Word: colombia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...threat to the Mexican security services. Born in a rough-hewn village of the northern Sierra Madre, he was alleged to have been trafficking heroin and marijuana since the 1980s. As Mexican cartels grew in power, drug agents say, he forged a smuggling empire stretching from the jungles of Colombia to the avenues of New York City. He is alleged to have masterminded the killing of hundreds who stood in his way, including federal police chief Edgar Millan, who was shot dead in his home in May 2008. "As he first created and then defended his empire built on cocaine...
...kilos of seized cocaine beside his desk, the square-jawed soldier explained the smuggling routes for the white powder with the aid of computer maps. Small aircraft were carrying bundles of cocaine from western Venezuela into Honduras, he said. His intelligence showed that the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were operating openly in Venezuelan territory and were behind many of the shipments. "The Venezuelan government is either incapable or complicit in this traffic," he said, speaking with a frankness uncommon among Latin American officials. His forces had found more than 50 such small planes within the past year...
...Such accusations against the government of Hugo Chávez are not new. The U.S. and Colombia have for years accused Chávez of consorting with narco-terrorists. Chávez, for his part, claims that the U.S. smuggles drugs to fund its espionage. Gonzalez added his own bit of politico-narco conspiracy theory, suggesting that his country's ousted President, Manuel Zelaya, was under investigation for possible involvement with cocaine shipments, echoing a charge of Zelaya's political opponents. When TIME questioned whether a Honduran head of state could really have had his hands in trafficking, Gonzalez nodded...
...report also says the U.S. may have supported Colombia's attack logistically with information from a mysterious Hercules C-130 flight at the time of the raid from a U.S. base at Manta, Ecuador, which has since been closed. U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges has denied any such involvement. Yesterday, the House of Representatives approved a 12-month extension of trade preferences for Ecuadorian goods linked to the country's cooperation in fighting narcotics smuggling. (Read "Ecuador vs. Chevron: Do the Videos Implicate the Judge...
Drug seizures inside Ecuador provide evidence that the FARC, having been seriously weakened by Uribe's military drive against them, have increasingly begun to refine cocaine in Ecuador rather than just smuggling it. Ecuadorian police have discovered numerous drug labs near the borders with Colombia and Peru as well as on farms deep inside the South American country, including one just west of the capital, Quito. René Vargas Pazzos, a retired general and former ambassador to Venezuela, rented a farm to a FARC commander, the report says. As a result, Huerta warned that Ecuador faces the same corrosive influence...