Pubdate: Sun, 27 Aug 2000
Source: Alameda Times-Star (CA)
Copyright: 2000 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
Contact:  66 Jack London Sq. Oakland, CA 94607
Website: http://www.newschoice.com/newspapers/alameda/times/
Author: Rick Weiss, Washington Post

$1 BILLION DRUG RING BUSTED, FEDS SAY

Multinational Effort Targeted Colombia

Federal law enforcement officials said Saturday that they and their 
partners in 11 other countries had broken up a major international cocaine 
trafficking operation that was shipping enormous quantities of the drug 
from Colombia to Europe and the United States.

In a two-year effort that culminated last week in a speedboat chase with 
guns firing, the seizure of a freighter and a series of storage facility 
raids in the Venezuelan jungle, authorities confiscated almost 25 tons of 
cocaine worth about $1 billion and arrested 43 people, including Ivan De La 
Vega, the alleged leader of the Colombian operation.

"This was one of the largest drug transportation groups ever targeted by 
law enforcement," said Raymond Kelly, commissioner of the U.S. Customs 
Service, which coordinated the North American elements of the investigation 
with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Coast Guard. "We wiped out 
a sprawling organization whose tentacles reached around the world."

The Hollywood-like conclusion of the international drug bust-and the arrest 
of De La Vega and his alleged "high-level associate" Luis Antonio Navia, a 
Cuban national who had been living in Colombia-comes at a sensitive time in 
U.S. relations with Colombia and its neighbors and just days before 
President Clinton is to visit President Andres Pastrana in Cartegena.

Last Tuesday, Clinton signed a waiver authorizing distribution of a $1.3 
billion aid package to fight drug trafficking in Colombia, which the DEA 
says is the world's largest producer of cocaine. The move angered some 
activists because it came despite the Colombian government's failure to 
meet human rights conditions set by Congress. It also irritated Colombia's 
neighbors, notably Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil and Peru, which have long 
feared that drug eradication efforts in Colombia will only push the problem 
over their borders.

In a contentious expression of those feelings, Venezuela has been refusing 
to allow U.S. drug interdiction planes to fly through its airspace, 
hobbling U.S. efforts to block the flow of drugs through the Caribbean and 
leading some in the United States to question President Hugo Chavez's 
commitment to the global war on drugs.

But at a Washington news conference Saturday at which the completion of 
"Operation Journey" was announced, U.S. authorities emphasized that 
Venezuela was a key participant in the two-year effort and a leader in the 
final raids on snake-infested bunkers in which soldiers found 10 tons of 
cocaine tidily bagged and ready for loading onto ships.

Cocaine trafficking out of Colombia has changed in the past five years. The 
capture of Cali cartel kingpins Jose Sanatacruz Londono and brothers 
Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela in 1995, and the subsequent arrest 
of other leaders the following year, led to a decentralization of the 
Colombian wholesale cocaine market.

At the same time, more Colombian cocaine exports have been heading to 
Europe, and especially Eastern Europe, where profit margins are higher than 
in the United States.

As an offshoot to those trends, trafficking operations out of Colombia are 
using ships and personnel from a variety of nations and requiring an 
unprecedented amount of cooperation among law enforcement groups.

The latest effort began when European and American officials learned from 
informants that Colombian cocaine was being flown and trucked to a secret 
base in Venezuela's Orinoco River delta, federal agents familiar with the 
investigation said.

 From there it was being loaded onto speedboats to huge freighters anchored 
offshore. The big ships were mostly laden with legitimate cargo but had 
hidden compartments for the drugs.

With the help of informants and intercepted coded telephone messages, U.S. 
and European law enforcement officials conducted ship boardings and seizures.

In January 1999, for example, the commercial cargo vessel Cannes was seized 
in the Caribbean and towed to the United States before it could get to its 
European destination with the 8,367 pounds of cocaine that were stored in 
its hold.

Four months later, a similar-size stash was found in sealed-off sewage 
tanks on the China Breeze, a 400-foot ship en route to Amsterdam that was 
boarded by authorities south of Puerto Rico.

Two other ships, carrying a total of more than 13,000 pounds of cocaine, 
were detained and towed to U.S. shores in June and December.

By last month, officials said they had documented a total of 68 tons of 
cocaine with a street value of $3 billion shipped by the group -- most of 
it to Europe but at least 11 tons to the United States -- one-third of 
which they intercepted.

Then, on Aug. 13, amid a shower of bullets, a Venezuelan patrol boat chased 
two speedboats, including one carrying 6,600 pounds of cocaine authorities 
believe was bound for an offshore cargo ship, the Suerte I, which has since 
been seized and is being escorted to the United States.

Three days later, Venezuelan officials raided the jungle encampment on a 
delta isle served by a mile-long dirt airstrip, seizing seven speedboats 
and other gear as monkeys looked on from the trees, authorities said.

The next day, troops surveying the area found 8,580 pounds of cocaine in a 
hidden storage facility. And after a difficult search, nearly 11,000 
additional pounds was found in two other bunkers the following week.

Meanwhile, authorities made arrests in several other countries. By the time 
the operation had ended, five suspects were in custody in the United 
States, including De La Vega, whom DEA Deputy Administrator Julio F. 
Mercado Saturday called the "CEO" of the operation. Forty-two others were 
being held in the Netherlands, Venezuela, Greece, Italy and France.

Officials said they knew better than to promise that the arrests would put 
a big crimp in the international drug trade. But to those entrepreneurs who 
hope to fill in the niche left by the arrests, Mercado said: "Law 
enforcement will find you, arrest you and put you out of business."
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