York City. Castro employed his business associate Charles Intriago to counter the allegations. Intriago was Castro’s principal legal advisors on matters related to the United States. Castro Llanes had provided US$80,000 in start-up capital for Intriago’s newsletter Money Laundering Alert. Intriago eventually got US Customs to release the accounts. Intriago used his government connections to purge law enforcement files of information linking Castro Llanes to drug trafficking. He hired former US officials and investigators, who between 1991 and 1995 approached several different US government agencies for information. They eventually obtained DEA's intelligence files on Castro Llanes, and the names of at least four confidential informants against Castro Llanes for Customs. A former IRS agent working for Intriago found that some US$4 billion had passed through a Castro account in New York. He gave this information to US Customs agents and was fired by Intriago. New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau linked Castro to 3,500 offshore corporations in Aruba, Curaçao, and elsewhere. The US$4 billion was never tied definitively to drug trafficking. On the instigation of Intriago – who was a Democratic National Committee trustee – Castro contributed US$50,000 to the Democratic Party. He attended the January 1993 inauguration of US President Clinton and received red carpet treatment from the Clinton Administration. The donation was reimbursed by one of Castro's Venezuelan companies, making the contributions illegal under US law. US conviction and imprisonment In 1994, the Venezuelan banking system collapsed – after the breakdown of President Perez’s regime in 1993 and the failure of Banco Latino, the second largest bank in the country. Castro's enterprises also failed. Castro fled to the US and settled in Miami. Venezuelan banking regulators seized Banco Progreso in December 1994. Castro was later charged in absentia by the Venezuelan government with bank fraud, embezzlement, and conspiracy. Banco Progreso losses neared US$2.2 billion and dragged down three more banks controlled by Castro. On April 4, 1996, Castro was indicted in New York by District Attorney Morgenthau, along with his son, Orlando Castro Castro, and grandson Jorge Castro Barredo, on charges of a scheme to defraud in the first degree. The three Castros were convicted on grand larceny charges on February 19, 1997. In April of that year he was sentenced to a term of one to three years in prison. The larceny was defrauding depositors of Banco Progreso International de Puerto Rico of as much as US$55