COLOMBIAN'S TRAFFICKING, LAUNDERING TRIAL OPENS

TAMPA - Purported to be "one of the largest cocaine traffickers in
Colombia, if not the world," Joaquin Mario Valencia-Trujillo imported
hundreds of tons of the drug into the United States for decades, a
federal prosecutor told jurors Monday.

The biggest catch for the investigators of "Operation Panama
Express," Valencia, 48, is standing trial on charges including drug
trafficking and money laundering. The Tampa-based investigation,
which has spanned more than a decade, is said by officials to be one
of the most extensive drug trafficking investigations in U.S. history.

Valencia's organization was cunning and violent, employing hit teams
to kill potential witnesses and adapting in the face of heat from law
enforcement by constantly changing smuggling routes, Assistant U.S.
Attorney Joseph K. Ruddy said. The prosecutor described a creative
smuggling organization that frequently switched methods of exporting
hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States and millions of
dollars in currency back to Colombia. When airdrops were foiled by
authorities, smugglers turned to the seas. When one maritime route
was shut down, traffickers invented another.

Valencia's attorney, Matthew Farmer, told jurors in his opening
statement that the defense team will vigorously dispute all the
allegations made by the prosecution. Farmer said the government's
only evidence will come from the mouths of drug traffickers who have
cut deals with the government and want to save themselves by making
Valencia serve the prison sentences they deserve.

Farmer also stressed to jurors what they have already been told by
U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich - that they cannot convict
Valencia of any crimes committed before Dec. 17, 1997. A provision in
the Colombian Constitution prohibits extradition for crimes committed
before then.

Valencia, a multimillionaire known for breeding rare show horses, is
accused of being a leader in the Cali Cartel. His estate in Cali is
known as "Casa Blanca," or the White House, Ruddy told jurors. "It
doesn't really look like our White House," Ruddy said. "It looks more
like our Pentagon. But evidence will show you that it is the house
that cocaine built."

Valencia exported cocaine to Miami, Houston, New York, Los Angeles
and Tampa, with his involvement in drug trafficking dating back 30
years, Ruddy said. The furthest back investigators can trace
Valencia's activities is the late 1970s, when Valencia was 20 or 21
years old, Ruddy said.

"Even at that time, the defendant was considered a large cocaine
trafficker," the prosecutor said, and he earned the nickname "El
Jovan," or "the young man."

Ruddy said Manuel Garces, one of the founders of the Medellin Cartel,
introduced Valencia and Valencia's older brother, Guillermo, to
Salvador Magluda and Willie Falcon, two drug traffickers in Miami.
With Valencia's help, the two men became the largest cocaine
distributors in the United States. At one point in 1983 or 1984,
their demand outstripped Valencia's supply, and they briefly turned
to the Medellin Cartel, Ruddy said.

But Valencia increased his capacity and was able to supply Magluda
and Falcon for distribution in Miami, Houston, Los Angeles and New
York, Ruddy said.

When Magluda and Falcon were indicted in the late 1980s or early
1990s, Valencia's head of security, known as "Tocayo," hired hit
teams to go to Miami to kill witnesses, Ruddy said. Four out of 12
witnesses the organization targeted were killed, the prosecutor said.

Ruddy described Valencia's frequent explorations of different ways to
export the drug, starting with airplanes, which became untenable
because of law enforcement attention.

Various shipping routes and vessels were tried and dropped as each
method was disrupted by authorities, Ruddy said. In 1988 or 1989,
Valencia joined forces with Jose Castrillon-Henao and Pedro
Navarette, the operators of a fishing company in Buena Ventura on the
west coast of Colombia.

They developed a route in which empty fishing vessels left Buena
Ventura and headed south, Ruddy said. The vessels met up with smaller
boats carrying loads of cocaine off the coast of Ecuador, then headed
south toward the Galapagos Islands, where they knew U.S. law
enforcement wasn't watching. Then they headed north to a point
several hundred miles off Mexico, where they met other vessels that
took the shipments to Mexico for export to the United States.

Using this method, Ruddy said, Valencia's organization smuggled 100
tons of cocaine into the United States every year.

In January 1992, Valencia was unhappy that he had to pay "exorbitant"
fees to Mexican smugglers, Ruddy said. So he bought two freighters.
One ship, the Harbor, was seized by the U.S. Coast Guard in 1993,
Ruddy said, and Valencia then got rid of the other freighter.

Castrillon was arrested in 1995 and Navarette the next year. Valencia
hired attorneys for the two men and did everything he could to free
them, including trying to bribe officials in Panama, where Castrillon
was being held, Ruddy said. In September 1997, Navarette escaped from
prison in Ecuador, but he was arrested again in September 2002 in Medellin.

In the late '90s, Valencia was smuggling with freighters leaving the
north coast of Colombia with cocaine destined for various points,
including Tampa, Ruddy said. One freighter laden with several tons of
cocaine was unloaded near Tampa in 1999 or 2000, Ruddy said.

But New York "was always Mario Valencia's largest market," where
cocaine commanded the highest price and yielded the greatest profit,
Ruddy said.

The first prosecution witness, Ramon Orozco Mejia, testified he
smuggled about 15 loads of cocaine - from 150 to 500 kilograms - to
New York for Valencia's organization between 1998 and 2000.