Ricardo “Monkey” Morales, The Most Interesting Man in Miami, Was Gunned Down 35 Years Ago Today

Ricardo (Monkey) Morales Navarette, the 43-year-old Cuban who made a career out of dealing and double-dealing in the treacherous world of exile terrorism, was shot and critically wounded late Monday night in a Key Biscayne bar, Metro-Dade police said. Morales was shot in the head in a dimly lit bar adjacent to Rogers on the Green Restaurant at around midnight, police said. He was taken, unconscious, to Mercy hospital at about 12:30 a.m. by a Metro fire rescue team. At one time or another — and in some cases perhaps, at the same times — Morales had been an intelligence agent for the Castro government, an anti-communist operative who went on armed raids on his homeland, a mercenary in the Belgian Congo, a demolition expert for Miami-based gamblers, an informant for the FBI, CIA and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the chief of counter-espionage for the Venezuelan secret police. <a href="https://medium.com/@AlfredSpellman/ricardo-monkey-morales-the-most-interesting-man-in-miami-was-gunned-down-35-years-ago-today-9f5270e4b6ba">Website</a>