Pubdate: Sun, 15 May 2005
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2005, The Tribune Co.
Contact:  http://www.tampatrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446
Author: Elaine Silvestrini
Note: Limit LTEs to 150 words
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

THE CONFIDENTIAL WITNESS

TAMPA - - Jose Castrillon- Henao is used to people hunting him: Over
the years he has been shot and nearly killed, kidnapped, imprisoned,
and tricked into coming to the United States to face drug smuggling
charges.

He once was one of history's most successful cocaine traffickers; he
made millions moving cocaine to the United States from South America
for Colombia's notorious Cali drug cartel.

Now he's a crucial witness in an international drug investigation
being run from Tampa code-named Operation Panama Express, one of the
largest cases of its kind in U.S. history.

Because of its nature, most of Panama Express has been veiled in
secrecy.

But a 139-page FBI affidavit newly filed in court pierces that veil.
Although stiffly written, it brims with stories of international
intrigue, treachery and fear, and paints the most detailed picture yet
of the investigation and Castrillon's role in it.

There's the story of an informant telling agents of a frantic meeting
of the Cali cartel's leaders. They were scrambling to figure out how
the U.S. Navy captured one of its shipments in the eastern Pacific
Ocean. Castrillon set it up.

Another tells of the interrogation of an alleged cartel associate who
was so terrified that he couldn't stop shaking.

At one point early in the narrative, Castrillon is gunned down for
reasons never made clear while driving through Cali. Later, rival drug
traffickers kidnap him and take him to a secluded cabin.

Unremarkable looking - a scruffy beard, dark hair, worn eyes -
Castrillon hardly looks like a master smuggler or a prized informant.

But he ran a network that once moved about 100 tons of cocaine into
the United States every year - an operation vital to the success of
one of the cartel's alleged overlords, Joaquin Mario
Valencia-Trujillo.

He also was vital to Valencia's downfall, according to the FBI
affidavit.

Unprecedented Information

Castrillon turned informant at the end of 1999, the affidavit
states.

He had been arrested and jailed in Panama City three years before.
First, he tried to escape. Then, in 1998, U.S. agents tricked him into
thinking that he had succeeded in bribing his way back to Colombia. He
was taken from jail and ushered aboard a small jet. Too late, he
realized that the people accompanying him were FBI and U.S. drug
agents. He was flown to MacDill Air Force Base and jailed anew on drug
and money laundering charges. If he were convicted, he would face life
in prison.

He fought the charges for months, then abruptly changed sides in the
drug war. Soon he was tipping agents to cocaine shipments, enabling
the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard to seize them as they were moved aboard
fishing boats from Colombia to Mexico and then into the United States.
He also helped agents recruit others, among them a son-in-law who kept
the books for the smuggling operation.

Castrillon's work has led so far to about 775 arrests, and the seizure
or destruction of about 400 tons of cocaine, court documents state.

``It's unprecedented,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Ruddy, the lead
prosecutor for Panama Express, said in an interview.

No other informant has even come close to generating such results,
Ruddy added.

On paper, at least, Castrillon is now a free man. In exchange for
pleading guilty to drug trafficking and turning government witness, he
recently was sentenced to time already served: 41 months in federal
prison.

But he lives in secret. His family is in the witness protection
program. And his work continues.

``There's no end in sight,'' Ruddy said.

Although filed in court only recently, the affidavit was written by
FBI Special Agent Rodrick Huff in 2002 to support Valencia's arrest.
Valencia was picked up in Colombia in 2003 and extradited to Tampa
last year on federal racketeering, drug and money laundering charges.
Much of the affidavit is devoted to connecting Valencia with Castrillon.

Castrillon was known in Colombia as ``El hombre con mil nombres,'' the
man of a thousand names, because he used so many aliases. The
affidavit gives him another, ``CW#1,'' for Confidential Witness No. 1,
although there's no mistaking it's Castrillon.

The stories of nine other confidential witnesses also are recounted in
the affidavit.

Although Valencia has pleaded not guilty and the parts of the
affidavit relating to him have not been proved in court, here is what
the document reveals about Panama Express, Castrillon and the cartel's
secrets.

Early Successes

It was 1983, and Castrillon was a rookie cocaine distributor in Miami.
He entered into a partnership with another young trafficker from
Chile, Pedro Rafael Navarrete.

They avoided police detection until 1987. Then several of their
associates were arrested. Castrillon and Navarrete fled.

Navarrete set up a drug network in Italy and Spain. Castrillon
returned to his hometown, the port city of Buenaventura on Colombia's
Pacific coast, where he used his earnings from Miami to build a a
fishing and seafood export company known as Invermap.

At first, Castrillon tried to avoid going back into the drug trade.
But the cartels were sliding into a ferocious power struggle, and the
government was cracking down on them. Soon, representatives of two
cartels - the Cali organization and another known as the North Valley
cartel - began to court Castrillon. As Invermap's owner, he had
something they wanted: a fleet of fishing boats ideal for smuggling.

A mutual acquaintance introduced him to Valencia, and the two talked
about smuggling cocaine over the eastern Pacific Ocean. Castrillon
recommended using fishing boats. He helped Valencia buy one, the
Challenger II, for between $500,000 and $700,000.

Because the vessel was to be used for smuggling, Castrillon refused to
moor it at Invermap. So Valencia based it in Panama, where it was put
to work fishing. It was registered to a corporation created in the
names of two people. One was Castrillon's lover, Paola de Chong.

Although the affidavit doesn't mention a motive, within weeks a gunman
ambushed and nearly killed Castrillon in Cali. It was Dec. 4, 1989. He
was hospitalized well into January. Valencia sent bodyguards to the
hospital to protect him.

Castrillon asked Valencia to withdraw the bodyguards when he was
discharged; he thought they drew too much attention. He would be
recuperating at home in Buenaventura, he reasoned, surely he would be
safe there. But 10 months later, he faced death again.

In Debt To A Kingpin

It was September 1990. Rival drug traffickers disguised as police
officers kidnapped Castrillon from his office and took him to a remote
mountain cabin near Cali.

Castrillon figured the kidnappers either would demand a ransom or kill
him. But then a lawyer appeared. Help again from Valencia.

The lawyer, Vladimir Ilych Mosquera, told the kidnappers that
Castrillon was under his protection. The kidnappers backed down.
Castrillon was further indebted to Valencia. He and Mosquera headed to
Cali.

Mosquera told him that Valencia and another Cali overlord, Helmer
``Pacho'' Herrera Buitrago, had ordered him to find Castrillon alive.

Moreover, Mosquera said, Herrera authorized Castrillon from then on to
claim affiliation with the Cali cartel.

Herrera later was shot and killed in prison by a man masquerading as
his attorney. The kidnappers, meanwhile, turned out to be members of
the rival North Valley cartel who mistakenly believed that Castrillon
had stolen a cocaine shipment from them.

Actually, Navarrete - Castrillon's partner in Miami - was to blame.
Navarrete had moved to South America and set up a new smuggling
operation. The shipment in dispute was seized as Navarrete was moving
it through Venezuela.

Mosquera, the lawyer, negotiated a deal. Castrillon would pay about
$500,000 to cover the expense of his kidnapping. In exchange, the
North Valley cartel would leave him alone. Valencia put up the money.

Less than a month later, Valencia began asking for his favors to be
repaid. He had been smuggling drug money by sea from the United States
to Panama, then flying it to Colombia aboard small planes. But the
planes were vulnerable, and Valencia asked Castrillon to help him try
boats instead.

Using a twin-engine diesel speedboat, Castrillon ferried $15 million
in U.S. currency from Panama to Colombia for Valencia. He was paid a 2
percent commission - $300,000 - but he didn't see it. Instead,
Valencia applied it to his kidnapping debt.

Unusual Shipping Patterns

With Valencia's approval, Castrillon soon forged a new partnership
with his friend Navarrete, who proposed using sailboats to take
delivery of cocaine at sea and then ferry it to San Diego.

Invermap's boats could serve as lookouts, watching for U.S. and
Colombian military patrols.

It didn't happen exactly that way. Instead, Castrillon and Navarrete
used a rechristened Challenger II - now named the Magallanes - to make
their first smuggling run. It carried more than a ton of cocaine to
California.

Valencia paid them $600,000 for the job, plus expenses - less than
ordinary because Valencia agreed to assume responsibility for any
losses. This soon worked to their advantage; their third shipment was
intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard in November 1991. The crewmen were
prosecuted on federal charges in California. Three said Navarrete was
the man in charge. That was one of the first clues that would lead to
Panama Express.

Valencia, an aircraft pilot, next proposed dropping cocaine from
planes into the eastern Pacific, where it would be retrieved by
fishing vessels and taken to Mexico. A test of the idea failed.
Valencia personally supervised the next try from the air while
Castrillon did the same aboard a speedboat.

The plane dropped about 7 tons of cocaine in bales with chemical light
sticks fixed to them so they could be spotted in the dark. After the
cocaine was retrieved, Castrillon told the captain to carry it to
Mexico and took another boat back to Buenaventura, where he and
Navarrete collected a $1.5 million fee.

Another drop went awry. Two Colombian planes flying the cocaine out to
sea were intercepted by U.S. military aircraft. The cargo was
jettisoned. Castrillon and Navarrete sent several fishing boats to
search for it. They retrieved about 10 tons of cocaine adrift on the
sea.

Law Enforcement Catches Up

The next break that set the stage for Panama Express was the U.S.
Coast Guard's seizure of 5 tons of cocaine aboard the freighter
Harbour off Cuba in 1992. Everyone aboard, including a former
Colombian naval officer named Carlos Zuluaga, was arrested and taken
to Miami.

Zuluaga turned government witness. He was escorting the shipment, he
said. It had been transferred to the Harbour from another vessel off
Colombia. Zuluaga also provided information that eventually led to
Valencia. It was another clue on the road to Panama Express; Zuluaga
is identified in the affidavit as Confidential Witness No. 2.

Castrillon began talking about retiring in the mid- 1990s. Valencia
first told him no, but later relented. Castrillon split Invermap's
assets with Navarrete and moved to Panama and what might have been a
life of leisure.

It wasn't to be, however. At about the same time, federal agents
picked up the trail of a money laundering operation in Florida. It led
to Castrillon.

Using this evidence, Panamanian authorities jailed Castrillon in April
1996 and froze his assets. Valencia came to his aid again, doling out
as much as $450,000 for Castrillon's lawyers.

Then Castrillon tried to escape. The Panamanians moved him to a more
secure jail while U.S. agents set an elaborate ruse in motion that led
Castrillon to believe he could bribe his way back to Colombia.
Instead, he unwittingly allowed U.S. agents to take him to a waiting
government jet that flew him to Tampa. The agents didn't reveal who
they really were until Castrillon was aboard.

Prosecutors tried for months after his arrival to get Castrillon to
talk. But Valencia was still paying his defense bill - $400,000, the
affidavit states - and Castrillon stayed quiet.

Finally, though, something changed his mind. What isn't clear. But
some of it involved what Zuluaga, the former Colombian naval officer,
had told agents after the seizure of the Harbour. Castrillon told
prosecutors about his days in Miami, his return to Buenaventura, his
relationships with Valencia and Navarrete, the Pacific pipeline,
everything, and then started gathering information on forthcoming
cocaine shipments. Panama Express was reaching full speed.

Information Pays Off

More breaks followed. In New York, the affidavit says, customs agents
penetrated a cocaine distribution network with ties to Valencia,
Castrillon and Navarrete. Some of the cocaine was being smuggled into
the country in truckloads of vegetables. The proceeds - millions in
cash - were being moved to Florida and dumped into the
money-laundering pipeline that the FBI had begun digging into in Naples.

As the ring was rolled up, the agents interrogated a suspected leader
of it named Gustavo Martinez Ruiz.

``During his interview, Martinez appeared extremely nervous and was
visibly shaking,'' the affidavit states. ``He expressed fear of the
most extreme retaliation for his cooperation and either could not or
would not identify the leaders of the drug trafficking
organization.''

But agents found the the man at the top through someone else in the
organization. He was known as ``El Abogado,'' or the lawyer, the
affidavit says - a nickname for Valencia.

Other agents, armed with information from Castrillon, watched as a
rust-streaked fishing trawler named the Rebelde left Colombia for the
open Pacific carrying 5 tons of cocaine.

The U.S. Navy guided missile frigate Doyle crept up on its stern in
the dead of night. The Rebelde's captain didn't see it until dawn. He
tried to run but didn't stand a chance against the faster and more
nimble Doyle. The crew was arrested, and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter
towed the Rebelde and its cargo through the Panama Canal to Tampa. It
was the first public evidence of Panama Express.

In Cali, the affidavit continues, the cartel's leaders soon gathered
at Valencia's house, a sprawling mansion on a hillside known as La
Casa Blanca, or the White House, to try to figure out how the Rebelde
had been discovered. An informant painted a frantic scene of the
meeting, the affidavit continues - 35 cars were parked in the driveway
and people were shouting into cell phones.

Next, acting on a U.S. request, Colombian police arrested Navarrete.
He asked to see U.S. agents, told them he had been a cocaine smuggler
``for years,'' often using fishing boats in the Pacific, had been a
partner with Castrillon, and Valencia had been one of those ``for whom
he provided smuggling services,'' the affidavit states. Valencia paid
him $3.5 million, Navarrete said.

But then, inexplicably, Navarrete ``discontinued the interview.'' He
has pleaded guilty in Tampa to drug and money laundering charges and
is scheduled to be sentenced next month.

The man who is left is Valencia. He was arrested in Colombia in 2003
and brought to Tampa last year. He is scheduled to stand trial Sept.
12 - and almost certainly, prosecutors will ask Castrillon to tell the
jury the story of Panama Express.

Meanwhile, the Panama Express seizures continue - even now, despite
the uproar they have caused in Colombia.

In September, a week apart, the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy stopped and
seized two fishing boats off the coast of Ecuador.

One, the Lina Marie, carried 15 tons of cocaine, camouflaged beneath
about 2 tons of rotting fish. The other, the San Jose, had 12 tons.
Between them, the shipments were worth $360 million. The shipper is
one of the next targets of Panama Express.

``Yesterday,'' Ruddy said the day after the San Jose was taken, ``was
a very bad day for him.''

Some information for this report came from the archives of The Tampa
Tribune, Newsweek magazine and the Financial Times of London.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin