Colombian says cartel bought visas from U.S. embassy

By Anthony Boadle

WASHINGTON, Oct 16 (Reuters) A jailed Colombian drug trafficker testified
in Congress on Thursday that the Medellin drug cartel bribed employees of
the U.S. embassy in Colombia to get visas to travel to the United States.

The hooded man identified only as Mr. Rodriguez told the House Crime
Subcommittee that an illegal U.S. visa cost $5,000 at the time of his
arrest three years ago as the cartel's number two man in New York City.

The U.S. government said it had no knowledge of the visa fraud and was
taking the allegation seriously.

``We certainly are not aware of any such scheme. But we would welcome
hearing any details about the alleged malfeasance,'' State Department
spokesman James Foley said.

Rodriguez said the drug organization used an intermediary with contacts at
the embassy to file the papers and the cartel member only had to go to the
embassy to pick up the visa.

``I was told the fraudulent visas were obtained by bribing U.S. embassy
officials,'' he said through an interpreter.

While it was common to get protection and tipoffs from corrupt police and
military intelligence officials in Colombia, Rodriguez said he knew of no
such cases in the United States.

For three hours, the former trafficker detailed how the cartel used
beepers, cellular phones and false number plates to ship cocaine to New
York and send cash back to Colombia.

Colombians run the wholesale business and use Dominicans to distribute the
drug on the streets, he said.

When payment was overdue, armed Colombian ``collectors'' were sent in to
intimidate, kidnap or kill to get the money.

Rodriguez said nonLatino drivers were used to transport the drug across
the United States to reduce the likelihood of being stopped by police.

Colombia, the world's largest producer of cocaine, has become the main
source of heroin on U.S. streets today and Rodriguez said the Colombians
were using AfroAmerican and Puerto Rican distributors for the new business.

The Medellin cartel, once the world's most powerful drug organization, has
continued to operate since the death of its boss Pablo Escobar in 1993, he
said.

The cartel has spread out into a loose federation of 20 smaller groups of
traffickers with no central leadership.

His group's New York operation was led by a former Colombian army
intelligence official known as Carlos and handled up to 220 pounds (100 kg)
of cocaine a month.

The drug was stored in ``warehouses'' that were apartments or houses where
families lived so as not to draw attention.

He said police seized 30 percent of his group's drugs.

House Crime Subcommittee chairman Bill McCollum, a Florida Republican, said
drugs continued to flow in unabated, with close to 600 tonnes of Colombian
cocaine heading for the United States this year.

``Drugs are more plentiful, purer and cheaper than they were in the early
1990s,'' McCollum said.

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