Juan Matta-Ballesteros (12 January 1945-) was a Honduran arms and drug trafficker who was affiliated with the Guadalajara Cartel, Medellin Cartel, and Cali Cartel. During the 1980s, he trafficked Colombian cocaine into Mexico via his airline, the largest in Honduras, and he also provided CIA equipment to the Contras in Nicaragua in exchange for the United States turning a blind eye to his operation. He was arrested in Honduras in 1988 and extradited to the United States via the Dominican Republic after he was found to have been partly responsible for DEA agent Kiki Camarena's murder.
Biography[]
Matta-Ballesteros in 1980
Juan Matta-Ballesteros was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras in 1945, and he was repeatedly deported from the United States after several attempted illegal entries. From 1974 to 1975, he was imprisoned in Mexico for selling 10 kilograms of cocaine, and he killed two other prisoners while incarcerated. During the early 1980s, he was in charge of trafficking Medellin Cartel's cocaine into the United States by air, and, in 1981, he generated $73 million in just nine months. At the same time, he came to own Honduras' largest airline, using it to smuggle CIA weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua. He also transported drugs from Colombia to Mexico for the Guadalajara Cartel, Cali Cartel, and the Medellin Cartel. In 1985, he was indicted for a cocaine smuggling ring in Arizona and southern California, and he was arrested in Colombia that same year after fleeing Mexico to evade a delayed manhunt in relation to his role in DEA agent Kiki Camarena's kidnapping, torture, and murder. He escaped from a Colombian jail during the extradition proceedings, fleeing to Honduras.
Downfall[]
Matta-Ballesteros' arrest
In 1988, Honduras extradited him to the Dominican Republic, which then flew him to Puerto Rico for extradition to the American mainland. Five students were killed when 2,000 demonstrators protesting Matta-Ballesteros' extradition in Tegucigalpa were fired upon. Also in 1988, the crash of one of his weapons planes en route to Nicaragua exposed the CIA's role in arming the Contras during the Nicaraguan Revolution, exacerbating the political crisis in America with regards to the Iran-Contra affair. He was sentenced to life in prison for his role in drug trafficking and murder, and he was imprisoned at the US penitentiary in Canaan, Pennsylvania.