NARCOTICS CHIEF'S WIFE ALLEGEDLY MAILED DRUGS

Prosecutors Say She Sent Cocaine From Columbia [sic]

BOGOTA, Colombia - While U.S. Army Col. James Hiett oversaw counternarcotics
operations as the highest-ranking U.S. military officer posted in Colombia,
his wife was allegedly sending packages full of cocaine through the U.S.
government's overseas mail system, prosecutors say.

At least six times in April and May, Laurie Anne Hiett sent small boxes of
cocaine to addresses in New York city, court documents charge. Aghast Army
investigators launched a criminal inquiry after one of the packages was
intercepted by U.S. Customs in Miami on May 23.

Investigators found a smuggling plot that allegedly entangles Laurie Hiett
with the U.S. Embassy chauffeur who used to drive her husband.

"There's stuff in here for a Hollywood movie. It's wild," said one Defense
Department official.

At one point during an interrogation, Laurie Hiett, who is in her mid-30s,
grew "extremely agitated" and blurted out, "I'm afraid they'll kill me,"
court documents say.

Officially, Col. Hiett is off the hook. He has asked for - and received - a
transfer from his post in this cocaine-producing country.

"This investigation did not reveal any evidence that Col. Hiett had any
prior knowledge of the alleged criminal actions of his spouse, nor any
involvement," said Raul I. Duany, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command
in Miami, which oversees U.S. military operatioins in Latin America.

As head of the U.S. military group in Colombia, Col. Hiett oversaw U.S.
Marines protecting the Embassy, U.S. Special Forces rotating through
Colombia for training and other U.S. troops carrying out counternarcotics
missions. At any given time, about 200 U.S. troops are in Colombia.

Laurie Hiett was charged Thursday in Brooklyn with conspiracy to distribute
cocaine, Lee Dunst, assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New
York, said in a telephone interview. She was freed on $150,000 bail, he said.

If convicted, she could face 10 years to life in prison.

The Hietts arrived in Colombia in early 1998. Laurie Hiett grew fond of
northern Bogota's Zona Rosa, a fashionable district of discos, boutiques and
restaurants, and was often there in the company of Jorge Alfonso Ayala, a
Colombian who had worked for 15 years at the embassy and was assigned to be
her husband's driver, the documents say.

There is no outright ban on U.S. employees visiting the Zona Rosa, but U.S.
employees have been advised to use caution when visiting the district after
a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Frank Moreno, was shot there
in December in an altercation outside a bar.

In the court documents, Hiett told Army investigators that she never knew
what was in the packages she mailed, and that she did so only as a favor to
Ayala, the embassy chauffeur.

Ayala rejected Laurie Hiett's assertion and told Arym investigators June 2
that "Hiett abused cocaine."

"Further, Ayala stated that Hiett had asked him on prior occasions to assist
her in obtaining cocaine," a court affidavit says.

Laurie Hiett mailed the first package April 13, the affidavit says. It
describes all six packages as measuring about 12 inches by four inches by
six inches, each containing a box wrapped in brown paper and filled with
cocaine, with no apparent effort to conceal it within some other substance
or packaging.

Laurie Hiett signed U.S. Customs declarations for all six packages. She
declared that the first package contained a T-shirt, picture, candy and
coffee. Later packages contained books, Colombian artifacts, a birthday
present and a candle, she wrote on forms, the affidavit asserts.

Laurie Hiett relied on postal facilities within the bunker-like U.S.
Embassy, sidestepping the Colombian postal system. Known as the APO, for Air
Force Postal Service, the system allows U.S. diplomats and their families to
send and receive mail from abroad. Highly restricted, APO is not available
to Colombian employees at the embassy or to other Americans living in the
country.