Word: colombianizing
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...snuffing out the business in Colombia remains a disheartening undertaking. For one, the traffickers have infiltrated virtually every segment of Colombian society. At least 100 air force personnel and 200 national policemen have reportedly been discharged because of drug connections; last year Attorney General Jimenez ordered investigations of 400 judges suspected of complicity in the trade. A particularly damaging cocaine link was revealed earlier this month when Roman Medina, the personal press secretary of President Betancur, was arrested on suspicion of helping smuggle 2.7 kilos of cocaine into Spain in two diplomatic pouches...
...figures in the cocaine business continue to elude the authorities. Washington has stationed 16 antinarcotics agents in Colombia and hopes to budget a record $9.2 million for its Colombian campaign in fiscal 1985. By comparison, Drug King Escobar is said to command a personal army of more than 2,000 retainers and a fortune estimated at more than $2 billion. Escobar, who is suspected of having taken out the contract on Lara's life and is wanted in the U.S. on charges of smuggling ten tons of cocaine into the country, at one time faced just one charge in Colombia...
...business of the Colombian drug czars has emerged from the shadows, their illicit dealings with neighboring countries like Panama have also come to light. Ever since the cocaine market began to prosper, some Panamanians have taken money in exchange for allowing the coqueros to use their country as a transshipment point. In addition, a few corrupt Panamanian bankers have permitted the Colombians to take advantage of the strictest banking secrecy laws in the hemisphere by laundering drug dollars. Last June U.S. customs agents in Miami discovered that a DC-8 jet transport, owned by Inair, at the time Panama...
More worrisome for U.S. agents, Panama's role as a middleman has changed to that of a leading player in the drug scene. Last May, in Panama's Darien rain forest, authorities came upon an elaborate cocaine laboratory, almost identical to the complexes across the Colombian border. Some of the 22 Colombians arrested at the site claimed that they had earned the right to process cocaine by paying off a leading Panamanian official. The Colombians were sent home without being charged with a crime...
...While Colombian and Panamanian authorities have made some headway in the fight against drugs, their counterparts in Bolivia and Peru face problems that seem almost insuperable, as underlined by last week's State Department report. For centuries, Andean natives have chewed coca leaves as freely and frequently as Americans drink coffee. Indeed, most Bolivians, including President Hernan Siles Zuazo, routinely offer visitors coca tea. This is all quite legal because there is no law in Bolivia that prohibits either the cultivation or the marketing of coca. From the law-abiding family that earns $200 for a year's harvest...