MSNBC
April 10, 2000

Russian mob trading arms for cocaine with Colombia rebels

                 Huge smuggling ring — an MSNBC.com exclusive
 
                       By Sue Lackey with Michael Moran
 
                       WASHINGTON, April 9 —  Russian crime syndicates and military
                       officers are supplying sophisticated weapons to Colombian rebels in
                        return for huge shipments of cocaine, U.S. intelligence officials told
                        MSNBC.com. A senior intelligence official described the smuggling
                        ring as “literally an industry” that threatens to overwhelm the Colombian
                        government and turn the U.S.-backed fight against the Colombia cocaine
                        cartels into a losing proposition.
                       Officials close to the investigation cited intelligence intercepts that
                       show the IL-76 cargo planes use Royal Jordanian Airlines cargo
                       facilities in Amman, where airline officials are bribed to ignore
                       false cargo manifests.
                               THE CLINTON administration is trying to escalate the
                         long-running war on Colombia’s cocaine cartels, and a $1.7
                         billion aid package to the South American nation is under
                         consideration in Congress. U.S. intelligence officials, all of
                         whom spoke to MSNBC.com on condition of anonymity,
                         said the scope of the Russia-to-Colombia smuggling ring
                         took them by surprise and remains unknown to all but a few
                         high-ranking figures in the American government.
                                In short, an alliance of corrupt Russian military figures,
                         organized crime bosses, diplomats and revolutionaries has
                         been moving regular shipments of up to 40,000 kilograms of
                         cocaine to the former Soviet Union in return for large
                         shipments of deadly weaponry.
                                The intelligence officials said the smuggling ring works
                         like this:
                           Russian-built IL-76 cargo planes take off from various
                         airstrips in Russia and Ukraine laden with anti-aircraft
                         missiles, small arms and ammunition.
                           The planes, roughly the size of Boeing 707s and a
                         mainstay of the modern cargo industry, stop in Amman,
                         Jordan, to refuel. There, they bypass normal Jordanian
                         customs with the help of corrupt foreign diplomats and
                         bribed local officials.
                           After crossing the Atlantic, the cargo jets use remote
                         landing strips or parachute air-drops to deliver their cargo
                         to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
                         FARC. The guerrilla group is challenging the authority of the
                         U.S.-backed Colombian government, and its guerrillas
                         provide security to Colombia’s cocaine cartels.
                           The planes return loaded with up to 40,000 kilograms of
                         cocaine. Some of this is distributed as payment for the arms
                         to the diplomatic middlemen in Amman. The rest is flown
                         back to the former Soviet Union for sale there, in Europe
                         and in the Persian Gulf.
                         CORRUPT DIPLOMATS
                               Officials close to the investigation cited intelligence
                         intercepts that show the IL-76 cargo planes use Royal
                         Jordanian Airlines cargo facilities in Amman, where airline
                         officials are bribed to ignore false cargo manifests. While in
                         Amman, the planes are cleared for transit under diplomatic
                         cover originating from a Spanish-speaking embassy in
                         Amman, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The officials
                         refused to specify which embassy was involved. The
                         officials noted there are two Spanish speaking embassies in
                         Amman — Spain and Chile. A third, that of
                         Portuguese-speaking Brazil, often conducts business in
                         Spanish.
                               “They’re using diplomatic authority to get that stuff in,”
                         said a senior U.S. intelligence official close to the
                         investigation. “If they’re not using a [diplomatic] pouch,
                         they’re using diplomatic authority to clear the shipment. This
                         is a big operation. There are a lot of people involved — it’s
                         literally an industry.”
                                The Spanish-speaking embassy official in Jordan,
                         whom the intelligence officials would not identify by name,
                         has the power to clear diplomatic shipments and may also
                         be able to authorize embassy funds when additional money
                         is needed to move the shipments through Amman. Still,
                         while the embassy contact may have a high rank, intelligence
                         sources said they do not think the scheme is operating with
                         the knowledge of the country involved or Jordan’s
                         government.
                         REBELS AND CARTELS
                                Once the plane has refueled in Amman, officials said, it
                         then proceeds from Jordan to various landing strips
                         throughout South America, where shipments are
                         coordinated by a renegade Peruvian military officer.
                                A senior U.S. intelligence source has identified by name
                         three men alleged to be directly involved in those shipments.
                         Luiz Fernando Da Costa, working under the alias
                         Fernandinho Beira-Mar, is one of Brazil’s most wanted
                         narco-traffickers. For the past four years, Da Costa has
                         used the town of Pedro Juan Caballero in Paraguay as his
                         base of operations. According to U.S. intelligence, Da
                         Costa runs arms received from Fuad Jamil, a Lebanese
                         businessman operating in the same Paraguayan town. The
                         official said Jamil uses a legitimate import company as a
                         front.
                                While most of the weaponry goes directly to FARC, a
                         smaller amount is parceled off to other guerrilla groups.
                         Among them is Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed movement
                         best known for its guerrilla activities in southern Lebanon.
                         U.S. intelligence officials say the group has set down roots
                         among the Arab immigrant communities of Paraguay,
                         Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil and frequently uses
                         legitimate business operations to cover illegal arms transfers.
                                Within Colombia, arms deliveries to rebel guerrillas are
                         coordinated through the town of Barranco Minas, the
                         headquarters for the FARC’s 16th Front. The 16th Front is
                         lead by Tomas Medina Caracas, who operates the arms
                         ring under the alias Negro Acacio.
                         PAYING OFF THE SMUGGLERS
                                The FARC rebels, who control the distribution of the
                         arms, pay the smugglers with cocaine. The drug is then
                         loaded onto the planes for the return journey through
                         Amman. Hundreds of thousands of kilos of cocaine have
                         been smuggled over the last two years.
                               According to drug enforcement officials, cocaine can
                        bring more than $50,000 per kilo in Europe. The involvement
                        of Russian organized crime in its smuggling
                         is well established, and the most common gateway is Spain,
                         where European drug enforcement officials say the bulk of
                         Colombian cocaine and heroin enters the continent.
                         Intelligence officials confirmed that because of Spain’s
                         pivotal role in the European drug trade, their suspicions in
                         Amman focus on Spain’s embassy.
                                Some of the cocaine is delivered under diplomatic
                         cover to intermediaries in Jordan, where it finds its way onto
                         the streets. The majority of the cocaine shipment continues
                         on to Russia and Ukraine, where it feeds the growing
                         appetite for the drug, or is sold in other lucrative markets in
                         Europe and the Persian Gulf.
                         A POWERFUL UNDERGROUND ALLIANCE
                                The smuggling ring brings together two powerful and
                         destabilizing forces that have become key targets of U.S.
                         foreign policy: the deep-seated corruption of the former
                         Soviet states and Colombia’s spiral toward drug-induced
                         anarchy. For Russia and Ukraine, billions of dollars in
                         International Monetary Fund, World Bank and direct aid is
                         at stake. Scandals over the alleged misuse of such loans
                         already have sparked investigations in the U.S. Congress.
                                For Colombia’s backers in the United States and
                         advocates of increased U.S. aid, the revelations are
                         particularly ill-timed. Congress is considering a $1.7 billion
                         drug-interdiction aid package for Colombia, including
                         sophisticated Blackhawk helicopters. Among the weapons
                         being supplied to FARC, intelligence officials said, are
                         rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPGs) and Russian
                         SA-model shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft weapons similar
                         to the U.S. Stinger missiles.
                                As U.S. soldiers learned in Somalia, both RPGs and
                         missile launchers can bring down a Blackhawk helicopter,
                         even in the untrained hands of rebel armies.
                                ”[The guerrillas] get the RPG to explode in the vicinity
                         of the tail rotor, which gives the helicopter its horizontal
                         stability,” said a U.S. Army official. “All that has to happen
                         is for the tail rotor to become a bit unbalanced or for a
                         hydraulic line to be cut, and that helicopter is coming down.
                         It takes good aim and cases full of RPGs, but it’s been done
                         many times.”
                         WELL-ESTABLISHED NETWORK
                                U.S. intelligence officials say the arms-for-drugs ring
                         has been operational for two years. MSNBC.com first
                         broke the story of large arms shipments to FARC rebels
                         last October, and it was that shipment that drew the
                         attention of U.S. intelligence agencies to what they
                         eventually concluded was a major trafficking ring. That
                         single drop last October was said by U.S. intelligence
                         officials to have delivered $50 million worth of AK-47s
                         deep inside FARC-held territory. U.S. authorities ultimately
                         apprehended one of the traffickers, the officials said.
                                Since that time, the intelligence officials said, arms
                         traffickers have refined their operation. While the IL-76 is
                         designed to drop large loads by parachute, that method
                         requires favorable weather and specially trained flight
                         crews. After repeated problems with air drops, traffickers
                         seek to avoid detection by using a variety of existing
                         runways where they can bribe officials to allow the cargo in.
                         The IL-76 also is capable of landing at rough, remote
                         landing strips.
                                The size of the cargo is staggering; the IL-76 is used to
                         transport troops, arms and tanks for the Russian military. In
                         one hour, a trained ground crew can unload, refuel and
                         reload a plane bearing 90,000 pounds of cargo, U.S.
                         military officials say. That’s equivalent to 5,400 rifles and
                         360,000 rounds of ammunition, along with shoulder-held
                         missiles and RPGs.
                                The scale of the smuggling underscores the enormous
                         challenge that law enforcement authorities face in the former
                         Soviet Union, where Soviet-era intelligence operatives in
                         many cases made a seamless transition from Cold War
                         spying or military intelligence into organized crime. “The
                         source of the weapons [smuggled into Colombia] is both
                         organized crime and military,” a U.S. intelligence official
                         said. “There is a tremendous gray area between the two in
                         Russia and the Ukraine.”
                                After the fall of the Berlin Wall, many KGB and other
                         Soviet security agents appropriated bank accounts,
                         companies and contacts used for covert operations, and
                         turned them instead into conduits for their own organized
                         crime activities, including arms and drug trafficking.