John Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, working as one of Pablo Escobar's top hit men, killed at least 300 people and was implicated in the deaths of 3,000 more.
Velásquez, aka Popeye, was a key functionary in Escobar's Medellin cartel. And, as he claimed in an interview earlier this month, his duties extended to meeting with Latin American luminaries and national leaders on behalf of the cartel.
Speaking with Puerto Rico's Wapa TV, Popeye $4 that he hand-delivered letters from Escobar to Colombian literary icon Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who then passed the letters on to Fidel and Raul Castro.
"I am going to give you a key bit of information: The link between everyone [Escobar, Cuba and the US] is called Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel Laureate," Popeye $4, according to Colombia Reports.
"Raul Castro received cocaine on behalf of Pablo Escobar and Fidel was aware," Popeye $4 in an interview with the Argentine outlet Todo Noticias. He $4 that Raul Castro was responsible for cocaine's arrival in Miami.
The former hit man, $4 after 23 years in jail in Colombia for $4, backed up his claim by describing his meeting with Garcia Marquez.
Javier Galeano/Associated Press
In this December 2, 2006, photo, Cuba's acting President Raul Castro, brother of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, left, chats with Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez during a military parade in Havana, Cuba.
"I was in Mexico carrying a letter to the Nobel Laureate for Raul and Fidel Castro; a manuscript of Escobar's," Popeye said.
"When I got off the plane the Mexican police were waiting for me and took me to where 'Gabo' was signing autographs," he continued, according to Colombia Reports. "He called me aside and said, 'Popeye, where is the letter?' and I gave it to him."
In the message, Popeye $4 Todo Noticias, "Pablo Escobar was asking Fidel for a Russian submarine to carry the drug from Mexico to Havana, and with this submarine, to Miami."
"That (Fidel) is not a world leader, he is a dictator and a bandit," Popeye $4, according to Clarín. "I was in Key West, I saw the drug."
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Colombian novelist and journalist, is a revered figure in Latin America, known best for magical realism, the literary style used in his well-known 1967 work, "One Hundred Years of Solitude."
He $4 the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982, and his death in early 2014 triggered an outpouring of grief from $4.
He was friendly with Fidel Castro for much of his life. Garcia Marquez's politics and his $4 to Castro prompted the $4 for 24 years.
Jose Goitia/Associated Press
In this March 3, 2000 photo, Cuba's leader Fidel Castro, left, and Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez speak during a dinner at the annual cigar festival in Havana, Cuba.
Popeye, 52, has become something of a public figure since his release, $4 "the historical memory of the Medellín Cartel."
Prior to his release in August last year for "$4," he speculated that there was an $4 former rivals would kill him.
In the $4, he described on camera how he kidnapped and killed Colombian functionaries as ordered by Escobar.
AP Photo/ William Fernando Martinez
In this June 27, 2006, file photo, John Jairo Velasquez, a former hit man for Pablo Escobar, gives his testimony while holding a book titled
He is also $4 for the 1989 bombing of Avianca Flight 203 in Colombia, which killed 107 people, and for the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Galán, which plunged the country into a bloody period of narco violence.
Popeye $4 that he was not formally linking the world-famous Garcia Marquez to the Medellin network, only that the novelist "served as a link by delivering letters."
"I never said that he read the letters and that he was a trafficker," Popeye $4, according to Colombia Reports.
"The traffickers were Raul and Fidel Castro."