Fidel Castro: Cuba’s Cocaine Trafficker-in-Chief?

The Underworld Podcast

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 871 Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1959, when Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, they wasted no time booting out American business owners, casinos and drug kingpins — much to the delight of US law enforcers. But as time passed, and Castro’s socialist regime sought ever-trickier income streams, the Caribbean island proved an irresistible stepping stone for cartels getting product from the Andes through Central America into Florida. Ambassadors, generals, and madcap American financiers: they were all on the take. But was El Jefe? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the heat of August, in a forest near Le Mans, the King of France snaps,
0:06.0	murdering five of his own men in a frenzy delusion.
0:10.0	Before long, this beloved ruler has collapsed into madness,
0:15.0	believing he's made of glass.
0:19.0	Step inside a kingdom on the brink of shattering.
0:23.7	This is History Presents, the Glass King, available wherever you get your podcasts.
0:34.5	Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast with Benjamin Boster.
0:39.3	If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast.
0:47.3	I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.
0:57.3	Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention,
1:02.2	and then your mind lets you drift off.
1:08.5	Find it wherever you get your podcasts that's i can't sleep with benjamin boster
1:16.0	it's june 25th 1989 at a courthouse in Havana, Cuba.
1:30.3	One of the nation's greatest heroes is in the dock, and is accused of crimes that have shocked Cuba's revolutionary hente.
1:37.3	Arnaudo Ochoa Sanchez, tall, slim, Devonair, stands dressed in his grey military uniform, bedecked in ribbon
1:47.7	showcasing his remarkable loyalty to the communist cause.
1:52.2	And it's almost unrivaled.
1:54.2	Ochoa joined Fidel Castro's revolution in 1957, two years before Castro-toppel dictator Fulhencio-Battista and began throwing foreign
2:03.5	businesses out of Cuba, including its drug traffickers.
2:08.7	He was the only survivor of a botched attempt to invade the Dominican Republic in 1959,
2:13.7	and he'd helped repel the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
2:18.7	Ochoa had also seen action in a multitude of Cold War theatres,
	...

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