Pubdate: Sun, 25 Mar 2007
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2007 The Baltimore Sun, a Times Mirror Newspaper.
Contact:  http://www.baltimoresun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37
Author: Chris Kraul and Sebastian Rotella
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

VENEZUELA A HUB OF DRUG TRADE, U.S. OFFICIALS SAY

Widespread Corruption Led To Nation's Rise As Haven For Traffickers 
In Colombian Cocaine

CARACAS, Venezuela -- The airliner leaving Caracas for Mexico City 
carried a seemingly conspicuous cargo: one ton of Colombian cocaine 
stuffed into 25 bulky, nearly identical suitcases.

But the smugglers' baggage went untouched by the Venezuelan National 
Guard and airport police that day in early February. And it may not 
have been an oversight. Drug traffickers routinely pay a "tax" of 
$3,000 a kilo to security forces to move cocaine through the 
terminals at the busy Maiquetia airport and on to global markets, 
foreign and Venezuelan investigators and experts say.

"Maiquetia is to narcos what Memphis is for Federal Express: the 
hub," one foreign counternarcotics official said.

Thanks to a tip from U.S. agents, Mexican customs officials seized 
the load when it arrived that night aboard Mexicana Flight 374. 
Officials found bricks of cocaine beneath false bottoms of suitcases 
weighing more than 100 pounds each, in one of the biggest busts ever 
at Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport.

U.S. and Latin American investigators allege that Venezuela has 
become a sieve through which a soaring amount of Colombian cocaine 
moves annually by air and sea, citing widespread corruption and 
President Hugo Chavez's decision to sever anti-drug ties with 
Washington. In the State Department's annual report on global drug 
trafficking, Venezuela was singled out as a growing threat.

"Venezuela's permissive and corrupt environment led to more 
trafficking, fewer seizures and an increase in suspected drug flights 
over the past 12 months," Anne W. Patterson, assistant secretary of 
state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, said 
in a briefing after the report's release this month.

"There is systematic corruption. Maiquetia is wide open," said one 
foreign counternarcotics official. Close behind are smaller airports 
and airstrips in Venezuela's Apure, Portuguesa and Sucre states, and 
seaports such as La Guaira and Puerto Cabello, where tons of cocaine 
leave in containers or amid bulk cargo.

The U.S. Embassy here estimates that the volume of Colombian cocaine 
passing through Venezuela on the way to the United States, Europe and 
elsewhere has quintupled to 250 tons annually since 2001. Depending 
on whose total cocaine production figures one accepts, one-half to 
one-quarter of all Colombian drug exports use this country as a "trampoline."

Venezuela has always been a conduit for Colombian drugs because it 
shares a porous 1,300-mile border with the country where most of the 
world's cocaine is manufactured. But a U.S.-funded crackdown in 
Colombia has forced traffickers to seek new routes and international alliances.

U.S. and Colombian officials also cite escalating corruption in the 
Venezuelan security forces and Washington's deteriorating relations 
with Chavez, a loud foe of the United States.

In August 2005, Chavez announced an end to a 17-year anti-drug 
agreement with the United States. He forbade Venezuelan officials 
from sharing information or mounting joint operations with the U.S. 
Drug Enforcement Agency, whose agents he describes as spies.

Critics stop short of implicating the leftist leader directly in the 
emergence of the nation as a haven for smugglers, and the Venezuelan 
president has described corruption as a "thousand-headed monster."

At a recent Caribbean drug summit in the Dominican Republic, 
Venezuelan officials recognized the drug problem and said they would 
use Chinese satellite technology and newly purchased Russian aircraft 
to combat traffickers.

"The increased flight traffic does not have Hugo Chavez's signature 
on it. It's not about him," said Joseph Ruddy, a U.S. attorney in 
Tampa, Fla., who heads an investigative task force that has 
prosecuted dozens of drug traffickers in recent years. "It's about 
changing traffic patterns. Narcos go where we aren't."

The most painful result of Chavez's decree, U.S. officials say, was 
the cutoff of relations with a trusted corps of 40 "vetted" 
Venezuelan counternarcotics agents who had been trained in Quantico, 
Va. The agents, who had worked in the Venezuelan National Guard and 
the intelligence police as liaisons with U.S. officials in the drug 
fight, have been transferred to other units.

Today, bribes are paid openly to police and armed forces, U.S. and 
Colombian officials say. A high-level Colombian official said the 
Venezuelan National Guard protects one of his country's most powerful 
cartels, the Norte del Valle gang based in Cali, and one of its top 
leaders, Wilmer Varela.

"Venezuela has become a sanctuary for Colombian traffickers, and the 
National Guard facilitates it all," said the official, who asked not 
to be named because of political sensitivities.

Last month, Chavez removed Luis Correa as head of the National 
Anti-Narcotics Office, replacing him with a trusted military aide, 
Luis Reverol Torres. In July, National Guard Brig. Gen. Frank Morgado 
was sentenced to prison by a military tribunal for links to drug 
traffickers. Morgado and Correa came under criticism last April after 
a DC-7 airliner that had left Maiquetia landed in Ciudad del Carmen, 
Mexico, with mechanical problems. Police found 5 1/2 tons of cocaine on board.

Cocaine seizures by Venezuelan authorities in the past two months 
amount to about what was seized in the Ciudad del Carmen raid: 4.8 
tons. Critics find that number suspiciously low, given the size of 
single shipments seized elsewhere.

"Twenty-two percent of announced cocaine seizures last year, which 
totaled 55 tons, came as a result of luck - drugs discovered at the 
border or checkpoints," said one former high-level Venezuelan 
counternarcotics official who asked not to be named. "As much 
movement as there is, the percentage should be much smaller. It shows 
the lack of investigation."

There has been no lack of investigation or results in neighboring 
Colombia, where authorities have gone after the leftist guerrillas 
and right-wing paramilitary groups involved in the drug trade.

Plan Colombia, on which the United States has spent $4 billion 
fighting drug trafficking since its launch in 2000, has denied 
traffickers the "air bridge" directly from Colombia to Central 
America and Mexico that they once enjoyed.

The new air bridge appears to link airports and strips in Venezuela 
and neighboring Suriname and Guyana to the Caribbean island of 
Hispaniola, comprising the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The aircraft 
of choice seems to be twin-engine Beechcraft King Air business 
planes. With the passenger seats removed, the planes can ferry 
three-quarters of a ton of cocaine per flight.

Haitian and Dominican leaders have issued pleas for help in recent 
months to stem the flow of drugs from Venezuela, to little avail.

The State Department, meanwhile, worries that its successes in 
Colombia are coming undone.

"We want to work with the Venezuelans," Patterson said. "But we 
haven't gotten very far in recent years, and their problem is 
increasing. That's the worrisome thing about this. Success in 
Colombia has basically led to a migration to some of this into Venezuela."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman