Word: primavera
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Medina and both Escobar and another drug baron, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, nicknamed "El Mexicano." Apparently not certain that the evidence would hold up in court, the government allowed Medina to retire. Two days after Medina's successor, General Miguel Antonio Gomez Padilla, took over, the National Police launched Operation Primavera, the most successful strike against cocaine producers in Colombian history...
...began Operation Primavera, the latest effort by Colombian authorities to destroy the massive cocaine-processing industry that thrives under the green canopy of the country's jungles. By the time the ten-day campaign ended last week, Operation Primavera had become the most successful bust of coke labs in Colombian history, netting a total of 26 plants capable of producing 6.6 tons of the addictive white powder a week. Though the plants never achieved that level of production, the potential output is about three times the demand of the U.S. market. Boasted a senior police official: "This is a bullet...
...site of Operation Primavera's first strike was Finca la Brasilia (Brazil Ranch), reportedly owned by Alberto Toro, brother-in-law of the notorious coke lord Pablo Escobar Gaviria. Early last week the raiders descended on Hacienda Napoles, the grandest -- and gaudiest -- of Escobar's several country estates. The helicopters landed to the trumpeting of three caged elephants, part of a private zoo maintained by the drug kingpin. Not found was Escobar, one of the world's most wanted criminals, who has eluded Colombian authorities dozens of times...
...chemicals seized during Operation Primavera were stored in standing tanks or 55-gal. drums. In some cases the drums were stacked 15 ft. high, creating Andean peaks of testimony to the proportions of the smuggling operation. Ethyl ether, for example, is essential to the final processing of cocaine base into a white hydrochloride powder. The manufacture of ethyl ether has been outlawed in Colombia, and importation is closely regulated. A 55-gal. drum of ethyl ether that sells for $500 in the U.S. fetches more than $12,000 in Colombia. Says Alfonso Barragan, president of the Colombian Society of Chemical...
...them, in these days of terminally fragile objects and impossible insurance costs, could or should be allowed to travel. An exhibition that dealt with this theme at full stretch would have to include Giorgione's Tempest and his (or Titian's) Concert Champetre, Botticelli's Primavera, Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, Giovanni Bellini's Feast of the Gods, plus any amount of Rubenses, Poussins, Annibale Carraccis, Claudes, Watteaus, Turners and Matisses, not to mention Manet's Dejeuner sur l'Herbe and Seurat's Grande Jatte...