Raul Menendez was born in Nicaragua on September 5, 1962. According to JSOC Operative Salazar, Menendez spent the first part of his childhood during his country's tumultuous years in the Nicaraguan Revolution. Seeing first hand the horrors the American-backed Contras conducted on his fellow countrymen would sow the seeds for his hatred of the west. After the 1972 earthquake of Nicaragua, Menendez's family lost most of all they had, including their home. A year after the quake, his sister Josefina was horribly disfigured and crippled from a warehouse fire the two were seeking shelter in. The warehouse was burned down by its American owner for $11,000 in insurance money; this tragedy would further embitter Menendez towards America and its capitalist culture.
When Menendez entered into his teenage years both him and his father, Jose Luiz Menendez, started over by selling drugs for easy money. As time passed they became rich and powerful. Their height of power was so great that the Menendez Cartel had an almost god like status in the criminal underworld. This was of great concern to the United States to the extent that the CIA assassinated Menendez's father in a U.S. sanctioned assassination.
Fueled by his anger for the U.S., in 1986 Menendez began to run guns into Afghanistan for his own private army. On July 6, 1986, Menendez was in Angola supplying the Cuban backed Communist insurgengy group the MPLA with arms. It was also the same time in which Alex Mason and Jason Hudson were in Angola to rescue one of Menendez’s victims the recently captured Frank Woods. Alex Mason ran into Menendez after breaking into his hut, while the gun runner was relaying propaganda on his radio. As his men entered the hut, Menendez wrestled with Mason after pulling a grenade. Mason overpowered Menendez and shot him in the right side of his face, destroying his eye and leaving him permanently disfigured. Mason then escaped the hut as the grenade exploded. This drew the attention of the CIA who sent in Alex Mason, Frank Woods, and Jason Hudson to investigate. Unbeknownst to the trio, the leader of the Mujihadeen in which they considered their ally, Mullah Rahmaan, was one of many in which secretly worked for Menendez. It was this same time in which Menendez also dealt with Lev Kravchenko, who sold the arms dealer Soviet weapons and arms in exchange to money. Sending the arms into third world countries such as Cuba and Angola, Menendez began to fund and arm many anti-Western rebellions and revolutions in the hope to bring down corrupt capitalist nations.