Stephen Kimber

1994

“La Red Avispa,” or the Wasp Network, was a group of Cuban spies sent to Florida to infiltrate and report back to Havana on plans by anti-Catsro exile groups to attack Cuba.

It was so successful that Havana was actually able to subvert several planned attacks, including a bombing in 1994. In that case, CANF’s militant wing unknowingly paid one of the Cuban government’s agents, Percy Francisco Alvarado, $20,000 to carry out the attacks.

Alvarado (who had been code-named “Monk “by the Cubans and “44” by CANF, who believed he was one of their agents) flew from Miami to Guatemala to pick up the explosive devices and get instructions from Luis Posada on how to use them.

He then flew to Havana but, instead of detonating the devices as instructed, he turned them over to Cuban authorities. At their instructions, he informed his Miami bosses that he’d gotten cold feet.

His explanation must have been convincing. After he returned to Miami, his handlers, including Pepe Hernandez, the president of the CANF, “offered me still another $20,000 on top of that to set them off.”