COLOMBIA LAWYERS, COPS LEARN TO TEAM UP TO FIGHT DRUGS

BOGOTA, Colombia -- By eavesdropping on wiretapped telephones, police
investigators uncovered a full-service drug ring.

Gang members were trucking cocaine into the capital and loading it onto
public transportation for the ride to the airport, where cooperative airline
cleaning crews were sending it to the United States. Proceeds were laundered
through wire transfers at foreign-exchange houses.

Police turned the findings over to prosecutors, who ordered further
investigation to determine who was driving the trucks, sneaking the drugs
onto planes and cashing the checks.

The problem, says a veteran prosecutor, is that the government lawyers
forgot to prove these actions added up to a conspiracy to sell illegal drugs
and reap the profits, which would constitute a major offense.

``We have to get people to focus on the crime,'' the prosecutor said.

An error like that could have ruined months of police work. In this case, it
did not.

Week of training

Instead of making the mistake in court, the prosecutors goofed in a training
exercise during a weeklong course in December designed to help them work
better with police. The course is part of two little-known programs that
accounted for only a fraction of $289 million in U.S. anti-narcotics aid to
Colombia in 1999, but which U.S. and Colombian authorities say are as
effective as several Black Hawk helicopters in the fight against drugs.

During the past four years, the programs -- one for prosecutors, another for
police -- have trained 16 regional narcotics investigation units. They also
are helping develop special units to combat money laundering, corruption,
human rights abuses and drug smuggling on the high seas. This year,
Colombia's three national police agencies will begin using a unified
anti-narcotics curriculum that the programs developed.

46or security reasons, officials who talked about the programs did not want
their names published. However, several Colombians who have participated
were enthusiastic about the results.

``This is the first time we've done everything right,'' a naval officer
gushed, commenting on a joint U.S. Coast Guard and Colombian navy operation
in late November, shortly after a training session. ``We got the drugs, we
got the traffickers, and we got the evidence that the prosecutors need to
convict.''

As a result of the November session attended by five Colombian
prosecutors -- part of the unit that specializes in maritime
drug-trafficking cases -- the U.S. Coast Guard changed its own checklist to
make sure it provided evidence that the Colombians need to make a case.

Building a case

So law enforcement agencies were ready when the Colombians stopped a
suspicious boat off their Caribbean coast. The captain had a map showing a
route to Haiti with three clearly marked drop-off points. Coast Guard units
investigated those spots and recovered packets of cocaine in each one.

The trial of the alleged traffickers arrested in November is still pending,
but the naval officer said he planned to write a monograph on the operation
as a textbook case of cooperation.

Cooperation has been one of the programs' most important achievements, said
a Colombian law enforcement official.

``We have been able to break down the rivalries among police agencies,'' the
law enforcement official said, ``and help prosecutors understand what the
different agencies do.''