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.