Suspected Colombian drug lord extradited to US

[Judi Lynn]

Suspected Colombian drug lord extradited to US
Aug 23, 2006, 18:27 GMT

NEW YORK - A suspected Colombian drug lord pleaded innocent on Wednesday to charges that he smuggled $100 million worth of cocaine from Colombia to the United States via Panama and Mexico.

Manuel Felipe Salazar Espinoza, nicknamed 'Hoover,' was extradited to New York from Colombia on Tuesday to face narcotics trafficking and money-laundering charges, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

It said Salazar Espinoza headed an international drug trafficking organization that smuggled cocaine by the ton aboard speedboats running from Colombia to Panama.

The drugs were then shipped to Mexico hidden inside heavy machinery, and from there they were smuggled into the United States through a Mexican drug ring, the statement said.

Colombian authorities arrested Salazar Espinoza on a U.S. request in May 2005. Two months later Panamanian police seized more than 1,300 kg (2,866 lb) of cocaine hidden inside a crane. U.S. authorities allege the drugs were placed there by Salazar Espinoza's organization, the statement said.
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http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1193830.php/Suspected_Colombian_drug_lord_extradited_to_US

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NYPD hook king of coke

DEA, police catch on to Colombian's crane game

BY ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF


This crane was allegedly packed with coke and used by Manuel Salazar to smuggle drugs into N.Y.

The luxurious life of one of the world's most notorious drug kingpins is collapsing.
Manuel Felipe Salazar allegedly smuggled more than $100 million worth of cocaine from Colombia onto the streets of New York - by hiding the premium narcotics inside huge construction cranes - over the past 2-1/2 years.

But an elite task force of NYPD cops and federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents smashed his scheme and had him tossed into a maximum security prison in Colombia, authorities said yesterday.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/338983p-289498c.html

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Posted on Thu, Aug. 24, 2006

COLOMBIA
Horrors revisited in pursuit of peace
As part of its peace process with right-wing paramilitaries, the Colombian government has to face the many victims.
BY STEVEN DUDLEY
[e-mail]

LA GABARRA, Colombia - Colombia revisits horrors in pursuit of peace

In this village along the Venezuelan border, every house tells a story of violence.
Some are filled with widows and orphans. Others hold new dwellers who fled the violence and then returned to find their own homes burned or looted. Then there are the homes now empty but once used by right-wing paramilitaries whose violence forced two-thirds of this town to scramble for their lives.
La Gabarra is just one of many tales of horror that the Colombian government will have to sort through as it finalizes peace talks with paramilitary groups that killed thousands of suspected leftist guerrillas and supporters and left an untold number missing.
(snip)

In 1999, then-paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño publicly announced that his troops would be taking over the area, cleansing it of its guerrilla influence. The well-documented massacres that followed left hundreds dead, many within earshot of the area's military base.

In one massacre, paramilitary gunmen pulled 34 men and women from bars, motels and their homes before shooting them and throwing many into the muddy waters of the nearby Catatumbo river.
(snip)

There are allegations of rapes. And then there are the mass graves that could hold as many as 1,500 victims, Colombian human rights groups say. Some of the residents know where some of their relatives or friends are buried and have helped authorities unearth about 30 bodies so far.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15347637.htm

[High Plains]

1. Oh, good. Does this mean we won the drug war?

Can I relax now?