[narconews] Conroy: Bogot DEA Corruption Allegations
Daniel A. Feder
Please Distribute Widely
Dear Colleague,
Another piece of the puzzle has fallen into place in Bill Conroy's
investigation of alleged massive corruption in the DEA's Bogoto?=,
Colombia office. Yet another document in the paper trail has come to
light, this one nearly as explosive as the now-famous "Kent Memo"
that Conroy revealed nearly two months ago. The document is the final
report of the investigation by the DEA's Office of Professional
Responsibility in response to complaints filed by a former Bogoto?=
chief against a Miami agent whose investigation threatened to expose
the agency's wrongdoings in Colombia.
The new documents also show how the alleged corruption in the DEA
intersected with covert FBI and CIA activity in Colombia. Conroy writes:
"In the late 1990s, Luis Hernando Go?=mez Bustamante, one of the
leaders of Colombia's North Valley Cartel narco-trafficking
syndicate, became one of the targets of a Drug Enforcement
Administration investigation called Operation Cali-Man, which was
overseen by a DEA supervisor in Miami named David Tinsley.
"In mid January 2000, Go?=mez Bustamante attended a meeting in Panama
to discuss possible cooperation with the DEA. According to one of
Tinsley's informants, during the course of that meeting Go?=mez
Bustamante revealed that a high-level DEA agent in Bogoto?= was on the
'payroll' of a corrupt Colombian National Police colonel named Danilo
Gonzalez - who was eventually indicted by the U.S. Department of
Justice on narco-trafficking charges.
"The informant, an individual named Ramon Suarez, later told DEA
internal affairs investigators that the U.S. federal agent identified
by Go?=mez Bustamante as being on the "payroll" was Javier Pena, who at
the time was the assistant country attacho?= of the DEA Bogoto?= Country
Office in Colombia.
"When questioned by DEA internal affairs investigators in 2002, Pena
denied the charge. However, he did concede he had a relationship with
Colonel Gonzalez dating back to the early 1990s, when Colombian and
U.S. law enforcers worked together to hunt down the notorious narco-
outlaw Pablo Escobar.
"These remarkable revelations have surfaced in a document recently
obtained by Narco News. The document also includes evidence that the
DEA, FBI and CIA were each operating covertly in Colombian's narco-
trafficking underworld, all using the same informant."
Read the full report, here, in The Narco News Bulletin:
Also, in the Narcosphere, Conroy looks at a new report from the
Dallas Morning News on a story he has extensively covered for two
years: the "House of Death" in Ciudad Juo?=rez, Mexico. The house in
Ciudad Juo?=rez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas,
was the location of the torture and murder of at least twelve people
over the course of several months. An informant in the pay of U.S.
border agencies participated in the series of murders, and despite
their knowledge of his activities, Justice and Homeland Security
officials did nothing to stop him and later launched a major cover-up
of the entire affair. The Dallas Morning News takes credit for many
of the facts brought to light first in Narco News, and then
completely disregards the existence of the cover-up in its story of
the informant "Lalo's" supposedly immanent extradition to Mexico.
Read Conroy's commentary here:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/3/5/165154/1751
From somewhere in a country called Amo?=rica,
Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com
webm...@narconews.com
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