Narco 2004

[Zenia]

TheU.S. Department of State, through its Narcotics Rewards Program, is offering rewards of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Maduro Moros, up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Cabello Rondn, Carvajal Barrios, and Alcal Cordones, and up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Marn Arango.

Maduro Moros, Cabello Rondn, Carvajal Barrios, Alcal Cordones, Marn Arango, and Hernndez Solarte have each been charged with: (1) participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy, which carries a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison; (2) conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, which carries a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison; (3) using and carrying machine guns and destructive devices during and in relation to, and possessing machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of, the narco-terrorism and cocaine-importation conspiracies, which carries a 30-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison; and (4) conspiring to use and carry machine guns and destructive devices during and in relation to, and to possess machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of, the narco-terrorism and cocaine-importation conspiracies, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. The potential mandatory minimum and maximum sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.

In his role as a leader of the Crtel de Los Soles, Maduro Moros negotiated multi-ton shipments of FARC-produced cocaine; directed that the Crtel de Los Soles provide military-grade weapons to the FARC; coordinated foreign affairs with Honduras and other countries to facilitate large-scale drug trafficking; and solicited assistance from FARC leadership in training an unsanctioned militia group that functioned, in essence, as an armed forces unit for the Crtel de Los Soles.

An indictment unsealed today in the District of Columbia charges Vladimir Padrino Lopez, 56, Minister of Defense of Venezuela. The indictment alleges that from March 2014 until May 2019, Padrino Lopez conspired with others to distribute cocaine on board an aircraft registered in the United States.

Padrino Lopez, who holds the rank of General in the Venezuelan armed forces, held the authority for interdicting aircraft, many of which are registered in the United States, suspected of being used to traffic drugs from Venezuela to countries in Central America. On numerous occasions, Padrino Lopez ordered or authorized the Venezuelan military to force suspected trafficking aircraft to land or to shoot down the aircraft. However, Padrino Lopez allowed for other aircraft whose drug trafficking coordinators paid bribes to him to safely transit Venezuelan airspace.

Maikel Jose Moreno Perez, 54, current Chief Justice of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, was charged via a criminal complaint in the Southern District of Florida with conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering in connection with the alleged corrupt receipt or intended receipt of tens of millions of dollars and bribes to illegally fix dozens of civil and criminal cases in Venezuela.

The complaint alleges, for example, that the defendant authorized a seizure and sale of a General Motors auto plant with an estimated value of $100 million in exchange for a personal percentage of the proceeds. Similarly, the complaint alleges that the defendant received bribes to authorize the dismissal of charges or release against Venezuelans, including one charged in a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme against the Venezuelan state-owned oil company.

It felt like a classic tourist trap but there I was, the narco-tourist and I felt like I had to dutifully play my role, so I walked in. The room was filled with various photos and memorabilia of Pablo, including fake guns, a life-size likeness of the infamous thug holding a walkie-talkie. In the corner there was a display case with a host of Pablo-related souvenirs, including key chains and figurines bearing his likeness.

Barrio Pablo Escobar is an ordinary working class neighborhood, full of small, well kept homes built at a steep angle on the hill. I met a young man in a neat school uniform who told me he was a refugee from Venezuela. (My word choice, not his.) He knew nothing about Pablo but told me it was a nice place to live. I wandered the neighborhood, exchanging nods.

Pablo ordered the killing of an estimated 4,000 people and the toll included judges, journalists, high-ranking government officials, four presidential candidates, more than 600 cops (he offered a 2,000,000 peso bounty for their heads), and plenty of innocent bystanders, like the 25 teenagers he killed when he ordered the bombing of a discotheque.

In 2011, the Colombian government completed a series of escalators that rise 384 meters into this hillside neighborhood, sparing some residents from having to climb 28 stories worth of steps to get to their homes. This came on the heels of other important public transportation milestones that have helped transform the city: the completion of the Medelln metro in 1995, and the opening of metro cable (gondolas) to service many of the favela neighborhoods in 2004, 2008 and 2009.

I felt more than a little bewildered by the crush of foreign tourists and the myriad of young people decked out in Comuna 13 hats and t-shirts offering neighborhood tours and Comuna 13 souvenirs. A dodgy neighborhood had turned its poverty and violent past into a marketable commodity, attractive to tourists using escalators one could find at a mall and graffiti branded as street art. Ingenuous.

A brigade of some 400 troops stormed the compound; Mendoza escaped in the ensuing chaos, but so did Escobar and nine of his men. A sergeant from the Directorate General of Prisons, Mina Olmedo, was shot and killed, and eleven other guards were badly injured.

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In Syria today, Captagon is best understood not as a specific drug, but as a generic class of synthetic stimulants. Only rarely do the pills sold as Captagon contain fenethylline, the active compound found in trademarked Captagon. Instead, the pills produced in Syria today are usually made from a cocktail of more common substances, including caffeine, amphetamine, and theophylline.[9] Formulas are adapted based on available resources, including diverted pharmaceuticals and pre-synthesised compounds that are transported overland and encapsulated in Syria. Despite these circumstances, the narcotic pills trafficked in Syria are commonly branded with the half-moon that denotes genuine Captagon.[10] Two grades of these so-called Captagon pills are found in the country: low-quality yellow pills and higher-quality white pills. The latter are more expensive and tend to be exported.

No group has been more closely associated with the Syrian Captagon trade than IS. This association has persisted in large part because of sensational foreign media coverage.[19] Erroneous initial reports that the massive July 2020 Captagon shipment intercepted in Italy was intended to finance IS are indicative of the pervasive nature of this false association. However, available evidence suggests that IS has had limited direct links to the drug trade, apart from relatively minor local incidents.

Narcotics leave Syria bound for three main destinations: North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Europe. Available evidence indicates that Europe currently serves as a transit hub for narcotics bound primarily for markets in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

In northern Syria, Turkey has staunched cross-border drug flow by imposing significant crossing restrictions. For extended periods, authorities have closed border checkpoints with areas held by the Syrian Government in Lattakia and with areas held by the YPG in northern Aleppo and Ar-Raqqa governorates. Captagon has nonetheless continued to trickle across the Turkish border via established smuggling routes, while more sophisticated narco-enterprises have moved drugs into Turkey at scale. Apart from rare incidents, southern Turkey has apparently functioned primarily as a conduit to consumer markets elsewhere in the Middle East, rather than as a major Captagon production hub in its own right.[25]

Until its recapture by the Syrian Government in conjunction with Russian forces in 2018, southern Syria was among the most fragmented regions of the country. Violence and occasional clashes between Jordanian security personnel prompted the closure of the Nasib border crossing in 2015, dealing a devastating blow to regional industries dependent on overland trade (see: Syria Update 18-24 October 2018). Nonetheless, southern Syria has remained a vital exit point for Syrian narcotics, including smuggling routes through remote desert regions bordering Jordan (see: Syria Update 25 January 2021). Critically, the overland route through Jordan furnishes access to the Arab Gulf via Saudi Arabia, which is believed to be the single largest market for Captagon in the world. With the exception of As-Sweida Governorate, much of southern Syria was under the control of various armed opposition and extremist groups until summer 2018. Jordanian amphetamine seizure data suggests that there has been a relatively steady stream of drug trafficking through the country, which can reasonably be linked to Syrian intermediaries.

Active conflict in Syria has ebbed with the general slowdown brought about by COVID-19, while intransigent foreign powers impede progress toward a lasting solution to the conflict. The longer the Syria crisis festers, the more complex its impacts will become. Notionally, however, traditional counter-narcotics approaches will be hampered even in a post-conflict setting by the institutionalised nature of Syrian narco-trafficking and its ties to conflict actors and transnational criminal networks in the Middle East and Europe.[42] Inside Syria, traditional counter-narcotics approaches rooted in support for alternate livelihoods or disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) strategies are therefore unlikely to be effective on a macroscale. Likewise, for narco-entrepreneurs and decentralised drug networks, the economic and protection incentives will far outweigh the risks so long as sustainable livelihood options are lacking. Policymakers and aid actors are not entirely powerless to effect change, however. The Syrian narco-state poses two distinct problem sets. Although one of these hinges on a solution to the current crisis, a harm-reduction approach can reasonably begin to contend with the second.

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