Pubdate: Tue, 04 Jul 2000
Source: CNN.com (US Web)
Copyright: 2000 Cable News Network, Inc.
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COLOMBIA SEIZES COCAINE IT LINKS TO PARAMILITARIES

BOGOTA (Reuters) -- Colombian police seized more than 3,270 pounds of pure 
cocaine Tuesday, saying it was apparently earmarked to help bankroll the 
activities of Colombia's main right-wing paramilitary group.

The multimillion-dollar haul was thought to be one of the first directly 
linked to the outlawed United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the 
ruthless militia force headed by paramilitary chieftain Carlos Castano.

"This is a blow from the police to the Self-Defense Forces," Gen. Alfredo 
Salgado, deputy national police chief, told reporters.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, cocaine sells for up 
to $36,000 per kilo (2.2 pounds) wholesale in the United States, meaning 
that Tuesday's haul could have been worth more than $53 million.

Castano, a former army guide, is considered to have unified Colombia's 
disparate paramilitary groups under the umbrella of the Self-Defense Forces 
in early 1997. He has been accused of being a major drug trafficker, 
shipping out cocaine along the same clandestine routes used for arms smuggling.

Local and international human rights groups say his 7,000-member group, 
which they blame for most of the peasant massacres and other atrocities 
committed in Colombia, has close links with the military.

Col. Gentil Vidal, the National Police commander in the southwestern 
province of Valle del Cauca, said the consignment of cocaine was discovered 
in a house near Buenaventura, the leading port on Colombia's Pacific coast.

Six paramilitary gunmen guarding the shipment were arrested, and a small 
cache of U.S.- and Russian-made assault rifles, grenades and bulletproof 
vests was seized, Vidal told Reuters.

He said the cocaine had been packaged for shipment abroad and the arrested 
men all worked under Castano, who admitted in a television interview in 
March that the drug trade was a leading source of financing for his group.

Like the Marxist-led Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) -- the 
hemisphere's largest surviving 1960s guerrilla army -- the Self-Defense 
Forces deny playing a direct role in drug trafficking. But Castano says 
they collect "taxes" and protection money from drug lords and peasants 
cultivating illicit drug crops in areas under their control.

Colombia supplies an estimated 80 percent of the world's cocaine and is a 
leading source of the heroin sold on U.S. streets.
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