Word: colombia
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...Drug Enforcement Administration, had been waiting for the three Americans. According to intelligence, they were supposed to pick up six tons of grass and another American, who had been arrested last November after illegally flying into the country. The three are now being held in Colombia on illegal-entry charges, and DEA officials say they may be prosecuted for conspiracy to smuggle when allowed to return...
...transport is only one of marijuana's ways north. Colombia has 1,300 miles of jagged coastline, from which it is easy enough to load 20 tons or more of grass aboard freighters, trawlers or large (often stolen) yachts. These mother ships, as they are called, are monitored by the U.S. Coast Guard at a series of "choke points" as they work their way north through the Caribbean. But American authorities have little power as long as the drug ships hover outside the twelve-mile limit of U.S. territorial waters. Using sophisticated electronic equipment, the smugglers on these mother ships...
...another smuggling technique involves an artful use of the mails. Phil is a young entrepreneur from Chicago who went to Colombia last year on vacation. Like many vacationing students, he happened to stumble across someone in the "snow" business. Nervous but eager, he went one night to see his new friend Rafael at a house on a back street of Bogota's barrio. He had to bring $3,000. Rafael was holding a .38-cal. automatic when he opened the door, but he was ready to deal. For two hours they packaged 18-gram portions of cocaine in cellophane, attached...
American enforcement, like Colombia's, is hampered by corruption. Says Dade County, Fla., Chief of Narcotics Investigation Jack Rafferty: "The money floating around has the potential to corrupt nearly anyone." Coast Guard officers have reported attempted bribes of as much as $15,000, and one secretary working for the DEA in Florida went to jail for stealing secret intelligence files. In Key West, four city police were charged last September with serving as lookouts while marijuana was unloaded at a city dock by a smuggling ring. In Jamaica Bay, Long Island, a fishing boat named The Darlene C, carrying...
...strengthen customs work in the U.S., the Government is training agents to use the Air Force's new AWAC (airborne warning and control system) planes to track small aircraft from Colombia. Last week, the AWAC plane, at 29,000 ft., spotted a twin-engined D18 moving north along the Florida coast and alerted customs and police. They seized 1,600 lbs. of Colombian pot shortly after the D18 landed near Fort Lauderdale. Says Coast Guard Commandant John Hayes: "For once we have something more sophisticated than smugglers...