In 1978, he organized the Victoriano Lorenzo Brigade, formed by a group of up to 1,200 Panamanian fighters to fight against the Anastasio Somoza Debayle regime in Nicaragua.

[2][3] Concerned about the increased Soviet and Cuban influence in the Sandinista regime of Nicaragua and the delay of free elections, Spadafora joined the Sandino Revolutionary Front (FRS) alongside Edén Pastora ("Comandante Cero"), hero of the August 1978 seizure of Somoza's palace.

Spadafora was detained by Noriega's forces when entering Panama from Costa Rica in September 1985, and his decapitated body was later found stuffed in a post office bag.

[1] President Nicolás Ardito Barletta tried to set up a commission to investigate the murder but was forced to resign by Noriega, which increased suspicions that the military had ordered the beheading.

In 2013, his biography Hugo Spadafora: Bajo la Piel del Hombre was published by Amir Valle, a Cuban journalist, literary critic and writer exiled in Germany.