Colext/Macondo Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior -------------------------------------------------- Sin comentarios... -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, August 28, 2000 4:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: MN: US FL: Alleged Drug Baron Held In Florida Newshawk: M & M Family Pubdate: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 Source: Miami Herald (FL) Copyright: 2000 The Miami Herald Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Address: One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132-1693 Fax: (305) 376-8950 Website: http://www.herald.com/ Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?mherald Author: Lenny Savino, Wanda J. DeMarzo contributed. ALLEGED DRUG BARON HELD IN FLORIDA `Major Blow' To Cocaine Cartel WASHINGTON -- An alleged Colombian drug kingpin who used an armada of 10 commercial freighters to ship 68 tons of cocaine to South Florida and Europe is under arrest, federal drug agents announced Saturday. Authorities described the capture of Ivan De La Vega, 48, by police in Venezuela as cutting off ``the head of the snake'' and said it was a ``major blow'' to the Colombian drug trade, which exports an estimated 300 tons of cocaine each year. Over the past three years, De La Vega's ring bought or leased mostly Greek freighters to transport drugs in hidden compartments from the coast of Colombia to Miami, Fort Lauderdale and such European ports as Amsterdam, authorities said. The ships would hover 100 miles off the Colombian coast and receive their illegal cargo from high-powered cigarette boats speeding from jungle manufacturing plants along the shore. Crews of the freighters were paid from $30,000 for the captain to $3,000 for deck hands to smuggle the drugs, according to seized logs. Most of the cocaine was delivered to Europe, a more profitable market where the street price of a kilogram is $50,000. The same amount costs $1,700 in Colombia and $25,000 in the United States, agents said. U.S. Customs Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the ring was unique because of the ``staggering amount'' of drugs -- worth $3 billion on the street -- that were being shipped and the ``expansive reach'' of the organization to 12 countries: Colombia, the United States, Albania, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Panama, Spain, Great Britain and Venezuela. VENEZUELAN ARREST De La Vega was arrested by Venezuelan authorities on Aug. 16 along with Luis Antonio Navia, described as a ``major investor'' wanted on prior drug trafficking charges in the United States. The pair was handed over to U.S. authorities in Miami three days later where they were charged with conspiring to traffic cocaine. Zack Mann, U.S. Customs spokesman, said De La Vega, a Colombian citizen, and Navia, a Cuban national with U.S. residency status, are being held in the Federal Detention Center in Miami. The two face federal drug charges in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale. Navia was a fugitive wanted on a drug case out of Tampa, Mann said. ``The two were brought here because the venue on conspiracy charges to import cocaine in 1998 and 1999 originated in South Florida,'' Mann said. Mann said the two will be arraigned early next week. 4 TONS OF COCAINE U.S. authorities waited for Venezuelan police to raid a storage facility with more than four tons of cocaine last week before announcing the arrests. Another 41 suspects, including crew members of the freighters, have been arrested in several countries, authorities said. Over a two-year investigation, more than 24 tons of cocaine, worth about $1 billion, were seized from five ships headed for U.S. and European ports by a Customs, DEA and Coast Guard task force monitoring the deliveries. The 68-ton estimate was based on what informants involved in the shipping told authorities was delivered over the past three years. `A MAJOR BLOW' ``Certainly this is a major blow to the Colombian cartels in the short term,'' Kelly said. ``But no one is claiming victory in the war on drugs. We're never going to seize or arrest our way out of the drug problem.'' The case began with a tip from British intelligence. The smugglers tried to conceal their activities with normal cargoes. The largest single cocaine seizure was from a ship named the Castor that yielded more than four tons June 8, 1999. Leaving dry dock in Santo Domingo in March of that year, the Castor traveled to Vera Cruz, Mexico, before arriving in Miami, where it was seized. __________________________________________________________________________ Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk -------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with UNSUBSCRIBE COLEXT as the BODY of the message. Un archivo de colext puede encontrarse en: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ cortesia de Anibal Monsalve Salazar
