http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050308/APN/503081048
US: Two-ton cocaine load shipped under Saudi prince's protection Federal prosecutors are tying a Saudi prince with diplomatic immunity to a 2-ton Colombian cocaine smuggling run from Venezuela to Paris on his personal aircraft and $10 million in artwork seized by drug agents pursuing the prince's ex-girlfriend. In opening statements Tuesday, the defense responded that the government's case is built on the word of an enormously successful Colombian drug dealer who "duped" everyone by laundering drug money from behind bars while cooperating with federal agents. Doris Mangeri Salazar, the ex-girlfriend and a Coral Gables real estate agent, and Ivan Lopez Vanegas, who was extradited from Colombia, are on trial on a drug conspiracy charge carrying a possible life sentence as the alleged brokers for Colombian traffickers and the prince who married into the Saudi royal family. The defense points the finger at Juan Gabriel Usuga Norena, who was indicted with Medellin cartel kingpin Fabio Ochoa, as a storytelling liar. As Lopez attorney Alan Soven told it, Usuga's offer was simple. "I can get you the biggest fish in the world. How would you like a Saudi prince?" Soven said. "In their excitement to get the prince, they made a deal with the devil." Douglas Williams, Mangeri's attorney, delayed his opening statement to the beginning of the defense case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Selmore said there is plenty of physical evidence, such as passport stamps, hotel receipts and photos from a desert encampment, from 1998 meetings in Saudi Arabia, Aruba and Venezuela to plot the cocaine delivery to a stash house in suburban Paris in 1999. The interception of a cocaine courier at the Spanish border sent investigators backtracking to the French house, 1,769 pounds of cocaine and loads of suitcases used to smuggle the cocaine, Selmore said. "The facade of legitimacy that these two defendants have build around themselves began to crumble," she said. Lopez had approached Usuga with a proposition for flying cocaine on the plane used by Saudi prince and Swiss banker Nayef bin Sultan bin Fawwaz Al-Shaalan, Selmore charged. After marrying a royal princess, he flew the world with an entourage of dozens and diplomatic immunity that avoided luggage inspections. Co-defendants Al-Shaalan and Jose Maria Clemente, a Spaniard beyond the reach of U.S. extradition, agreed to evenly split their profits, Selmore said. The prince would pay a broker fee to Mangeri, his college sweetheart at the University of Miami, and Clemente owed Lopez. "It was a perfect fit," Selmore said. That is, until the bust on the trial run. Netted in the wide-ranging Colombian drug crackdown dubbed Operation Millennium, Usuga started helping U.S. drug investigators in 2000 and told them about the prince. Mangeri was arrested in 2002 and Lopez was extradited in 2003. "Usuga is a brilliant man believing that he is the smartest drug dealer in the history of the world," Soven said. "He must have seen the 'Scarface' movie 20 times. He thought he was invincible." Sentenced to less than three years in prison in the Ochoa indictment, which netted the kingpin more than 30 years, Usuga wanted even less time. From prison, he offered up the prince and his coterie but was running three money-laundering side deals that had him handling money in three drug investigations, Soven said. Sitting in U.S. custody are a landscape painting by Goya and a portrait by the Japanese artist Tsuguharu Foujita, which had been sent by Clemente to an informant purportedly to settle a drug debt. A Spanish gallery owner's claim to ownership has been rejected, leaving the artwork in government storage. -- Hold it right there, buddy. That scruffy beard... those suspenders.. that smug expression... 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