Word: deas
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Colombian cocaine cartel leaders are apparently investing in precious gems. "Cash is a pain," says a DEA official. "It's bulky if you move it, traceable if you bank it, and it mildews if you bury it." Which may explain why Colombians have been reported buying up jewels -- principally diamonds -- in Antwerp, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. U.S. agents don't think these buyers are Christmas shopping. "You can transport millions of dollars' worth of diamonds in your back pocket," says an investigator. Furthermore, diamonds don't rot when stored in the underground caches favored by Colombian dons...
...DEA agents burst into grins and clapped one another on the back. Zuno is the most prominent of the seven men tried so far in connection with the still unsolved Camarena murder. U.S. Justice Department prosecutors charged that Zuno, arrested last year while visiting Los Angeles, was a top executive of the Guadalajara drug cartel and a power broker who used his political connections in Mexico City to protect vast cocaine and marijuana operations...
...When DEA investigations threatened those operations, prosecutors said, Zuno plotted with drug kingpins and several prominent Mexican officials to have Camarena kidnapped and tortured. The object was to find out how much U.S. agents knew about the traffickers and their patrons in the government. A cartel bodyguard turned government witness testified that a few months before the abduction, Zuno told the other alleged conspirators that Camarena should be interrogated on what he knew about "my general," referring to General Juan Arevalo Gardoqui, then Mexico's Secretary of Defense. U.S. officials claim that a transcript of a torture-interrogation session, which...
Next on trial will be Humberto Alvarez Machain, a Guadalajara physician accused of giving medicine to Camarena during the torture sessions so he would survive until his questioning was complete. The capture of Alvarez, who was tracked down by Mexican bounty hunters and delivered to DEA agents in El Paso, has caused a rift between the U.S. and Mexico. The Mexican government is demanding the arrest and extradition of the DEA agent who masterminded the snatch. Retorts U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh: "It's a mistake for the government of Mexico not to cooperate ((in bringing)) to justice those persons...
Thornton cites the example of the Drug Enforcement Agency's (DEA) and other governmental agencies' attempts to eradicate the sale of marijuana in South Florida in 1984. The DEA was successful in almost completely drying up the pool of available marijuana, but suppliers of marijuana simply switched to supplying cocaine instead...