World Finance Corporation

[1] In 1975, WFC was designated an "exclusive official agent by the Colombian Government for a loan of US$100 million, the largest in the nation's history."

In 1976, the Comptroller of the Currency forced Cartaya out of his control of the Pan American Bank of Hiateah in Florida – US$2 million had gone missing due to bad overdrafts and uncollected funds.

Somewhat ironically, the law enforcement personnel literally stumbled onto lead, when, during an investigation of a pest-control service called King Spray Service suspected of drug smuggling, two agents of the Dade County Public Safety Office (which, under Donald Skelton, led the investigation until the Justice Department took over) were searching through the company's garbage, in which they found financial records of WFC, recording very large transfers of funds between the bank and the company, along with small amounts of marijuana.

The bank was involved with a number of prominent Floridians, such as Walter Sterling Surrey, a stockholder in, director of, and lawyer for, WFC Corp. Kwitny recounts, Surrey says he came aboard mainly to help start a foreign-based mutual fund for an old client, a Cuban exile who helped found World Finance.

[3]The investigation and its aftermath were marred and dogged by persistent rumors and allegations of corruption and cover ups by various governmental agencies.

[5] Kwitny and Sanford were not the only ones to detect things amiss; Kwitny offers this extract from a House Select Committee on Narcotics and Drug Abuse staff report: There is no question that the parameters of the WFC can encompass a large body of criminal activity, including aspects of political corruption, gun running, as well as narcotics trafficking on an international level ...

It is against this background that our investigation encountered a number of veiled or direct references to CIA or KGB complicity or involvement in narcotics trafficking in South Florida.

Representative Lester Wolff, chairman of House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, says Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya is being investigated as a business partner of Fidel Castro.

His committee is looking at $100 million loan arranged by Castro and Hernandez-Cartaya's Miami-based international banking firm, WFC Corp, to Colombia.