| | |  Americas & Beyond | October 2008 
Colombia Finds 10 Tons of Cocaine in One of the Biggest Seizures in History
 Jeremy McDermott - UK Telegraph
go to original
| | Police sort through more than 10 tons of cocaine in Barranquilla. (AFP/Getty Images) | | |
Colombian authorities have found more than 10 tons of cocaine worth $200 million (£125 million) in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla, ready to be shipped to Mexico.
Medellín - The Colombian police chief, General Oscar Naranjo said that the drug consignment was put together by one of the country's top drugs traffickers, Daniel Barerra, whose alias is The Madman.
"We can categorically state that this seizure of 10 and a half tons of cocaine is a mighty blow to the criminal gang led by the Madman Barerra," said General Naranjo, standing in the middle of thousands of kilo bricks of cocaine.
The drugs, seized after a six-month intelligence operation which tracked a drug route up to Barranquilla, were hidden among boxes of children's toys. They were being moved in two containers travelling on trucks that were about to be put on a ship and dispatched to the Mexican city of Veracruz.
The Madman Barerra has become one of the two powerful drugs traffickers in the country, moving multi-ton shipments of cocaine every month. He has made alliances with the powerful Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), which supply him with much of the coca base he processes into cocaine.
Barerra is known to move through the eastern plains of Colombia and into Venezuela, where he often bases himself, out of reach of the Colombian security forces and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela does not cooperate with the US anti-drug agencies and the Colombian drug lords like Barerra have taken advantage of this to not only turn Venezuela into one of the principal transit nations for cocaine bound for Europe, but to live there beyond the reach of Colombian and international law enforcement agencies. |
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us