$1 BILLION DRUG RING BUSTED, FEDS SAY

Multinational Effort Targeted Colombia

Federal law enforcement officials said Saturday that they and their
partners in 11 other countries had broken up a major international cocaine
trafficking operation that was shipping enormous quantities of the drug
from Colombia to Europe and the United States.

In a two-year effort that culminated last week in a speedboat chase with
guns firing, the seizure of a freighter and a series of storage facility
raids in the Venezuelan jungle, authorities confiscated almost 25 tons of
cocaine worth about $1 billion and arrested 43 people, including Ivan De La
Vega, the alleged leader of the Colombian operation.

"This was one of the largest drug transportation groups ever targeted by
law enforcement," said Raymond Kelly, commissioner of the U.S. Customs
Service, which coordinated the North American elements of the investigation
with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Coast Guard. "We wiped out
a sprawling organization whose tentacles reached around the world."

The Hollywood-like conclusion of the international drug bust-and the arrest
of De La Vega and his alleged "high-level associate" Luis Antonio Navia, a
Cuban national who had been living in Colombia-comes at a sensitive time in
U.S. relations with Colombia and its neighbors and just days before
President Clinton is to visit President Andres Pastrana in Cartegena.

Last Tuesday, Clinton signed a waiver authorizing distribution of a $1.3
billion aid package to fight drug trafficking in Colombia, which the DEA
says is the world's largest producer of cocaine. The move angered some
activists because it came despite the Colombian government's failure to
meet human rights conditions set by Congress. It also irritated Colombia's
neighbors, notably Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil and Peru, which have long
feared that drug eradication efforts in Colombia will only push the problem
over their borders.

In a contentious expression of those feelings, Venezuela has been refusing
to allow U.S. drug interdiction planes to fly through its airspace,
hobbling U.S. efforts to block the flow of drugs through the Caribbean and
leading some in the United States to question President Hugo Chavez's
commitment to the global war on drugs.

But at a Washington news conference Saturday at which the completion of
"Operation Journey" was announced, U.S. authorities emphasized that
Venezuela was a key participant in the two-year effort and a leader in the
final raids on snake-infested bunkers in which soldiers found 10 tons of
cocaine tidily bagged and ready for loading onto ships.

Cocaine trafficking out of Colombia has changed in the past five years. The
capture of Cali cartel kingpins Jose Sanatacruz Londono and brothers
Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela in 1995, and the subsequent arrest
of other leaders the following year, led to a decentralization of the
Colombian wholesale cocaine market.

At the same time, more Colombian cocaine exports have been heading to
Europe, and especially Eastern Europe, where profit margins are higher than
in the United States.

As an offshoot to those trends, trafficking operations out of Colombia are
using ships and personnel from a variety of nations and requiring an
unprecedented amount of cooperation among law enforcement groups.

The latest effort began when European and American officials learned from
informants that Colombian cocaine was being flown and trucked to a secret
base in Venezuela's Orinoco River delta, federal agents familiar with the
investigation said.

From there it was being loaded onto speedboats to huge freighters anchored
offshore. The big ships were mostly laden with legitimate cargo but had
hidden compartments for the drugs.

With the help of informants and intercepted coded telephone messages, U.S.
and European law enforcement officials conducted ship boardings and seizures.

In January 1999, for example, the commercial cargo vessel Cannes was seized
in the Caribbean and towed to the United States before it could get to its
European destination with the 8,367 pounds of cocaine that were stored in
its hold.

Four months later, a similar-size stash was found in sealed-off sewage
tanks on the China Breeze, a 400-foot ship en route to Amsterdam that was
boarded by authorities south of Puerto Rico.

Two other ships, carrying a total of more than 13,000 pounds of cocaine,
were detained and towed to U.S. shores in June and December.

By last month, officials said they had documented a total of 68 tons of
cocaine with a street value of $3 billion shipped by the group -- most of
it to Europe but at least 11 tons to the United States -- one-third of
which they intercepted.

Then, on Aug. 13, amid a shower of bullets, a Venezuelan patrol boat chased
two speedboats, including one carrying 6,600 pounds of cocaine authorities
believe was bound for an offshore cargo ship, the Suerte I, which has since
been seized and is being escorted to the United States.

Three days later, Venezuelan officials raided the jungle encampment on a
delta isle served by a mile-long dirt airstrip, seizing seven speedboats
and other gear as monkeys looked on from the trees, authorities said.

The next day, troops surveying the area found 8,580 pounds of cocaine in a
hidden storage facility. And after a difficult search, nearly 11,000
additional pounds was found in two other bunkers the following week.

Meanwhile, authorities made arrests in several other countries. By the time
the operation had ended, five suspects were in custody in the United
States, including De La Vega, whom DEA Deputy Administrator Julio F.
Mercado Saturday called the "CEO" of the operation. Forty-two others were
being held in the Netherlands, Venezuela, Greece, Italy and France.

Officials said they knew better than to promise that the arrests would put
a big crimp in the international drug trade. But to those entrepreneurs who
hope to fill in the niche left by the arrests, Mercado said: "Law
enforcement will find you, arrest you and put you out of business."