Pubdate: Sun, 18 Apr 2004
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2004, The Tribune Co.
Contact:  http://www.tampatrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446
Note: Limit LTEs to 150 words
Author: Elaine Silvestrini

DRUG WAR LINCHPIN RETIRES

Keith Helped Shape Major Investigation

TAMPA - Dick Keith was among the jubilant federal agents watching as 
Colombian multimillionaire Joaquin Mario Valencia-Trujillo, accused of 
smuggling tons of cocaine into the United States, made his first federal 
court appearance last month.

Valencia's extradition to Tampa was the high point of a decadelong 
investigation called Operation Panama Express, which aims to shut down the 
Colombian drug trade. Drug agents have seized or sunk 262 tons of cocaine 
and made 550 arrests.

The court appearance "was a great day of personal satisfaction," said 
Keith, the FBI supervisory agent who led the investigation from his 
Sarasota office. Valencia faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted.

The focus of the probe for five years, Valencia had fought extradition for 
more than a year, arriving mere days before Keith retired, ending a 24-year 
career. He is moving on to a new career as a consultant to a government 
task force on drug trafficking cases in Hawaii.

Keith played a key role in shaping Panama Express, which officially began 
in 1998 but was rooted in the seizure of a freighter carrying cocaine in 
1992 and a money laundering investigation that Keith began in Naples in 1995.

Keith says the drug operation has put Colombian cocaine smugglers on the 
defensive.

"I think, for the very first time, the drug traffickers are not out plying 
their trade with reckless abandon," he said.

"We're hitting into their midlevel leadership and going up to the highest 
levels of leadership. I think it is having a very, very serious impact upon 
their ability to continue in this business."

Origins Of Panama Express

The strategy of Panama Express has been to continually develop new information.

"Intelligence leads to interdictions," Keith said. "Interdictions lead to 
prosecutions. Prosecutions lead to more intelligence, which leads to more 
interdictions."

Keith, described by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph K. Ruddy in Tampa as an 
architect of Panama Express, said the operation owes its success to the 
determination of investigators to put turf concerns aside.

Ruddy said Keith saw the potential of the investigation early. In June 
1995, when Keith was working in Naples, he heard from a friend, a retired 
FBI supervisor then working in the Coral Gables Police Department, that 
there was suspicious activity in some bank accounts.

The friend gave Keith copies of some checks, and Keith started digging.

The accounts were held by Panamanian front companies incorporated in the 
British Virgin Islands. More than $1 million came through one of the 
accounts in a single year, all in the form of money orders deposited and 
checks written to other accounts.

Keith teamed up with Drug Enforcement Administration analyst Tami Albanese. 
They identified whom the accounts belonged to and started to subpoena 
records for the accounts where the checks were deposited. They wound up 
investigating about 40 bank accounts in nearly nine months.

The evidence led to Jose Castrillon-Henao, who authorities later would 
identify as the head of maritime smuggling for Valencia, reputedly a leader 
in the notorious Cali cartel.

"Castrillon, we found out, was the subject of a huge international 
investigation" involving the DEA, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and 
officials in many other countries, Keith said. He and Albanese were able to 
give the investigators some of the proof they needed that Castrillon was 
involved in money laundering.

Relying partly on that evidence, Panamanian authorities arrested Castrillon 
in April 1996, and U.S. investigators, including Keith, cooperated in a 
planned prosecution there.

In 1998, the Panamanians asked the United States to take over the case.

According to Ruddy, the Panamanians were concerned Castrillon might escape.

Reports in The Washington Post at the time quoted unidentified U.S. 
officials as saying the Panamanians may also have feared that Castrillon 
would make good on his threats to go public with the names of Panamanian 
officials who had protected him and his operation. Castrillon had 
contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the election campaign of 
President Ernesto Perez Balladares.

To accommodate the Panamanians and build a case in the United States, Keith 
said, "We formed a task force to take what [evidence] we had and add to it."

Keith suggested the investigation be called "Operation Panama Express," 
because the goal was to get Castrillon "out of Panama as quickly as possible."

Ruddy said Keith "had a vision of what Panama Express could be potentially, 
and he also had the will and leadership capabilities of making that a reality."

Castrillon eventually pleaded guilty and cooperated with investigators, 
disclosing his shipping routes through which the Cali cartel smuggled 100 
tons of cocaine a year into the United States.

"We learned a great deal about maritime trafficking while we were working 
Jose's case," Keith said. "For a number of years now, Panama Express has 
been all about obtaining information from a number of resources."

A Marine, A Poseur

Keith's FBI career has been colorful.

A conservative, Louisiana-born, decorated former Marine, he once tooled 
around Dallas in a Corvette pretending to be a rich playboy with rich 
friends, interested in investing in stolen masterpieces.

Keith once helped solve a murder by arranging for an undercover agent to 
pose as a Mafia capo. The faux capo elicited information from a hit man in 
Florida by putting the killer through an interview for a "job" in New York.

As a Marine, Keith helped command the last military battle between United 
States and Cambodian forces in an assault of Koh Tang Island after Khmer 
Rouge forces seized the SS Mayaguez in 1975.

The helicopter-borne assault was undertaken with the mistaken belief that 
the crew of the Mayaguez was being held on the island. Eighteen Marines 
were killed.

Despite that, Keith said, the battle was "positively a worthwhile 
experience. ... The United States had taken some pretty severe blows, 
having lost Vietnam, Cambodia. ... We had to take some very decisive 
action. President Ford did that" by ordering the assault on the island.

Ruddy said Keith's Marine background helped make him a good investigator 
and has helped make Panama Express a success. "He's just a get-it-done kind 
of individual," Ruddy said.

FBI Special Agent Rod Huff, Keith's acting replacement, credited Keith with 
minimizing friction between agencies.

"The most important thing Dick Keith ever did was forge a great 
relationship, overcoming a history of difficulties with DEA and Customs and 
the military," Huff said. "He's a great diplomat."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager