WITNESS: IF COCAINE TAKEN, SOMEONE PAYS

TAMPA -- A former Business Manager For Smugglers Testifies How A Drug-
Running Operation Escalated

When a boatload of cocaine disappears on its way to the United States from
Colombia, the person responsible for the shipment could wind up dead.

That insight and others into how the Colombian cocaine cartels operate
emerged Wednesday in testimony in U.S. District Court from a former cartel
associate. He was appearing on behalf of the government in the trial of six
crewmen arrested in April and charged with cocaine smuggling.

The Coast Guard and Navy seized their trawler, the Layneyd, 200 miles off
the coast of Ecuador. It was carrying 4 tons of cocaine bound for the United
States, agents say.

The Layneyd was one of 10 boats the United States has seized in the eastern
Pacific in the past year. It appears to be part of a secret investigation
being run from Tampa. Nearly 19 tons of cocaine have been seized and 58
crewmen arrested.

Such seizures have a drastic and potentially deadly effect on the Colombians
in charge of cocaine shipments, said Reynaldo Avenia-Soto, who worked in the
drug business for 10 years.

Avenia-Soto is the son-in-law of an alleged Cali cartel leader - Jose
Castrillon- Henao. He said he worked for his father-in-law and
Castrillon-Henao's partner, Pedro Navarette. All three men face drug charges
in the United States.

Avenia-Soto said he kept the books for the drug business. He displayed
records for the jury that he said show how the Layneyd's captain, Segundo
Quinones, did three drug runs in 1998.

Avenia-Soto said his records also show that higher-ups in the business
bribed members of the Colombian army and local and federal police. ``It
helped to make the business run,'' he said.

Their cocaine always went to the United States, he said, because that's
where it fetched the best price. Three tons of cocaine worth $6.5 million in
Colombia would be worth $65 million in New York City, he said.

Avenia-Soto began working in the drug business at 21. For the first five
years, business was good. Then problems began.

In 1998, their organization lost a speedboat carrying 2,000 kilograms (about
4,400 pounds) of cocaine. The crew was presumed dead, Avenia- Soto said. The
cocaine was never found.

The owners of the cocaine were upset. They kidnapped Navarette - his boss
and the man in charge of the shipment - and two others for days, Avenia-Soto
said.

Navarette was released only after he agreed to pay for the lost cocaine -
$15 million. Otherwise, he would have been killed, Avenia-Soto said.

``If a load is lost, he is in big trouble,'' Avenia-Soto said. ``He just
gets killed or kidnapped or they threaten to kidnap their families. They
start pressuring him to sell what he has to pay'' for the cocaine.

It forced Navarette to make even more drug shipments that year to make up
the loss, Avenia-Soto said.

Just before Avenia-Soto came to the United States to surrender on drug
charges last May, he talked to a worried Navarette about the loss of another
drug boat. This time it was the Layneyd, which had just been seized,
Avenia-Soto testified.

Avenia-Soto said he came to the United States because he feared for his life
in Colombia. He said members of the drug industry know his father-in-law,
Castrillon- Henao, is cooperating with U.S. agents.

The government is paying his living expenses, Avenia-Soto said. He hasn't
found a legitimate job because his entire working life has been in the drug
industry.

He is cooperating in hopes of reducing his own possible life sentence on
drug charges, Avenia-Soto said. But there's one other reason, too.

``I didn't want to spend my whole life looking over my back,'' he said.

Closing arguments begin today.