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Ballplayers from Cuba are now flee agents

MIAMI — Three hours out of the Florida Keys, within wading distance of Cuba's north-central coast, a 28-foot speedboat slowed, its pilot cut the engine, and the sleek hull slid silently to a stop on an ink black sea.

Rain squalls had passed, but a trailing band of storm clouds lingered, hiding the moon — perfect cover for the night's illicit mission: smuggling.

The unusual contraband loaded aboard that night in 2004 wasn't dope; it wasn't even the typical, ragtag human cargo of desperate asylum seekers. But the value of even a small boatload of the smuggled goods could run into the millions of dollars.

On Big Pine Key, a three-hour high-speed cruise across the Florida Straits, Ysbel Santos-Medina waited to take delivery along a stretch of beach about 30 miles north of Key West. The former truck driver and small-time drug trafficker, a mastermind of smuggling logistics, had arranged everything. His last responsibility would be forwarding the goods to California.

Medina's contraband on that summer night represented the latest thing in Caribbean region smuggling — five Cuban baseball players.


http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-smuggle1jul01,1,4333585,full.story?coll=la-headlines-sports&ctrack=2&cset=true