Omega 7

Last updated
Omega 7
LeadersEduardo Arocena
Dates of operation1974–present
Headquarters Miami, Florida
Active regions Florida, Cuba, New York
Ideology Anti-Castroism
Opponents Republic of Cuba

Omega 7 was an anti-Castro Cuban group based in Florida and New York made up of Cuban exiles whose stated goal was to overthrow Fidel Castro. [1] The group had fewer than 20 members. According to the Global Terrorism Database, Omega 7 was responsible for at least 55 known anti-Castro attacks over the span of eight years with a majority of them being bombs. [2] The group also took part in multiple high-profile murders and assassination attempts and has committed four known murders. [3] Among their assassinations was Felix Garcia Rodriguez, a Cuban delegate who was gunned down on the 6th anniversary of the group. The group had conspired to assassinate Fidel Castro during the Cuban leader's visit to the United Nations in 1979.

Contents

History

Eduardo Arocena was born in Cuba on February 26, 1943, and was in school until the start of Castro's regime in 1959. Arocena was a gifted amateur wrestler who had considered taking part in the Olympics. Arocena had been collaborating with other Cuban expatriates and exiles and taking part in activities against Castro that included the destruction of many crucial industrial and agricultural locations.

Arocena eventually left to the United States out of fear of his anti-regime actions being exposed. While in the U.S. Arocena resided in New Jersey where he worked in a warehouse and started a family.

Dissatisfied with the political opposition to Fidel Castro at the time, during the 1970s Arocena began to recruit Cuban veterans from the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. In addition to this Arocena would go on to pull members in other anti-Castro exile groups as well, eventually forming his Omega 7 group on September 11, 1974. The New Jersey branch was made up of seven members (for which the group was named) including Arocena himself, Jose Juilio Garcia, Pedro Remon, Andres Garcia, Alberto Perez, Eduardo Ochoa, and Eduardo Losada-Fernandez. [4]

As the tactical commander of the group, Arocena has stated that the CIA trained him in 1967 in bomb making and a variety of other warfare skills and tactics, although the CIA has never directly confirmed this. Pedro Remon took part in most of Omega 7's attacks and had the duty of calling local radio stations after each assassination or bombing. Most of the other members typically participated in more minor roles within the group. It is believed that the number of members in Omega 7 has never exceeded 20.

The group was primarily funded by Cuban businessmen, but received additional funding in the early 1980s from marijuana drug traffickers. Although the group never took part in the selling or buying of narcotics, the group did perform collection tasks as well as other assignments given to them by the drug traffickers. One narcotics supplier in particular, known as Manuel Fernandez, would offer Arocena and the group large quantities of cash in exchange for their services.

One of these tasks included an assassination attempt on Luis Fuentes a rival drug dealer to Fernandez. Fernandez eventually went on to testify against Arocena and Omega 7 claiming that they were paid up to $150,000 for their services despite never receiving his collection money from group, he also stated that he had sold two submachine guns to Omega 7. Eduardo Arocena was arrested in Miami on July 22, 1983, Omega 7 became inactive shortly after his arrest.

Indictment of Eduardo Arocena

On September 22, 1984, Eduardo Arocena was convicted on 26 charges which included murder and bombings, many of which Arocena confessed to prior to his conviction. Arocena was ruled to serve a mandatory life sentence. During Eduardo Arocena's trial, he claimed to have been taken to the FBI offices in New York City where he accused the Bureau of drugging him to the point of unconsciousness to which he found needle marks in his arms when he awoke. According to Arocena, the FBI had tried to coerce him into speaking about a variety of terrorist groups and operations. [5] This story has never been confirmed by the F.B.I. When Eduardo Arocena was put on trial he initially denied being the leader of Omega 7, claiming that he was simply "obsessed with Communism" and had worked alongside the C.I.A. in Cuba in order to look into communist activities in Cuba. Arocena also denied ever taking part in terrorist actives in the United States, but did state that he was trained in the use of explosives by the C.I.A. in Florida. Arocena also stated that he once traveled Cuba, and releasing "germs" in the environment in order to start a chemical war between Cuba and the United States. In 2008, Arocena's wife Miriam led a campaign, which petitioned for the release of her husband. Miriam suggested that the life sentence her husband received was unwarranted given the nature and patriotic reasons of Eduardo Arocena's actions. Arocena was released on June 25, 2021. [6]

Known attacks

On February 1, 1975, the group bombed the Venezuelan consulate in New York City. Arocena confessed to putting a hit out on Eulalio Jose Negrin who had negotiated with Cuba about the release of political prisoners. Arocena did not approve of any diplomatic negotiations with Cuba and therefore ordered Remon to kill Negrin. Remon completed the hit by murdering Negrin with a submachine gun in front of Negrin's teenage son.

On September 11, 1980, an attaché with the Cuban Permanent Mission to the United Nations, Felix Garcia Rodriguez, was fatally shot. He was driving back to the Cuban Mission along the Queens Boulevard service road near 58th Street in Queens, and was killed by a bullet fired from a parked car. Garcia was "the first United Nations official to have been assassinated in New York City since the founding of the world organization" in 1945. [7]

During the indictment of Eduardo Arocena, Omega 7 was found guilty of at least seven bombings in the Miami, Florida area.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bay of Pigs Invasion</span> Failed landing operation of Cuba in 1961

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF), consisting of Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, covertly financed and directed by the U.S. government. The operation took place at the height of the Cold War, and its failure influenced relations between Cuba, the United States, and the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Sturgis</span> One of five Watergate burglars whose capture led to the end of Richard Nixons presidency

Frank Anthony Sturgis, born Frank Angelo Fiorini, was one of the five Watergate burglars whose capture led to the end of the presidency of Richard Nixon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orlando Bosch</span> Cuban exile militant

Orlando Bosch Ávila was a Cuban exile militant, who headed the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), described by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation as a terrorist organization. Born in Cuba, Bosch attended medical school at the University of Havana, where he befriended Fidel Castro. He worked as a doctor in Santa Clara Province in the 1950s, but moved to Miami in 1960 after he stopped supporting the Cuban Revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Roselli</span> American mobster

John"Handsome Johnny"Roselli, sometimes spelled Rosselli, was a mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped that organization exert influence over Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. Roselli was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Mongoose</span> US government terrorism & sabotage campaign in Cuba

The Cuban Project, also known as Operation Mongoose, was an extensive campaign of terrorist attacks against civilians, and covert operations, carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba. It was officially authorized on November 30, 1961 by U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The name "Operation Mongoose" was agreed to at a White House meeting on November 4, 1961.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luis Posada Carriles</span> Cuban terrorist and CIA agent

Luis Clemente Posada Carriles was a Cuban exile militant and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent. He was considered a terrorist by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Government of Cuba, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cubana de Aviación Flight 455</span> 1976 airliner bombing of a Cubana passenger flight

Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 was a Cuban flight from Barbados to Jamaica that was brought down on 6 October 1976 by a terrorist bomb attack. All 73 people on board the Douglas DC-8 aircraft were killed after two time bombs went off and the plane crashed into the sea. The crash killed every member of the Cuban national fencing team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alpha 66</span> Anti-Castro paramilitary organization

Alpha 66 is an anti-Castro paramilitary organization. The group was originally formed by Cuban exiles in the early 1960s and was most active in the late 1970s and 1980s. Its activities declined in the 1980s.

The Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations was a militant group responsible for a number of terrorist activities directed at the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. It was founded by a group that included Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, both of whom worked with the CIA at various times, and was composed chiefly of Cuban exiles opposed to the Castro government. It was formed in 1976 as an umbrella group for a number of anti-Castro militant groups. Its activities included a number of bombings and assassinations, including the killing of human-rights activist Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C., and the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 which killed 73 people.

Operation 40 was the code name for a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored counterintelligence group composed of Cuban exiles. The group was formed to seize control of the Cuban government after the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Operation 40 continued to operate unofficially until disbanded in 1970 due to allegations that an aircraft that was carrying cocaine and heroin in support of the group crashed in California.

Juana de la Caridad "Juanita" Castro Ruz was a Cuban-American activist and writer, as well as the sister of Fidel and Raúl, both former presidents of Cuba, and Ramón, a key figure of the Cuban Revolution. After collaborating with the Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba in 1964, she lived in the United States until her death.

<i>638 Ways to Kill Castro</i> 2006 television film

638 Ways to Kill Castro is a Channel 4 documentary film, broadcast in the United Kingdom on 28 November 2006, which tells the story of some of the numerous attempts of the Central Intelligence Agency to kill Cuba's leader Fidel Castro. It was directed by Dollan Cannell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assassination of Orlando Letelier</span> 1976 car bombing in Washington, D.C., US

On 21 September 1976, Orlando Letelier, a leading opponent of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, was assassinated by car bombing, in Washington, D.C. Letelier, who was living in exile in the United States, was killed along with his work colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, who was in the car with her husband Michael. The assassination was carried out by agents of the Chilean secret police (DINA), and was one among many carried out as part of Operation Condor. Declassified U.S. intelligence documents confirm that Pinochet directly ordered the killing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manuel Antonio de Varona</span> Cuban lawyer and politician

Manuel Antonio de Varona y Loredo was a Cuban lawyer and politician.

Cuban Power, also known as El Poder Cubano or United Cuban Power was an anti-Castro terrorist group that conducted bombings against Cuban targets and states and entities they felt to be sympathetic to the Castro regime through early and mid-1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CIA assassination attempts on Fidel Castro</span> Assassination attempts on Cuban Leader Fidel Castro

The United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made numerous unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. There were also attempts by Cuban exiles, sometimes in cooperation with the CIA. The 1975 Church Committee claimed eight proven CIA assassination attempts between 1960 and 1965. In 1976, President Gerald Ford issued an Executive Order banning political assassinations. In 2006, Fabián Escalante, former chief of Cuba's counterintelligence, stated that there had been 634 assassination schemes or attempts. The last known plot to assassinate Castro was by Cuban exiles in 2000.

The Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil was a Cuban student activist group launched in opposition to Fidel Castro in 1960, based at the United States, where it soon developed links with the Central Intelligence Agency. In August 1962 it carried out an attack on a beachfront Havana hotel. As of 1963, it was the largest anti-Castro student group in Miami; it also had a chapter in New Orleans, where it had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald in mid-1963. Immediately after the November 22, 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, it launched a campaign asserting that Lee Harvey Oswald had been acting on behalf of the Cuban government. The group lost its CIA support in December 1966.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rolando Cubela Secades</span> Cuban revolutionary leader (1933–2022)

Rolando Cubela Secades was a Cuban revolutionary leader who played a vital part in the Cuban Revolution, having been a founding member of the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil and later the military leader of the DRE's Escambray Mountain front, achieving the rank of Commander, the highest military rank in the Revolutionary Army. After the Revolution succeeded in 1959, Cubela became Cuba's envoy to UNESCO. Under the cryptonym AM/LASH, Cubela became "an important asset" of the Central Intelligence Agency, and worked with them on plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. In 1966, Cubela was arrested for plotting the assassination of Castro, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Released in 1979, he went into exile in Spain.

The United States has at various times in recent history provided support to terrorist and paramilitary organizations around the world. It has also provided assistance to numerous authoritarian regimes that have used state terrorism as a tool of repression.

Ricardo Morales Navarette, also known by the moniker "El Mono", was a Cuban exile and agent of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. He also worked for the DISIP, or Venezuelan intelligence service, and as an informant for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, and Drug Enforcement Administration.

References

  1. ↑ Treaster, Joseph B. (1983-07-23). "SUSPECTED HEAD OF OMEGA 7 TERRORIST GROUP SEIZED". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-07-09.
  2. ↑ "GTD Search Results". www.start.umd.edu.
  3. ↑ "GTD Search Results". www.start.umd.edu.
  4. ↑ Smith, Brent L. (January 25, 1994). Terrorism in America: Pipe Bombs and Pipe Dreams. SUNY Press.
  5. ↑ Lubasch, Arnold H. (23 September 1984). "EXILE IS CONVICTED AS OMEGA 7 LEADER". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 August 2017.
  6. ↑ "Inmate Locator".
  7. ↑ "Cuban Attaché at U.N. Is Slain From Ambush on Queens Road", by Robert D. McFadden, The New York Times, September 12, 1980, pA1
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.