Pubdate: Wed, 13 Dec 2006
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2006 The Tribune Co.
Contact: http://www.tbo.com/news/opinion/submissionform.htm
Website: http://www.tampatrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446
Author: Elaine Silvestrini The Tampa Tribune
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n309/a06.html
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1160/a05.html

TAMPA-BASED DRUG WAR TAKES A TOLL ON COCAINE

Task Force Has Seized More Than 600 Tons

TAMPA - The conviction of Joaquin Mario Valencia-Trujillo has not 
slowed the pace of Operation Panama Express, the Tampa-based 
international drug investigation that targets Colombian drug smugglers.

In seven years, the multiagency task force has claimed credit for the 
seizure or destruction at sea of more than 600 tons of cocaine, with 
a street value of nearly $9 billion, in 173 maritime interdictions. 
The investigation has led to the arrest of more than 1,250 people, 
said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph K. Ruddy, adding that there has 
been a higher than 96 percent conviction rate.

Said by prosecutors to have once been one of the world's most 
powerful drug lords, Valencia was for years the top target of 
Operation Panama Express. But he was not the only focus of the 
far-reaching investigation.

Six months after Valencia's 2004 extradition to the United States, 
Panama Express investigators landed the two largest maritime cocaine 
seizures in U.S. law enforcement history.

The Coast Guard netted 27 tons of cocaine from the ships the Lina 
Marie and the San Jose, stopped south of the Galapagos Islands off 
Ecuador. The loads were thought to be bound for the United States via Mexico.

Now, federal authorities say, one of the leading drug traffickers 
behind those two ships is expected to be extradited soon from 
Colombia to face trial in U.S. District Court in Tampa. An 
'Extraordinarily Violent Man'

Wenceslao Caicedo-Mosquera, also known as W, was arrested March 25, 
2005, in Ecuador in a joint operation of Panama Express investigators 
and agents working for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 
that country.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Rod Huff called Caicedo an 
"extraordinarily violent man."

"Some of the traffickers down there accumulate wealth and try to rule 
with resources, and others accumulate bodies." Huff said Caicedo fell 
into the second category. "All people had to do is whisper W, and 
things got done."

The arrest came after a yearlong investigation in which agents 
tracked Caicedo's travel, money and purchases in Ecuador, Huff said.

Though Caicedo had armed bodyguards when he was arrested near a hotel 
in Guayaquil, the arrest was handled without incident, Huff said.

"There were very serious concerns" of violence, Huff said. "That just 
goes to show you how well-planned" the operation was with the DEA and 
Ecuadorian authorities, he said.

Ruddy said Caicedo has a cocaine laboratory in the Colombian jungle 
and facilities to build go-fast boats.

After Caicedo's arrest, authorities executed 25 arrest warrants and 
26 search warrants in Colombia, arresting 11 associates and seizing 
six armored vehicles, four all-terrain vehicles, various weapons, 
documents and cell phones, according to information from the U.S. 
State Department. Authorities also seized properties worth about $3 million.

Huff said Caicedo worked with other drug traffickers at his level and 
above, and those men are targets for law enforcement.

Ruddy said Caicedo was not at the same level as Valencia but that 
Caicedo was on the rise and could have attained the same power in 
about five years.

"We're going to continue the investigation, and wherever it takes us, 
we're going," Huff said. "It's not done because we convicted Mario." 
Trafficking Has Been Splintered

Investigators are continuing to target members of Valencia's 
organization. While the trial was under way this summer, authorities 
arrested Ivan Gonzalez-Bejarano in Miami. Ruddy said Gonazlez was one 
of Valencia's longtime associates and lieutenants in the United 
States, with an association dating to the early 1980s.

Accused of money laundering for Valencia's drug operation, Gonzalez 
is slated to go on trial in April in U.S. District Court in Tampa.

Ruddy, who oversees Panama Express, said Colombian cocaine 
trafficking has become more splintered than it used to be. No longer 
are investigators pursuing large cartels.

"It used to be a small number of large smugglers," Ruddy said. Now 
"it's much more diversified. There are many smaller smugglers."

Huff said drug traffickers are spreading their operations outside 
Colombia to other countries in Latin America, including Ecuador and 
Peru, to thwart law enforcement efforts by making their operations 
less concentrated and more difficult for counterdrug investigators to 
monitor. "When you're looking at a community of fishing vessels from 
a single country, it's a little bit easier than looking at fishing 
vessels from an entire region," Huff said.

The drug trade has evolved from the days of the powerful cartels to 
more of a loose confederation of traffickers who work together when 
it suits their purposes but go it alone when necessary, Huff said.

The smugglers also are looking to other means of conveyance, as 
evidenced by the recent seizure of a semisubmersible submarine 
carrying nearly 3 tons of cocaine. According to Colombian media 
reports, authorities have seized two submarines under construction 
from Caicedo.

Smugglers "will devise whatever type of conveyance they think will 
defeat the counterdrug efforts out on the high seas," Huff said.

When Panama Express first started, smugglers used fishing vessels 
with false compartments called caletas, Ruddy said. When law 
enforcement figured that out, the traffickers changed their methods 
and began relying on go-fast boats that could evade law enforcement 
by traveling at speeds of up to 35 knots, he said.

Investigators began stopping the boats by shooting out the engines. 
Now the smugglers are experimenting with moving cocaine beneath the 
water's surface.

Although street-level cocaine sales in the United States do not seem 
to have been affected by the long-term investigation, Ruddy said the 
recent semisubmersible submarine seizure means the interdiction 
efforts are working, forcing smugglers to change their methods.

Likewise, Huff said the moving of operations into other countries 
shows the investigators of Panama Express and other counterdrug 
investigations are having an effect.

"Anytime there's a change in the methods of smugglers, they're 
incurring losses," Ruddy said. "We're going to improve how we do what 
we do. We're getting better."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman