Federal Investigations Into Cuban Smuggling, Major League Baseball Slow
Federal agents at Homeland Security, the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys Office of the Southern District of Florida had been quietly probing alleged links between Major League Baseball and the criminal rings that smuggle elite baseball players out of Cuba. And then something happened: Washington and Havana ended their Cold War.
ESPN / AUG 2015
About this time last summer, two federal investigations into the smuggling of Cuban baseball players to the United States were gathering momentum.
Most Cuban defectors on Major League Baseball rosters, and many in the minor leagues, faced interviews by investigators from the Department of Homeland Security or the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Many players who refused to talk received court-ordered subpoenas. Photographs of smugglers were shown, questions were asked, and documents were obtained. Rumors among players even began to circulate about who had snitched on whom.
The dual investigations, dubbed by agents as Operation Safety Squeeze and Operation Boys of Summer, initially targeted smugglers as well as the financiers and handlers who aided smuggling rings at the grass-roots level. But investigators also were examining something larger, multiple people familiar with the investigations have told Outside the Lines: whether MLB team officials and some at the league office had willfully ignored criminal activity that had helped teams sign Cuban players. In addition, agents were investigating whether employees of MLB clubs may have financed smuggling operations or paid smugglers for the opportunity to sign highly prized players. Investigators twice presented subpoenas to the MLB commissioner's office in Manhattan, one as recently as last summer, seeking internal communications and other documents about contract negotiations between MLB clubs and Cuban defectors..….