to penetrate its command.
"How to Get Away with Murder in America" is available for $2.99 as a Kindle Single at Amazon, a Quick Read at Apple's iBookstore, and a Nook Snap at Barnes and Noble.
Evan Wright is the recipient of two National Magazine Awards, the author of the bestselling "Generation Kill" and "Hella Nation," and the co-author of "American Desperado." His reporting has also been included in "The Best American Crime Writing." He co-wrote the HBO series "Generation Kill," based on his book.
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REMEMBER THIS Mitt Romeny is in an alliance with contract killers: In 2008 Jon Roberts confessed that he and Ricky Prado murdered Richard Schwartz who was the stepson of legendary mobster Meyer Lansky. Ricky Prado later joined the CIA in 1982 And his name became Enrique "Ricky" Prado and he obtained the rank SIS-2 an equivalent of a 2 star general, Prado ran the targeted assassination unit " ie: (contract killers unit)" first at the CIA then at BLACKWATER. Now Ademi or Xei; where he was vice president from 2004 to 2008. Enrique Prado works closely with J. Cofer Black, top adviser to Mitt Romeny now a presidential contender.
September 08 2012 at 6:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe question begs to be asked; why would Mitt Romeny, a supposedly legit business man need the services of contract killers? Did any of the various corporate entities executives that Mitt Romeny raided and stripped of cash reserves and pension funds die under suspicious circumstances???
Mitt Romeny went from College Bully to Crime Boss of a Criminal Syndicate and now has Contract killers at his disposal through his top adviser J. Cofer Black (of Blackwater fame now known as Ademei or Xei) many RNC delegates have been violence threatened by Gun, broken Bones, stolen Ballot Boxes, all stated by Richard Gilbert attorney at law representing Ron Paul and other delegates..(see Richard Gilbert You Tube videos)
REMEMBER THIS: Mitt Romeny went from College Bully to Crime Boss of a Criminal Syndicate and now has Contract killers at his disposal through his top adviser J. Cofer Black (of Blackwater fame now known as Ademei or Xei) many RNC delegates have been violence threatened by Gun, broken Bones, stolen Ballot Boxes, Never seen in this country before? I have seen it. I have seen it in Livingston County, Michigan long before Romney ran for president. Why would Mitt Romeny have contract killers around? Logic says that he must be using them! Is Romney the crime boss of a criminal syndicate? It feels that way. Mitt Romeny's Bain Capital busines plan is Vulture Capitalism which seek businesses in dire straits, David Widlak was such a person who was seeking new investors, there is a 80% certainty that they met. I am really wondering if the phone call from the Hampton country club just previous to David Widlak's death came from the one close to where Mitt Romeny has a house in the Hamptons, and why are they not reconstructing who was there when the call to David Widlak was made???
An email TIP sent to: “DonkeyD” (me); by “BlueTreeMarie” at mobile Rolling Stone Magazine:
EMAIL TO: DonkeyD, As a matter of fact there was a bank president that died
under suspicious circumstances here in Michigan. The bank he founded
was going under and he had met with some possible investors he had
expressed concern about to his wife. "He had received a phone call
just before his death from a country club in the Hamptons." He was
shot in the back of the head execution style and found in a nearby
marsh off the lake. There's more if you wish to Google it. His name
was David Widlak.
POSTED BY BLUETREEMARIE AUGUST 27, 2012, 2:38 PM
Since I know that W. Mitt Romeny has a house in the Hamptons and many connections in Michigan,
I would really like to know if he is also a member of the country club in the Hamptons from which that phone call was made.
The bank's collapse and Widlak's death have drawn in a collection of powerful political and social figures -- names including Ford, Stroh, Dingell, Hackel, Patterson, French and Booth. Some say Widlak's family won't accept the painful notion that he could have killed himself over personal and professional problems
But a team of lawyers, criminal investigators, doctors and other experts working on behalf of his widow, Anne Widlak, says the trail of forensic clues, e-mails, financial records, a nightstand memo and a washed-out note clutched in the dead man's hand point to murder. The lakeside scene alone stymies a suicide scenario, the sheriff was very quick to call the death a suicide, Former Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel and others have maintained that the evidence, though not conclusive, points strongly to David Widlak's death as a suicide. Investigators hired by his widow, Anne Widlak, said their work -- sometimes drawing contrary conclusion from the same evidence -- indicates homicide. Some key points: