Chiquita executive John Ordman called Colombian militia payments a 'leap of faith'

By Harlan Pryce · August 17, 2026

Colombian fighters received untraceable payments from a corporate office in Cincinnati, a pipeline that remained obscured until a 1999 SEC deposition.

Colombian farmers and soldiers lived and died by the whims of armed groups funded by a corporate checkbook in Ohio. The cost of these payments was paid in blood and instability, while the executives in Cincinnati called the arrangement a "leap of faith."

The file's catalogue entry records a 47-page transcript from a November 23, 1999, deposition by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The subject was John Ordman, a man who functioned as the connective tissue between the corporate headquarters of Chiquita Brands International and its operations in Colombia. According to the National Security Archive, Ordman served as the link that tied the boardroom to the jungle.

"a leap of faith"

In the world of clandestine operations, "faith" is a word that does not belong in a ledger. When you move money to an asset or a paramilitary group, you do not hope the funds arrive; you verify. You use cut-outs, you employ milestones, and you demand proof of life or proof of action. To do otherwise is not tradecraft—it is negligence.

Yet, the catalogue entry notes that Ordman described the payments to Colombian armed groups as exactly that: a "leap of faith." He admitted there was "no way of determining" whether the money ever reached the people it was intended for. The funds moved through the company's Security Department and a series of third-party intermediaries, vanishing into the ether of the Colombian conflict before the company ever saw a receipt.

For a man in Ordman's position, this lack of oversight should have been a red flag. In my time running assets in the East, if you couldn't track the currency, you weren't running an operation—you were being played. When you lose sight of the money, you lose control of the asset. In the case of Chiquita, the "assets" were armed groups in a volatile region where the line between security and banditry is non-existent.

Document imagery from nsarchive.gwu.edu From the files: nsarchive.gwu.edu

The Security Department

The mechanism for these payments was the company's own Security Department. This was the filter through which the Cincinnati office interacted with the reality on the ground. By routing money through this department and further into the hands of intermediaries, the corporate headquarters created a layer of plausible deniability that would make a station chief blush.

Ordman told the SEC that despite the total lack of verification, he was "comfortable that this was being handled in a responsible way." This is the language of the corporate middleman—the belief that if the process is handled by the correct department, the outcome is inherently "responsible," regardless of where the money actually lands. It is a dangerous delusion. Responsibility in the field is measured by results and accountability, not by the comfort of the man signing the voucher.

When a company funds armed groups without knowing who is actually receiving the cash, it isn't providing security. It is subsidizing chaos. The intermediaries mentioned in the record acted as a black hole, ensuring that the executives in Cincinnati could maintain their comfort while the actual payments fueled the fire of the Colombian conflict.

Cincinnati

There is a profound distance between a corporate office in Cincinnati and a banana plantation in Colombia. That distance is not just geographic; it is moral. The deposition shows a corporate culture that viewed the funding of militias as a necessary overhead expense, provided it could be kept at arm's length.

The National Security Archive's description of the transcript suggests a man trying to justify the unjustifiable to federal regulators. Ordman's admission that there was "no way of determining" the destination of the funds is a confession of a total failure in internal controls. It suggests a system where the goal was not to ensure the money did something specific, but simply to ensure it left the account and stayed off the main books.

Other records held by the US National Archives and the NSArchive touch on paramilitary payments and the broader geopolitical instability of the era, but the Ordman deposition provides the most visceral glimpse into the corporate mind. It reveals a willingness to gamble with foreign lives based on a "feeling" of responsibility.

The transcript ends, but the record leaves a gaping hole: the identity of the third-party intermediaries. The names of the men who actually carried the cash into the Colombian interior remain outside the scope of this specific summary, leaving the final link in the chain of payment unverified.