Cocaine Bubble???

Forum4PoliticsBot · May 4, 2012

I think I can say with reasonable certainty that a considerable portion of the residential and commercial construction in my fair city has been driven by 1) cocaine sales (breakfast in Paris for the well-to-do who still show up for work) in America, 2) the need by the kingpins to launder all those $billions, and, 3) the local laundromats, i.e., the banks and bankers,.

Cocaine use is down in the U.S. due to the economy (the cocaine bubble). When do you expect the next shovel to be turned?

I actually think the my little town (roughly 1,000,000 souls) is going to dry up and blow away unless people start consuming again.

Thread started at Forum 4 Politics on 05-04-2012 11:10 AM

waltky · Jun 3, 2012

Now we know what the banks have been doin' with their money...

Western banks reaping billions from cocaine trade
Mon, Jun 04, 2012 - The vast profits made from drug production and trafficking are overwhelmingly reaped in rich consuming countries principally across Europe and in the US rather than war-torn producing nations such as Colombia and Mexico, new research has revealed. Its authors claim that financial regulators in the West are reluctant to go after Western banks in pursuit of the massive amount of drug money being laundered through their systems.

The most far-reaching and detailed analysis to date of the drug economy in any country in this case, Colombia showed that 2.6 percent of the total street value of cocaine produced remains within the country, while a staggering 97.4 percent of profits are reaped by criminal syndicates and laundered by banks, in first-world consuming countries. The story of who makes the money from Colombian cocaine is a metaphor for the disproportionate burden placed in every way on producing nations like Colombia as a result of the prohibition of drugs, said one of the authors of the study, Alejandro Gaviria, launching its English edition last week. The whole system operated by authorities in the consuming nations is based around going after the small guy, the weakest link in the chain and never the big business or financial systems where the big money is, co-author Daniel Mejia added,

The work, by the two economists at University of the Andes in Bogota, is part of an initiative by the Colombian government to overhaul global drugs policy and focus on money laundering by the big banks in the US and Europe, as well as social prevention of drug taking and consideration of options for decriminalizing some or all drugs. The economists surveyed an entire range of economic, social and political facets of the drug wars that have ravaged Colombia. The conflict has now shifted, with deadly consequences, to Mexico and it is feared could spread to central America. However, the most shocking conclusion relates to what the authors call the microeconomics of cocaine production in their country.

Gaviria and Mejia estimate that the lowest possible street value (at US$100 per gram) of net cocaine, after interdiction produced in Colombia during the year studied (200 amounted to US$300 -billion, but of that only US$7.8 billion remained in the country. It is a minuscule proportion of GDP, Mejia said, which can impact disastrously on society and political life, but not on the Colombian economy. The economy for Colombian cocaine is outside Colombia. If countries like Colombia benefited economically from the drug trade, there would be a certain sense in it all, Gaviria said. Instead, we have paid the highest price for someone elses profits Colombia, and now Mexico.

The mechanisms of laundering drug money were highlighted in the Observer last year after a rare settlement in Miami between US federal authorities and Wachovia Bank, which admitted to transferring US$110 million of drug money into the US, but failing to properly monitor a staggering US$376 billion brought into the bank through small exchange houses in Mexico over four years (Wachovia has since been taken over by Wells Fargo, which has cooperated with the investigation). However, no one went to jail, and the bank is now in the clear.

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waltky · Aug 1, 2012

Peru takes the gold medal in cocaine production, edging out Columbia...

White House: Peru displaces Colombia as top cocaine producer
July 30, 2012 | Peru has regained its former distinction as the worlds top cocaine producer, according to an annual White House report, issued Monday, that says Colombias output fell sharply last year, putting the former leader in third place behind Bolivia.

The report by the Office of National Drug Control Policy diverged from a U.N. monitors report last week that estimated Colombian cocaine production at a much higher level. No reason was given for the disparity in the reports, which usually track each other closely. The White House report estimates Peruvian cocaine production last year at 358 U.S. tons, followed by Bolivia with 292 tons and Colombia at 215 tons. Its the first year since 1997 that Colombia has not led in global cocaine output in the report. The recent figures represent a 25% drop from White House estimates that Colombia produced 286 tons of cocaine in 2010, topping all producers.

Peru was the world's leading producer of the drug through most of the 1980s and 1990s, before Colombian drug traffickers introduced crops here in a bid to form vertically integrated cocaine cartels. Both the White House and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime use satellite imagery, on-the-ground monitoring, seizures and other indicators to come up with their estimates of cocaine production. The U.N. survey on July 25 pegged potential Colombian cocaine output last year at 380 tons and said output had declined only about 1% from the year before. It did not release Peruvian and Bolivian output estimates, which are due out next month.

In prepared remarks to a Washington think tank Monday, Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House drug policy office, described Colombias reduction as historic and credited strategic pressure across more than one administration in both the United States and Colombia for the decline. Kerlikowske was referring to Plan Colombia, a U.S. taxpayer-funded program to combat drugs and terrorism that has funneled $8 billion to Colombia since 2000, the largest U.S. foreign aid program outside the Middle East and Afghanistan. The security threat that the United States and Colombia faced in 1999 is gone, Kerlikowske said. We dont just have a safe Colombia, we have a vibrant Colombia that is an active partner in helping with the drug and criminal issue in the region.

Colombia is helping train anti-narcotics police and pilots in Mexico and Central America. Speaking in the city of Rio Negro on Monday, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos hailed the report as confirmation of his strategy of cutting terrorists financing sources. Authorities say the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia uses drug trafficking profits to finance its war against government forces. According to the White House document, Colombian cocaine production has fallen 72% since 2001, when the country produced an estimated 771 tons. The U.N. estimates show a similar percentage decline in Colombian cocaine production over the decade: down 65% from 1,070 tons in 2001.

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waltky · Sep 5, 2012

Cocaine granny gets taste of her own medicine...

Colombian 'Godmother of Cocaine' gunned down in Medellin
Sep 04, 2012 - Griselda Blanco, the 69-year-old Colombian drug boss who pioneered the use of motorcyle-riding assassins among warring gangs, has been gunned down herself in Medellin, TheMiami Herald reports.

Blanco -- dubbed the "Godmother of Cocaine" --spent 18 years in prison in the United States for drug trafficking and three murders, including the death in Miami in 1982 of the 2-year-old son of one of her former "enforcers," the Herald reports. She was deported to Colombia in 2004. The Medellin newspaper El Colombiano says Blanco was shot to death Monday by a gunman who pulled up to her on his motorcycle as she stepped out of a butcher shop.

The newspaper says she was with her pregnant daughter-in-law, who was not injured. The woman told police that Blanco was no longer involved in organized crime and planned to live off the sale of several of her properties. El Colombiano reports that Blanco, who was born into poverty, got her start in crime after marrying into a family known for stealing wallets at fairs and carnivals.

At the height of her criminal activity, the Herald reports, Blanco was smuggling 3,400 pounds of cocaine a month to the United States by boat and plane. She has also been linked to at least 40 murders, many in violent ambushes that were a trademark of the "cocaine cowboy" drug rivalries. El Colombiano says Blanco was obsessed with the Sicilian mafia and even named her youngest son after Michael Corleone, the Mob-boss role portrayed by Al Pacino in The Godfather films.

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Miami Vice: 'Godmother of Cocaine' who built Florida drug empire shot dead in her Colombian hometown by assassin on motorbike
4 September 2012 | Gangland matriarch Griselda Blanco shot in head as she left butcher's; Colombian jailed in U.S. for three murders, including a two-year-old boy; Mother-of-four credited with inventing idea of a 'motorcycle assassin'; Symbolised notorious 'cocaine cowboys' era of 1970s and 80s Miami; At its height, her empire shipped around 3,400lbs of cocaine a month; Ex-detective: 'Its surprising to all of us she had not been killed sooner'

A ruthless drug smuggler known as the 'Godmother of Cocaine' who was jailed in the U.S. for three chilling murders has been gunned down by a motorcycle-riding hitman. Griselda Blanco, 69, was believed to have ordered dozens of executions during the notorious 'cocaine cowboys' era of the 1970s and 80s in Miami. In a grim irony, the mode of her killing was eerily similar to the brutal drive-by killings she herself introduced to slaughter her enemies.

Although she was suspected of murdering many more, the Colombian was eventually convicted of three killings in 1985, including that of a two-year-old boy, for which she served nearly 20 years behind bars. In 2004, she was deported to her native country and maintained a low profile in her hometown of Medellin. According to Columbian press reports, she was walking out of a butcher's shop yesterday when two gunmen on motorbikes pulled up before one pumped two bullets into her head. For a woman who had been credited with inventing the notion of a 'motorcycle assassin', the manner of her death came as no surprise to many, it was reported in The Miami Herald.

Nelson Andreu, a former Miami homicide detective who had investigated her, said: 'Its surprising to all of us that she had not been killed sooner because she made a lot of enemies. 'When you kill so many and hurt so many people like she did, its only a matter of time before they find you and try to even the score.' Brought up in the slums of Medellin, Blanco went from a simple pickpocket to command an empire that shipped an estimated 3,400lbs of cocaine a month. She also symbolised the blood-soaked era of the 1970s and 80s when gangs would ambush their rivals in public, leading to her cartel being dubbed the 'Cocaine Cowboys'. She ran the empire with three of her sons, two of whom were later assassinated in Columbia, while three of her husbands have also been killed in drug-related violence.

Known for her flamboyant lifestyle, she named one of her sons Michael Corleone in tribute to The Godfather movies. Blanco's exploits were also popularised in the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys, which explored the rise of the drug in Miami during the 1970s and 80s which inspired the films Scarface and Miami Vice. Interviewees argue that Blanco played a major role in the history of the drug trade in the city and other areas across America. Detectives believe she was behind at least 40 murders and maybe even as many as 240, but could only link her to three. Two of them, drug dealers Alfredo and Grizel Lorenzo, were shot at their South Miami house after failing to pay $250,000 for 5kg of cocaine.

Blanco was also convicted of ordering a shooting that led to the death of two-year-old Johnny Castro, who was shot twice in the head as he drove in the car with his father, Jesus 'Chucho' Castro. She was fully expected to end up on Florida's Death Row. But she was able to cut a plea deal after the prosecution's case suffered a major setback when a chief witness was caught engaging in phone sex with secretaries from the attorney's office. Blanco later entered into a bargain with new prosecutors and was given three 20-year sentences in 1985. She only served a third of that time.

FLOOD OF COCAINE BROUGHT ECONOMIC BOOM TO MIAMI IN 1970s AND 80s
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waltky · Jun 15, 2013

Fishermen haul in cartel drugs floating in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida...

Destin fishermen find $2.5M in cartel drugs floating in Gulf
June 13, 2013 | Some fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico off Destin, Fla., reeled in a major haul Wednesday - 25 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of $2.5 million, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office.

The five fishermen spotted a bale floating in the water about 2.5 miles south of East Pass and pulled it onto their boat, the sheriff's office reported. When they saw the package contained individually wrapped "bricks," they called the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Destin. After interviewing the fishermen, the Coast Guard turned the package over to the sheriff's office, said sheriff's spokeswoman Michele Nicholson.

The Okaloosa County Multi-Agency Drug Task Force determined that the 55-pound bale had a street value of $2.5 million. Investigators are trying to determine where the package originated. At least one of the bricks is marked with "OO," indicating that it may have come from Venezuela, Nicholson said. The cocaine likely belonged to a cartel, officials said. Located on Florida's Emerald Coast, Destin is about 150 miles southwest of Tallahassee.

Last Christmas Eve, the Coast Guard seized 85 pounds of cocaine from a ship off the Galveston coast. The crew of the 900-foot oil tanker Godavari Spirit notified Coast Guard Sector Houston-Galveston that they located a suspicious package hidden aboard their ship and suspected it to contain narcotics. A thorough search by the team uncovered 31 packages of cocaine with an estimated street value of $1.1 million, the Coast Guard reported.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-t...shermen-find-2-5M-in-cartel-drugs-4598326.php
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waltky · Jul 21, 2013

Armed Coast Guard helicopter busts cocaine runners...

4 held in Caribbean coke bust carried out by armed Coast Guard helicopter
July 21, 2013 — The U.S. Coast Guard unloaded 2,300 pounds of cocaine seized this week in the central Caribbean, displaying the bales of drugs valued at $35 million during a press conference in Miami Beach, Fla., on Saturday.

Four people were arrested in the operation, in which a Coast Guard helicopter fired shots to disable the engine of a drug-smuggling fast boat. The four defendants are now in the custody of federal authorities in Tampa, Fla. Lt. Comm. Gabe Somma, a Coast Guard spokesman, said the seizure was part of Operation Unified Resolve, which started in October of last year and focuses attention on drug smuggling in the Caribbean, especially around Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. “That’s where we’ve been seeing an increase in trafficking and in drug-related homicides,” Somma said.

The operation started shortly before midnight July 14, when the Coast Guard said it spotted a go-fast boat speeding away from land and carrying what appeared to be bales of narcotics, said Lt. Paul Stetler, commanding officer of a Coast Guard cutter involved in the seizure. Two Coast Guard cutters responded, one of which was equipped with an armed helicopter, which flew over the smuggling boat. “Once they announced their presence, the go-fast began to flee,” Stetler said. The people on the boat also started throwing the drug packages off the side of the boat into the ocean, officials said. “The helicopter then used disabling fire to shoot out the engines of the go-fast,” Stetler said.

Crew members from the Coast Guard Cutter Robert J. Yered offload and guard 2,300 pounds of cocaine at Coast Guard Base Miami Beach, Fla., on July 20, 2013. The seized cocaine, worth an estimated $35 million, was found aboard a go-fast vessel in the Caribbean Sea

Coast Guard helicopters typically use a 50-caliber rifle to disable the engines of fleeing boats, said Lt. Mario Gil of the Coast Guard’s Seventh district in Miami. “A lot of the time it doesn’t take that much — they’ll just stop because we’re there,” Gil said. “But if they don’t, this is a capability that we have, and we use it frequently.” After the go-fast boat was disabled, Stetler’s ship, the Coast Guard cutter Robert Yered, spent 10 hours scouring the water for the discarded drugs. They eventually discovered 42 bales of cocaine, Stetler said. According to Gil, that amount is the average load that can typically be transported by small go-fast boats.

Operation Unified Resolve, a multi-agency drug interdiction strategy launched by the Department of Homeland Security last October, has led to the seizure of some 40,000 pounds of cocaine — a street valued of around $600 million, Gil said. Unified Resolve was largely a reaction to the results of Operation Martillo, an earlier Homeland Security–coordinated endeavor that targeted smugglers in the southwestern Caribbean near the Central American coast. “We believe this operation has pushed smugglers to take a more central route through the Caribbean,” Gil said. Somma, the Coast Guard spokesman, said that “Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are a lot closer to the United States,” and traffickers “figure that if they can get there, they’ll have an easier time getting into the U.S.”

4 held in Caribbean coke bust carried out by armed Coast Guard helicopter - U.S. - Stripes
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waltky · Aug 11, 2013

Cocaine prices likely to go up...

Colombia's Coca Cultivation Falls
August 09, 2013 Coca cultivation in Colombia, the world's biggest cocaine producer, fell by a quarter in 2012 as the state cracked down on the crop and farmers diversified away from it, data showed on Thursday.

The area under coca cultivation shrank to 48,000 hectares at year's end from 64,000 a year earlier although farmers may have planted as much as 135,000 hectares during the year in a cat-and-mouse game with police, according to an annual survey. Authorities eradicated by hand nearly 30,500 hectares of coca bushes and sprayed over three times more from the air, similar to 2011 levels, the report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Bogota government showed.

A farmer shows coca leaves collected in her garden,

It estimated the farm-gate value of coca leaf and derivatives such as coca paste and cocaine base at $370 million in 2012 - down from $422 million the year before - worth 0.2 percent of national economic output. While prices were mostly stable for cocaine base and paste, the coca leaf yield per hectare fell and the number of households linked to coca growing fell 3 percent to 60,600. With the average gross income of a farmer selling coca leaf estimated at $1,220 per year, coca production does not fetch the same lucrative rewards as in the past, the report said.

It put 2012 production of pure cocaine at around 309 tons, in line with the 2011 figure, while cocaine seizures rose by a fifth to around 188 tons. Bo Mathiasen, UNODC representative in Colombia, said government efforts to eradicate the illicit coca crop were having a visible impact but that farmers often simply replant bushes in new or previously cleared fields. Peru, Colombia and Bolivia are the world's biggest coca producers. Official data earlier this week showed Bolivia's cultivation fell for the second consecutive year in 2012.

http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-colombia-coca-crop-falls-in-2012-says-un/1726512.html
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waltky · Sep 23, 2013

France busts record cocaine haul...

Record cocaine haul discovered on Air France plane
Mon, Sep 23, 2013 - French police have seized a record haul of 1.3 tonnes of pure cocaine found on board an Air France passenger plane, French Minister on the Interior Manuel Valls said on Saturday.

The drugs, seized on Sept. 11, had been packed into 30 suitcases, Valls told a news conference in Nanterre, outside Paris, adding that this was the biggest-ever haul in metropolitan France. A source close to the investigation said the flight had originated in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, adding that the cocaine had a street value of about 200 million euros (US$270 million). The operation was carried out in collaboration with Spanish, British and Dutch police, and Valls said several members of a criminal organization had been arrested.

Valls said the seizure illustrated the importance of strengthening international cooperation in the fight against traffickers, as he displayed the 30 empty suitcases that had contained the cocaine and were not linked to any of the passengers on the flight. Valls said 4 tonnes of cocaine had been seized in France since the start of the year. Such a seizure, in such circumstances, is quite simply exceptional, French police commander Mohamed Douhane said. Now an inquiry ... will have to determine if there were other accomplices, whether within the company or at the arrival or departure airports, he added.

Authorities in Caracas said they had also launched an investigation to determine the origins of the haul. The office of Venezuelas attorney general said in a brief statement that prosecutors and National Guard anti-drug police are investigating how the cocaine-laden suitcases got aboard the flight at the Simon Bolivar International Airport, and who was behind the smuggling operation.

Cocaine comes from coca leaves grown in countries like Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Venezuela does not produce cocaine, according to UN monitors, but drug traffickers are increasingly using its territory to smuggle drugs into other nations. Last year, Venezuelan police seized about 45 tonnes of illegal drugs, according to government figures.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2013/09/23/2003572827
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waltky · Sep 25, 2015

Mebbe dey was gonna make rice pudding?...

Rice impregnated with cocaine found en-route to Europe
Fri, Sep 25, 2015 - Argentine customs agents found about 30kg of cocaine hidden in a way they had never seen before when drug-sniffing dogs found the drug had been absorbed into grains of rice headed for Europe via Africa, an official said on Wednesday.

The bust underscores the role Argentina has come to play as a shipping point for cocaine produced in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, destined for Africa and then smuggled north to the lucrative markets of Europe. In this case, drug runners soaked rice in water that had been mixed with cocaine, Argentinas customs agency head of narcotic investigations Guillermo Gonzalez said. When the water evaporated, he said, the rice was left invisibly impregnated with the addictive stimulant. Its a new method. This is the first time weve seen technology this sophisticated, Gonzalez said.

He said that rather than employing a chemical process to extract the cocaine from the rice once it reached its destination, the traffickers likely planned to grind the grains into fine powder and sell it as cocaine. Pure cocaine is too strong to be ingested without being cut with something. It might have been their plan to cut this shipment with the same rice that was used to carry it, he added.

Twelve suspects, including Argentines and Colombians, have been arrested in what has been called Operation White Rice. The scheme was discovered on Thursday last week when drug sniffing dogs detected cocaine in a cargo of 50kg rice sacks at a warehouse in Rosario, Santa Fe.

It was kept secret for a week while security agents hunted for more suspects. The investigation indicates we have to keep looking. We know that these are international criminal organizations, Gonzalez said. The plan was to ship the cargo to Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony. Each of the white sacks was stamped Country of Origin: Argentina.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2015/09/25/2003628577
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waltky · Oct 2, 2015

Columbia bursts drug kingpin's bubble...

Colombian military kills warlord of rural cocaine fiefdom
Oct 2,`15 -- A years-long manhunt for a ruthless cocaine warlord who ruled a remote rural fiefdom with an armed band and generous bribes has ended with a military raid that killed the man officials called Colombia's second most-wanted criminal.

Victor Navarro, a 39-year-old better known by the alias "Megateo," long dominated the historically lawless Catatumbo region that hugs Venezuela. It is where he was killed Thursday night in a ground and air attack, authorities said. Law officials had been fixated on him because of what he represented: the possible future of organized crime in Colombia if nearly three-year-old peace talks between the government and the country's largest rebel group succeed. With a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head and a 2011 drug-trafficking indictment pending in Florida, Navarro had faced 45 arrest warrants and Colombian prosecutors said he was suspected in dozens of killings.

He was especially hunted for a 2006 ambush in which his men killed 17 soldiers and intelligence agents who had set out from Bogota to capture him but were betrayed by a double agent, a secret police detective who abandoned the operation at the last minute and is now serving a 40-year sentence for murder. Navarro claimed to lead the last remaining faction of the Popular Liberation Army, a rebel movement that disbanded in 1991. But to authorities, he was nothing more than one of Colombia's main cocaine traffickers, a criminal heavyweight whose muscle and ability to evade capture derived from the fear he instilled and alliances he made with gangs of former far-right militiamen and with the country's two largest rebel groups.

Colombia's most-wanted criminal, Dario Antonio Usuga, is a veteran of far-right militias who heads a much larger organization known as the Urabenos, with an estimated 2,000 gunmen. A thickly built man of medium height, Navarro was notorious for his garish jewelry. He wore a big gold ring on each hand - one encrusted with diamonds, the other emeralds. In one photo police obtained in a raid, a golden pistol hangs from a necklace. His brazenness drew comparisons, although in miniature, to Pablo Escobar, the cocaine kingpin who terrorized Colombia for two decades until he was killed by police in 1993.

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Draco · Oct 2, 2015

waltky said: ↑

Columbia bursts drug kingpin's bubble...

Colombian military kills warlord of rural cocaine fiefdom
Oct 2,`15 -- A years-long manhunt for a ruthless cocaine warlord who ruled a remote rural fiefdom with an armed band and generous bribes has ended with a military raid that killed the man officials called Colombia's second most-wanted criminal.
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Wow man, you are the only one to post in this for the last three years.

When are you next in So Cal? Based on your fervor and interest in this subject you sound like a fun guy to party with....

waltky · Oct 14, 2015

Somebody bein' paid off...

Peru military fails to act as narco planes fly freely
Oct 14,`15 -- It happens about four times a day, right under the nose of Peru's military: A small single-engine plane drops onto a dirt airstrip in the world's No. 1 coca-growing valley, delivers a bundle of cash, picks up more than 300 kilos of cocaine and flies to Bolivia.

Roughly half of Peru's cocaine exports have been ferried eastward on this "air bridge," police say, since the rugged Andean nation became the world's leading producer of the drug in 2012. Peru's government has barely impeded the airborne drug flow. Prosecutors, narcotics police, former military officers and current and former U.S. drug agents say that while corruption is rife in Peru, the narco-flight plague is the military's failure because it controls the remote jungle region known as the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valley. Wilson Barrantes, a retired army general who has long complained about military drug corruption, said giving the military control over the valley is "like putting four street dogs to guard a plate of beefsteak."

Peruvian counternarcotics police blast a hole in a clandestine airstrip used by cocaine traffickers in Ciudad Constitucion, Peru. President Ollanta Humala points to the cratering of these landing strips more than 550 times as part of the country's success against the drug trade. Traffickers quickly fill the holes using local labor, police say.

Deputy Defense Minister Ivan Vega, who runs counterinsurgency efforts in the region, said that he was not aware of any military officials under investigation. "Corruption exists, but we are always looking out for it," he said. "If we know of anyone involved, we'll throw the book at them." But an Associated Press investigation found that "narco planes" have been loaded with drugs at landing strips just minutes by air from military bases in the remote, nearly road-less valley where about two-thirds of Peru's cocaine originates. Videos obtained by AP show small planes landing on clandestine air strips in the jungle region, about the size of Ireland. Elite squads of narcotics police hidden on nearby hilltops videotaped the landings, but were too outgunned to intervene, said two narcotics police officers who provided the videos but declined to speak on the record for fear of losing their jobs. Cocaine regularly disappears aloft in Cessna 206 planeloads, each worth upward of $7.2 million overseas.

The operations normally last about 10 minutes, usually just after dawn and tightly choreographed: A dozen or so cocaine-laden backpackers appear on a landing strip's fringe as the GPS-guided plane, its pilot having broken radio silence a few minutes earlier, approaches. Men with assault rifles guard the strip. Money is offloaded, drugs are jammed into the cabin. The motor re-engages. The plane departs. One pilot told the AP that some local military officers charge $10,000 per flight to allow the planes to land and take off unbothered. Concern over the flights spurred Peru's congress to pass a law in August that authorizes shooting down drug planes. But critics say the government lacks the will to do the job, having inexplicably scrapped plans to buy and install the necessary state-of-the-art radar.

MORE PERU'S DRUG WAR: "DISTORTED, INCOHERENT AND INERT"
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waltky · Oct 15, 2015

Peru launches investigation into military drug corruption...

Peru announces probe after AP drug plane report
Oct 14,`15 -- Peru's defense minister announced Wednesday an investigation into allegations of military corruption in the world's No. 1 cocaine-producing valley after The Associated Press reported that the armed forces turned a blind eye to the ferrying of cocaine abroad by small planes.

The official, Jakke Valakivi, said the defense ministry and the joint armed forces command would investigate together. Peru's armed forces have failed to effectively impede an "air bridge" that has delivered more than ton of cocaine a day to Bolivia in flights that stepped up in tempo in the past few years, according to prosecutors, drug police, former military officers and current and former U.S. drug agents. In part because of the nearly unhindered "air bridge" from the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valley, Peru surpassed Colombia in 2012 as the world's No. 1 cocaine exporter. Police say the airborne flow accounts for roughly half of its production, with each planeload worth at least $7.2 million overseas.

A military attack helicopter flies over Pichari, Peru in the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valley, or VRAEM. It is the world's No. 1 coca-growing region. Roughly half of Peruâs cocaine exports have been ferried eastward, police say, since the rugged Andean nation became the worldâs leading producer of the drug in 2012.

The trafficking got so brazen that congress voted unanimously in August to authorize shooting down the single-engine planes. But the government this year inexplicably scrapped plans to buy the required state-of-the-art radar, a $71 million expenditure it announced last November. President Ollanta Humala has just eight months left in office - and an approval rating below 15 percent. The "narco planes" have touched down just minutes by air from military bases in the nearly road-less region known by its Spanish acronym as the VRAEM. About four times a day, they drop onto dirt airstrips, deliver cash and pick up more than 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of partially refined cocaine, police say.

The AP obtained video of two such transactions taken by drug police who said they were too outgunned by assault rifle-wielding sentinels to intervene. Wilson Barrantes, a retired army general who has long complained about military drug corruption, said giving the armed forces control of the cocaine-producing valley is "like putting four street dogs to guard a plate of beefsteak." One accused narco-pilot interviewed by the AP said some local military commanders charge $10,000 per flight to let cocaine commerce go unhindered. Prior to publication, the AP repeatedly requested interviews with Valakivi, armed forces commander and air force to discuss the issue. None responded.

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waltky · Dec 6, 2016

Brazil makes biggest ever drug seizure...

Biggest-ever drug seizure made
Tue, Dec 06, 2016 - WHITE CHRISTMAS: The haul, concealed inside lead containers made to look like car batteries, was enough to supply about 11 million people, according to officials

Investigators last week seized more than 200kg of cocaine packed inside car batteries imported from Brazil, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau said yesterday. During the raid on cargo at Kaohsiung customs, investigators also found 51.3kg of amphetamine, the bureau said. It was the biggest drug haul in the nations history, the bureau said, estimating the cocaines market value at NT$2 billion (US$62.5 million). The raid was carried out by Taipei district prosecutors, bureau agents and also coast guard and customs officers following an investigation into a Taipei-based import/export company, the bureau said.

It was found that the company was selling batteries for large cars to Australia at a price of less than NT$10,000 per unit, but that shipping costs were NT$30,000 per unit, the bureau said. An initial inspection of a batch of batteries at Kaohsiung customs on Thursday last week revealed the 51.3kg of amphetamine concealed in fake batteries, the bureau said. One suspect was arrested and a raid on his home turned up NT$2.45 million and several rounds of ammunition, which were seized by investigators, along with a Mercedes sedan, the bureau said.

The following day, a shipment of car batteries from Brazil to the suspect company was searched at Kaohsiung customs, with the aid of sniffer dogs, and 218.45kg of cocaine was found, the bureau said. It said about 200 cocaine bricks were packed into lead containers made to look like car batteries, which meant that scanners were unable to identify the illicit cargo. The amount of cocaine was enough to supply about 11 million people, the bureau said.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/12/06/2003660673
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Cocaine Bubble???

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