Posted on 04/14/2006 2:23:08 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
MEXICAN authorities yesterday began investigations into the involvement of Colombian guerrillas in the shipment of 5.5 tons of cocaine seized from a commercial aircraft.
The high-purity cocaine, the biggest seizure in recent years, was found amid 128 pieces of luggage on a US passenger airline, Aero Flight, which left Caracas in Venezuela and made an unregistered stop in Ciudad de Carmen, Mexico, where soldiers found the drugs. The cocaine is valued at £70 million.
Santiago Vasconcelos, of the Mexican attorney general's office, said there was evidence that the drugs came from guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who have long-standing agreements with Mexican drug cartels to supply cocaine in exchange for weapons and ammunition. The two pilots, Poot Pérez and Pérez de Gracia, have been arrested before in connections with a drug flight, but managed to escape prosecution. They are unlikely to do so again.
These 5.5 tons make up the first major shipment linked to the FARC since the US attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, issued 50 indictments covering most of the FARC senior command structure, on charges of drug-trafficking.
"We believe these men are responsible for not only manufacturing and exporting devastating amounts of cocaine, but enforcing their criminal regime with violence," Mr Gonzales said.
It is significant that the drugs came via Venezuela, because the Colombian army has long alleged that Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo Chavez, is sympathetic to the Marxist rebels.
Cocaine, Columbia, left wing thugs, Mexico. . . Poot is the only interesting thing in the story for me.
Chavez needs the Noriega treatment.
Bet that these shipments won't be stopped once AMLO becomes Mexico's president.
ping
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