CARTELS FIND HAPPY HOME IN DOMINICAN

New York Times

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- In the early 1990s, Colombia's drug
barons were fed up and eager to rearrange their business. Impatient with the
Mexican traffickers who were demanding half of every load delivered and
distributed in the United States, they went looking for a country with weak
law enforcement, proximity to the United States and established
drug-distribution networks.

It did not take long for them to find the Dominican Republic. By the spring
of 1995, Colombian cartels were ensconced here and looking to expand their
network, which is what led one boss to invite Hidalgo Elias Velez, the
Colombian owner of a struggling tropical-woods business here, to a lavish
party outside Bogota, Colombia, and recruit him as an agent.

The Dominican Republic was ``excellent,'' Velez, now serving a prison term
here, recalled being told by his Colombian host.

``You don't have any problems with your merchandise,'' the Colombian said.
``Getting the money out is easy.'' Compared to their Mexican and Colombian
counterparts, the Dominican authorities were so inexperienced, unprepared
and ill equipped, ``you don't even have to pay protection.''

The Colombian drug cartel leaders also recognized, Velez said in an
interview recently, that low-level Dominican drug dealers based in New York
City were pushing their way up to the next echelon of the drug business,
bidding for a bigger share of the wholesale distribution of cocaine and
heroin in the New England and mid-Atlantic states.

Just a few years later, the alliance between Colombian cartels and their
Dominican partners has changed the geography of the drug trade once again.
For the first time since American authorities began trying to blockade South
Florida in the early 1980s, a significant portion of the drugs sold and
profits made in the eastern United States is moving through the island
countries of the Caribbean, with the Dominican Republic, a nation of 8
million, serving as the main gateway.

With that flood of drug profits have come a wave of corruption and a growing
threat to political stability throughout the region. The amount of money
from the United States laundered through Dominican financial institutions
has doubled over the last three years, according to U.S. Customs Service
estimates, to more than $1 billion annually. Much of this is being invested
in real estate, banks and businesses here.

At the same time, Dominican and Dominican-American drug traffickers are
popping up in Puerto Rico, Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean as the
heads of smuggling operations. Since they are willing to work for
commissions of only 25 percent, or sometimes even for cash rather than
merchandise, they are increasingly favored by the Colombian cartels.

The Dominicans are supported by Colombian cartels determined not to repeat
the error they made with Mexican rings, which are now gobbling up the
Colombians' markets in the United States and even trying to encroach on
operations in South America.

A University of Miami expert on international drug trafficking, Bruce
Bagley, put it this way: ``When the Colombians saw the Mexicans becoming
greedier and even develop into rivals, they began to look to the Dominicans
as more reliable partners.''

The Colombians moved huge amounts of drugs through the Caribbean in the
early 1980s, prompting the Reagan administration to mount its major
crackdown. That in turn spurred the Colombians to emphasize other routes,
primarily through Mexico. The alliance that ensued has ravaged that
country's already weak judicial system, corrupted high officials and shaken
its growing partnership with the United States.

While the bulk of Colombian cocaine and heroin continues to move through
Mexico, the Colombian traffickers have in the last few years come full
circle, returning to the Caribbean as a base of operations.

A big obstacle remains in the way of this new breed of techno-savvy
Dominican trafficker: Leonel Fernandez, the country's reformist president.
Fernandez, 44, a lawyer, grew up in Manhattan, where in the 1960s he watched
a drug culture emerging around him. It was then, friends say, that he
developed an antipathy for narcotics and the corruption they engender.

But as president, Fernandez must combat a recalcitrant government
bureaucracy and a political opposition that controls the Congress and is
becoming increasingly dependent on drug money, American and Dominican
officials say.

Those drug profits are finding their way into the economy in this island
nation. Office buildings, hotels and shopping centers are springing up in
Santo Domingo, Santiago and San Francisco de Macoris -- often in a gaudy
style that some describe as narco-deco. Dominican banks have opened branches
as far away as Thailand, raising new fears about the growing economic
influence of the traffickers.

``There is a process of Colombianization going on,'' Marino Vinicio
Castillo, the outspoken law-and-order crusader whom Fernandez chose as the
leader of his antidrug program, warned in an interview here. ``It is a very
serious threat,'' he said, adding, ``The Colombians may not have been able
to detect it happening there, but here we can see the narcotics traffickers
covertly infiltrating the banking system, political parties and the media.''

The Safe Drug Channel:

A Nation Ill-Equipped Against Traffickers

To hear Velez and American officials tell it, the Dominican Republic in the
mid-1990s was a drug dealer's paradise. Less than 24 hours from Colombia by
fast boat, and only 75 miles from Puerto Rico and American territory, this
country was forced to rely on a weak, corrupt and ill-equipped military as
its main line of defense.

Traffickers were aided, Velez said, by Colombian military officials, who
were routinely selling the coordinates of the American and Dominican vessels
on patrol in the Caribbean. With that information in hand, it became a
simple matter to land drug cargos of a ton or more on isolated beaches here.

``You can get eight days of information for $5,000,'' said Velez, ``and I
know because I went to Cartagena and saw it happen with my own eyes.'' His
job was to supervise the landings and deliver shipments to a warehouser
known to him only as Robocop.

``Without that information, we wouldn't have been able to do what we did.''

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"