Associate of Salvadoran Chief Held : Accused of Trying to Fly $5.8 Million to Central America

A young financier and associate of right-wing Salvadoran leader Roberto D’Aubuisson was arrested Wednesday at a small Texas airport with $5.8 million in cash a few hours after he had departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, it was learned Friday.

Federal officials said the money --58,000 well-worn $100 bills --was believed to have been headed for Central America and may have been part of a drug transaction. Officials said they were investigating to determine whether the money was planned for political use.

Held Without Bond

A high-ranking State Department source said Friday that an investigation would be conducted “to look into the question of the money and possible political links.” He declined to be identified.

The financier, Francisco Guirola, 34, worked closely with D’Aubuisson in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the right-wing leader was known to be involved in paramilitary activities.

Guirola and two accused co-conspirators were ordered held with out bond on Thursday by a federal magistrate in Corpus Christi, Tex., on charges of conspiring to violate U.S. currency laws that require notifying the government when more than $10,000 is taken out of the country. A fourth person aboard the plane was released and not charged.

U.S. Magistrate Eduardo de Ases ordered Guirola; pilot Gus Maestrales, 38, owner of a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., flying service, and Oscar Rodriguez Feo, 49, a Cuban cigar salesman from Miami, held until a hearing Monday.

Customs spokesman Charles Conroy said the plane seized shortly after it landed at the Kleberg County Airport near Kingsville, 35 miles southwest of Corpus Christi.

The plane, a luxury executive jet valued at more than $1 million, had been under surveillance by U.S. Customs Service agents since last month, when it was believed to have carried another $1 million in U.S. cash to Panama, according to documents filed in federal court in Corpus Christi.

Claimed Immunity

Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Berg said in an telephone interview that Guirola had claimed diplomatic immunity because he is the son of a Costa Rican consul in Albuquerque, N.M. Berg said he then obtained a search warrant on the belief the plane was heading on Wednesday for El Salvador. Eight suitcases containing the $5.8 million were found aboard the plane.

Guirola’s father, reached at his New Mexico home, declined to comment on his son’s arrest. “The only thing I know is he was flying from California to Florida and was stopped,” he said. “My son is old enough to know what he is doing and I don’t mess in his life.”

The Times interviewed several paramilitary activists and death squad members for a series of stories about El Salvador’s right wing in 1983.

Some of those interviewed were members of a small right-wing “cell” called the Salvadoran Nationalist Movement. Guirola was the fund-raiser and financial director of the cell, whose members later helped found D’Aubuisson’s current political party, Arena.

Declined Comment

In an interview for the series, Guirola declined to be quoted on the subject of right-wing paramilitary activities. A rice farmer and former student of Menlo Business College in Atherton, Calif., he described himself as “of the right, of private enterprise.”

“I got the belief as the American white collar or redneck or whatever you want to call it,” he said.

Becklund is a Times staff writer and Pyes is an associate of the Center for Investigative Reporting in Washington who has reported frequently on El Salvador and was retained to work on this story.