U.S. COLONEL'S WIFE ACCUSED OF MAILING COLOMBIAN DRUGS

She Used Embassy Mail, Prosecutors Say

NEW YORK -- In April and May, Laurie Anne Hiett, the wife of an Army
colonel in charge of all U.S. military operations in Colombia, mailed six
packages to New York City from the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.

Each was sealed in plain brown paper and weighed several pounds.

Hiett, 36, sent four to an apartment in Queens and the others to mail drops
in Queens and Manhattan. She wrote her name clearly on the return addresses
and filled out U.S. Customs forms declaring the contents to be books on
Colombia or items like candy, a T-shirt, coffee or candles.

But the names of the recipients were fictitious and the packages turned out
to contain a total of 15.8 pounds of pure cocaine with a street value of up
to $230,000, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in federal
court in Brooklyn.

It charges Hiett and two others with a bizarre drug-trafficking conspiracy
that took advantage of the embassy's special mailing privileges.

A three-month undercover operation by New York police, U.S. Customs agents
and the Army's criminal investigation division found no evidence that Col.
James Hiett was involved.

The colonel was responsible for U.S. military activity in Colombia from
July 1998 until last week, when he stepped aside voluntarily because of the
allegations against his wife. The thrust of that effort is combatting drugs
going from Colombia to the United States.

Laurie Hiett, who was arraigned before Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak in
federal court in Brooklyn, admitted that she had mailed the packages. She
said she had not known what they contained, however. She said she sent them
at the behest of her husband's chauffeur, a Colombian national.

The chauffeur, Jorge Alfonso Ayala, a driver for the U.S. Embassy in Bogota
for 15 years, was named a co-conspirator in the case. Colombian authorities
were seeking him.

The Brooklyn complaint said he told investigators at the embassy in June
that Laurie Hiett "abused cocaine," and that he helped her buy it in La
Zona Rosa, a notorious drug-trafficking district in Bogota, and from "an
unknown woman in a taxi" at the back gate of the embassy.

Confronted with these assertions, the complaint said, Hiett became
"extremely agitated." She insisted that she got the packages from Ayala,
who "obtained them from individuals in a taxi outside the embassy." But
when pressed, she said: "I'm afraid they'll kill me."

Hiett's lawyer, Paul Lazarus of Miami, said Friday that his client denied
the allegations, although he noted that no indictment had been filed, and
that Hiett had not yet been required to enter a plea. After her
arraignment, Hiett was released on a $150,000 recognizance bond.

Lee Dunst, the assistant federal prosecutor in the case, declined to
comment beyond the complaint, which accused Timla Arcila, 61, and her
brother, Hernan Arcila, 53, of receiving the packages at their apartment,
at a rented post office box in Elmhurst, Queens, and at a commercial mail
drop in Manhattan.

Timla Arcila was named a co-defendant and was arraigned and released on
bail Thursday.

Conviction on the federal charge of conspiracy to possess cocaine with
intent to distribute it is subject to 10 years to 12 years in prison.

No federal charges were filed against Hernan Arcila, who was being held at
the Queens House of Detention on an unrelated charge, filed by the Queens
district attorney, of criminal possession of narcotics in the first degree,
which carries a penalty of up to life in prison.

The Colombian Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment
on the case, and the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, citing privacy considerations,
said it too could not comment.

But a Colombian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said Hiett's contention that she had mailed packages containing cocaine
unknowingly at the request of her family's driver did not seem far-fetched.

He noted that mail service in Colombia, as in many Latin American
countries, was unreliable, and that Colombians close to foreign diplomats
often asked them to send mail. "Everybody knows that the embassy mail works
extremely well out of here," the official said.

However, such requests are usually limited to mailing letters, not
packages, and to show that nothing illegal is being mailed, the packages
are left unsealed when given to American diplomats or members of their
families. "I think she was being extremely naive," the official said.

But investigators said there was ample evidence that Hiett was aware of
what was in the packages. They said Customs travel records show that she
made several trips to the United States in April and May. The purpose of
the trips was to prepare for and help coordinate the conspiracy, the
investigators said.