Stacked Deck: Rewards of Millions in the Hunt for Latin Narco Terrorists
August 02, 2006 12:27 PM
Richard Esposito Reports:
The war on terror is closer to U.S. borders than many think. In Central America, Colombia and other South American nations, three terrorist groups control considerable countryside, wield enormous political clout and fuel their activities by selling cocaine and heroin.
ABC News has obtained a just printed deck of playing cards that law enforcement officials are circulating in Latin America. There U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and U.S. military supplies worth billions of dollars each year are two of the most important tools in fighting the war on terror and on drugs.
The "ACES" of FARC -- Pedro Antonio Marin, Guillermo Varga and Victor Rojas -- command $5 million rewards.
"In the past, state sponsors provided funding for terrorists," a State Department official told the Senate Commission on the Judiciary in 2003, when the trend toward narcotics financing had escalated. "In recent years ... terrorist groups have looked increasingly at drug trafficking and other criminal activities as sources of revenue."
Nowhere is this more true than in Latin America where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) cultivate narcotics, tax the raising of opium crops and control distribution of heroin and cocaine.
FARC's strength and the size of its armed forces are directly related to its successful use of narcotics for funding the organization's activities.
The State Department, law enforcement and intelligence analysts tell ABC News that FARC's largesse is a substantial corrupting influence on the government and the military.
U.S. policy is determined to buttress the influence of Colombia's government in Bogotá. FARC is determined to destabilize it.
While the government has made some inroads, FARC has remained powerful until recently when the Drug Enforcement Administration using financial crime tools and paramilitary-trained agents cracked down hard and collared a number of key FARC officials. But still many remain at large.
The "recompensa" for "KINGS" of FARC is also $5 million for information leading to their capture. The "JOKERS" in the deck -- those already collared by U.S. feds and Colombian national narcotics cops -- include FARC's chief of finance, Nayibe Rojas, who was extradited to the United States for prosecution recently.
The deck bears the logo of Colombia's counter-narcotics forces and the motto, "Dios y victoria," God and Victory. But a little cash on the barrelhead, it seems, never hurts.