Raids finds proof of Colombian rebel drug-running
By Steve Salisbury
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
BARRANCOMINA, Colombia — Colombia's Marxist
rebels are directly engaged in the production and export of
cocaine, according to documents, eyewitness testimony and
receipts discovered in recent weeks in a remote eastern rain
forest.
The evidence, stronger than anything previously documented, is
important because U.S. policy calls for helping Colombia to fight
the drug trade while avoiding direct involvement in its
decades-old guerrilla war. That will become more difficult if the
rebels turn out to be drug lords.
The guerrillas long have acknowledged that they impose a
"war tax" on drug crops, but insist they do not take part in growing
and selling illicit drugs.
That claim is contradicted by evidence uncovered over the
past two months by special forces commandos of the
Colombian army.
The evidence indicates that guerrillas of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) buy coca-leaf "base"
from peasants, pay operators of "laboratories" to refine the
coca base into cocaine powder that is up to 99 percent pure,
then sell the product to drug barons who smuggle the cocaine
abroad.
"We may not have direct evidence against the FARC
leadership yet, but it's the conductor of the orchestra," one
prosecutor said.
The army's Operation Gato Negro (Black Cat), which is
still in progress, was designed to drive guerrillas from a
stretch of the Guaviare River that forms the border between
Vichada and Guainia provinces, and to dismantle the
narcotics infrastructure that finances the guerrilla movement.
Gen. Jorge Mora, commander of the army, gives top
priority to the effort, which is overseen by the commander of
the 4th division, Gen. Arcesio Barrero. The front line base for
Gato Negro is in the village of Barrancomina on the Guainia
side of the Guaviare River.
"You have to squeeze [the rebels] like a sandwich," Gen.
Barrero said of the operation.
Army closes in
For more than two years, military intelligence and law
enforcement agents had received accounts from peasants
coming from Barrancomina and nearby villages that the
FARC's 16th front, a unit of about 250 guerrillas, was
engaged in cocaine and arms trafficking.
Many of those stories involved the 16th front's
commander, Tomas Molina Caracas, alias "El Negro
Acacio," and a suspected Brazilian drug dealer in his mid-30s
who is known in the area as "Alvaro."
Alvaro's legal name is believed to be Luis Da Costa. He is
also known to Brazilian and Colombian authorities by the
alias "Fernandinho."
Military sources said that within days after Operation
Gato Negro went into action Feb. 12, some 3,300 soldiers of
the Colombian army's elite rapid deployment force had been
flown into the area aboard eight U.S.-made UH-60 Black
Hawk and five Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters.
It was the first military presence in this sparsely inhabited
region, reachable only by air or river, since the army entered
Barrancomina for a couple of days two years earlier.
The two mobile brigades and one special forces brigade
disembarked with little warning in Barrancomina and the
villages of Guerima 30 miles west, Puerto Principe about 65
miles southwest and Puerto Lindo, in between, systematically
setting out to patrol the jungle and rivers.
Officers said the guerrillas had hurriedly fled from the
villages. In a modest blue wooden house abandoned by
Alvaro in Barrancomina, they reported having found $74,950
in cash as well as photographs, accounting notebooks and
other significant documents.
Several days later, a special forces squad caught up with
Alvaro at a farm. He managed to escape as gunfire erupted,
according to a suspect captured at the scene, but the army
later received reports that he had been wounded three times,
most seriously in his right shoulder.
Days after that, the commandos surprised 16 guerrillas at
a farm some nine miles north of Barrancomina. Six guerrillas
were killed in a 30-minute firefight, officers said, while two
army personnel, a lieutenant and a commando, were
wounded.
Peasants told the army that they recognized some of the
dead as escorts to Acacio, the 16th front commander.
According to a guerrilla radio communication intercepted
later by the army, Acacio himself had fled to the southwest.
Finding drug labs
Throughout the area, the soldiers discovered numerous
drug labs, often with abandoned guerrilla encampments
nearby. By March 8, troops had destroyed 29 peasant labs
for processing coca leaf and nine sophisticated labs called
"crystallizers" or "chongos" where coca base could be refined
into cocaine powder.
Even more important, from a judicial investigative
perspective, were some documents that were discovered
March 4 and shown to a reporter visiting the area with the
hard-charging field commander of the rapid deployment
force, Brig. Gen. Carlos Fracica.
On that morning, special forces commandos entered a
chongo near Barranco de Picuro, about 15 miles east of
Barrancomina and half a mile north of the Guaviare River.
The setup comprised nine rustic stick structures of different
sizes with palm-thatched roofs.
Some huts were clogged with machinery, generators,
ovens, presses, bags of powdered cement, buckets of baking
soda and 55-gallon drums of chemicals to make cocaine.
Others were a kitchen and lodgings for about 15 to 20
workers.
Gen. Fracica, who arrived shortly afterward aboard a
Black Hawk helicopter, said it was the biggest lab found to
that point of the operation. He estimated its monthly cocaine
production capability at 3 to 5 tons.
Soldiers also had placed on a table near the entrance to
the complex a FARC propaganda leaflet and two small
receipts, both dated Nov. 26, 2000, and indicating payments
to someone using the alias "Pollo," or "Chicken."
One was for 1 million Colombian pesos — about $500
— for receipt of "5,000 grams of crystal," amounting to a
little more than 11 pounds. The second was for 4 million
pesos — about $2,000 — for receipt of "5,000 grams of
coca."
Near the bottom of each receipt was a maroon ink stamp
with block lettering reading "16th front" and the name of a
rebel hero for whom the front is named. Both were signed
"Mono," whose identity was not clear.
Pluto's story
A captain and two soldiers, questioned independently,
each said the receipts were found under a mattress in the
workers' sleeping quarters. The same FARC stamp was also
on documents found at other sites; civilians in the region
confirmed its routine use.
"Crystal" commonly refers to refined cocaine powder,
while "coca" could refer to refined or unrefined cocaine.
The amounts on the receipts do not correspond to the
prices of coca base — which costs about $400 to $450 per
pound, according to people in the business — or refined
cocaine, which "crystallizer" labs sell for about $900 to
$1,000 per pound.
More likely the amounts represent either a tax or a
two-part payment to a chongo operator for processing the
same 11 pounds of refined cocaine.
Additional insight into the guerrillas' drug operations was
provided by a Barrancomina resident with links to the drug
business who for his safety can be identified only by a
randomly chosen alias, "Pluto."
Speaking in this quiet village with swept dirt streets and
1,000 to 1,500 inhabitants, he said he had once visited a
crystallizer lab and seen about 20 guerrillas there.
"The guerrillas sleep in hammocks, while the workers
sleep in bunk beds," Pluto said.
"The FARC buys coca base, sometimes giving loans to
peasants to produce it. If others want to buy and sell coca
base and crystal, they can, but they have to pay a tax to the
FARC.
"The FARC then takes coca base to crystallizer labs
owned by individuals. Juan Boyaco is the biggest chongo lab
owner. Pollo is an owner. I know him. They call him Pollo
because he has pale skin like a chicken. . . .
"He lives in Bogota, but has come here every several
months to tend to business for a month or two," Pluto added.
"There are others. They turn the FARC's coca base into
crystal cocaine for a fee.
"If for some reason there is a problem with cash flow, or if
there is a need for machinery and chemicals, the FARC gives
loans and brings what's needed. The FARC then sells the
cocaine to drug dealers from other countries who fly here,
like Don Alvaro from Brazil, and Peruvians, who take the
cocaine out. I heard they go to Suriname."
Alvaro's arrival
Another villager who knows Alvaro and El Negro Acacio
confirmed the FARC role in cocaine production. "El Negro
Acacio is in charge of everything," he said.
Army summaries of documents captured during Operation
Gato Negro, which army intelligence identified as belonging
to Alvaro, show seven flights by him or somebody else to
Brazil since April 28. They also show that the carrier
transported 3,894 pounds of cocaine that Alvaro apparently
had purchased for $3.7 million and sold for $6.5 million,
earning a net profit of $1.9 million after paying $943,000 in
expenses and bribes.
Many of Barrancomina's inhabitants know of Alvaro, but
few talk about him.
"Visitors sometimes come here, and we don't know who
they are. It's bad to butt in about where they come from and
where they're going," said the town's mayor, Berta Cecilia
Ricardo.
However, those who will talk say it was one or two years
ago that the man identified in a Brazilian "wanted" bulletin as
Luis Da Costa first arrived in Barrancomina.
Pluto and others described Alvaro as an overweight,
affable man who joined them in soccer games and sometimes
brought Brazilian prostitutes to the town.
"He is best friends with the FARC," one man said. "The
guerrillas would always protect him."
Alvaro usually was surrounded by up to a dozen guerrilla
bodyguards, including one called "Tumaco" who is believed
by authorities to be in charge of obtaining precursor
chemicals for the cocaine labs.
Alvaro and El Negro Acacio "are partners," said a military
intelligence analyst in 4th division headquarters in the central
Colombia city of Villavicencio. Alvaro "tells Acacio that he
wants to buy so many kilos of cocaine, and Acacio has his
men collect it for him."
Payment in weapons
A notebook that the army says it captured contains a list
showing what appear to be payments ranging from $2,000 to
$78,000 with notations such as "Pilots/15,000." The
notebook contained the names "Bolas," "Dumars," "Oscar"
and "Raspao," all believed by the army to represent guerrillas
who handle the 16th front's finances.
The aliases "Oscar" and "Raspao" are believed to have
been used by a brother or cousin of Acacio's who once
supervised finances and who, residents said, left the town
several months ago after killing two men during an argument
over a gambling debt.
Bolas is believed to have replaced Oscar as the chief
financial officer of the 16th front.
Pluto and investigators said Alvaro sometimes pays the
FARC in dollars, sometimes in weapons. According to an
army intelligence summary of documents, Alvaro bartered
543 rifles, including AK-47s and G-3 assault rifles, and
2,417 pistols to the FARC in exchange for cocaine.
Pluto said he was once enlisted to unload
ammunition-filled sacks from a Centurion airplane that had
arrived from Brazil at the Barrancomina airstrip.
It is still not clear how far up the FARC chain of
command the drug activity goes.
But the evidence and testimony from the jungle around
Barrancomina make it clear that the FARC's relationship with
the drug trade goes beyond simply charging a tax on coca
crops.
Said Pluto: "The FARC is the maximum cocaine cartel.
They are the owners. They don't take over the entire chain
because they don't have the contacts abroad. Alvaro does
that for them."