Pubdate: Wed, 26 Jul 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
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

WITNESS TESTIFIES AGAINST VALENCIA

He Details Cocaine Smuggling Operations

TAMPA - Pedro Navarrete has spent most of his life one step ahead of the law.

The international drug smuggler was born in Chile in 1959 but moved 
to Miami when he was 12. It was in that city where Navarrete got his 
start in the drug business and where he met Jose Castrillon-Henao.

The two men play a key role in the case against Joaquin Mario 
Valencia- Trujillo, who is standing trial in U.S. District Court, 
accused of being a leader in Colombia's notorious Cali Cartel.

Prosecutors say Castrillon and Navarrete operated a fishing business 
in Buenaventura, Colombia, called Invermarp and smuggled hundreds of 
tons of cocaine into the United States for Valencia in the 1990s.

Appearing weary and defeated, Navarrete, who finally capitulated to 
authorities and pleaded guilty in December 2003, took the witness 
stand Tuesday against Valencia. Navarrete's sentencing hearing has 
been postponed to give him time to cooperate.

Defense attorneys argue that the prosecution's case is built on the 
testimony of drug traffickers who are pointing their fingers at 
Valencia to take the heat off themselves.

Navarrete told jurors an adventurous tale involving more aliases than 
he can remember, country hopping, threats, kidnappings and running 
from the law. He fled Europe when his associates there were arrested, 
and he ran from Miami to Panama when authorities in Miami were on his 
tail. Sailboats And Helicopters

His smuggling ventures for Valencia employed sailboats, freighters, 
airplanes and helicopters, he testified. When asked by a prosecutor 
why he kept using the word merchandise instead of cocaine, Navarrete 
sighed, "I guess I've been doing this for too long. ... We never used 
the word because it's illegal."

Once, he said, Valencia suggested putting cocaine into a container 
and dropping it to the bottom of the sea to be retrieved later. That 
never happened, Navarrete said, but he still thinks it's possible.

Navarrete testified he attended Miami-Dade Community College and 
later got into the drug business about 1983 or 1984, when he was paid 
to drive cocaine to New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

His brother-in-law, Jenaro Mejia, introduced him to Castrillon, he 
said. Navarrete had a pilot's license, and Castrillon hired him to 
fly over the port to look for a freighter he had loaded with cocaine, 
Navarrete testified. Then Mejia taught Castrillon and Navarrete how 
to process cocaine, and they began working in Miami for a man from 
Medellin, Colombia. They processed 600 kilograms every other month, 
he said, and he made about $1 million in a year until their supplier 
was killed.

Then he and Castrillon parted ways, and Navarrete went into the drug 
business in Europe, Navarrete said. When the law came after him, he 
said, he returned to Miami. He fled the law in Miami and met up with 
Castrillon in Panama. Then the two went to Colombia and started 
smuggling for Valencia, Navarrete said.

Navarrete said he and Castrillon smuggled more than 30 tons of 
cocaine for Valencia every two months in the early 1990s. The loads 
were so large, Navarrete said, they knew Valencia had to be part of 
the Cali Cartel. Retirement, Then Arrest

In 1995, Castrillon retired from the business and left for Panama, 
where he was arrested that April. On Sept. 19, 1996, Navarrete was 
captured and jailed in Ecuador.

Navarrete said Valencia tried to help by paying a $1 million bribe to 
an Ecuadoran prosecutor, but the prosecutor fled with the cash. He 
said guards interrogated him about Castrillon, and he refused to 
talk. They "got a little rough with me," Navarrete said, but didn't 
elaborate. He said they stopped interrogating him and sent him back to jail.

Knowing he was about to be extradited to the United States, Navarrete 
said, in October 1997, "I got out. I flew away."

Navarrete said he teamed up with other inmates and got help from the 
outside. People somehow put a hole in the wall of the old concrete 
block building. "One night, I was ready to go with the other guy, but 
my friend got drunk," Navarrete testified.

"In jail?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Ruddy asked.

"Yes," Navarrete said. "It sounds funny, but that's what happened. I 
was by myself, so I got the guy out of bed. 'Come on, we've got to 
go.' There was supposed to be people on the outside. A guard was paid."

Navarrete said he and his companion got through the hole in the jail, 
but then the drunk man couldn't get over a wall. "I tried to help him 
out and push him over, but I couldn't, so I went by myself." He said 
the guard pushed the other inmate over the wall.

He said a car that was supposed to be waiting didn't appear, so he 
hopped onto the back of a slow-moving truck. Then he went into a 
woman's house and used her phone to call the people who were supposed to help.

They drove him to the Colombian border, where he took a boat and then 
another to Buenaventura.

Two or three months later, he said, he met with Valencia, who told 
him he had retired and didn't have any work, Navarrete said. So he 
turned elsewhere and found a Medellin drug lord named Chaolin.

Navarrete said he arranged to smuggle 2,000 kilograms of cocaine for 
Chaolin. But the load and the crew were lost at sea. Chaolin was 
convinced Navarrete had stolen the cocaine, and he charged Navarrete 
$14 million.

Navarrete said Chaolin held him for ransom for six months to a year 
in Medellin but started to let him out so he could look for work. He 
said Valencia agreed to let him work for him again but put him under 
virtual arrest so he couldn't flee before he paid his debt.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman