DRUG BUST SHOWS ARGENTINA-EUROPE TRAFFICKING TIES

BUENOS AIRES - A major cocaine bust in Spain is highlighting the
growing drug-trafficking ties between Argentina and Europe and
causing headaches for the government of Argentina's president,
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

The Spanish authorities in Barcelona seized an executive jet from
Argentina this month that was carrying about 2,000 pounds of cocaine.
An Argentine company specializing in private medical transfers,
Medical Jet, was operating the plane, which was being flown by pilots
whose fathers were generals during Argentina's bloody dictatorship.

Investigators in Spain and Argentina have remained tight-lipped about
the inquiry, but questions have swirled around the possible
involvement of Argentine military officials and politicians who flew
on Medical Jet, and deeper connections to Colombian and Mexican drug cartels.

Last week, the Argentine Air Force dismissed Commodore Jorge Ayerdi,
the head of the Moron air base, where the Challenger 604 plane took
off on Jan. 1, Argentina's state news agency reported.

Arturo Puricelli, Argentina's defense minister, has expressed concern
about the possible involvement of the air force, saying Wednesday in
a radio interview that he would push for an investigation. "There is
great indignation about the case within the air force," Mr. Puricelli said.

The Argentine judge Alejandro Catania is investigating 18 air force
officials for possible involvement in the drug shipment, the
Argentine news media reported. He declined to comment on the case.

The seized drug cargo was only the most recent of dozens of cocaine
shipments to Spain originating in Argentina since 2006, experts on
organized crime in Argentina and Spain said.

"Argentina has become a producer and exporter of cocaine over the
past five years, and Europe is looking to Argentina for cocaine,"
said Claudio Izaguirre, president of the Argentine Anti-Drugs
Association, a nongovernmental group in Buenos Aires.

Mr. Izaguirre said that six drug cartels had set up shop in Argentina
in the past five years, two from Colombia and four from Mexico.

Argentina has an expansive border with Bolivia and Paraguay, two
large drug producers with weak border controls, including scant radar
coverage over Argentine airspace, Argentine officials have said. Mr.
Izaguirre said Mrs. Kirchner's government had yet to wake up to the
growing drug-trafficking problem, which he said was "getting more and
more complicated."

Spanish interdiction efforts in the past decade point to the
increased use of the Southern Cone, especially Argentina, to smuggle
drugs into Europe. A joint operation last November that included
Brazilian authorities broke apart a trans-Atlantic shipping route to
Spain and led to the arrests of 65 people and the seizure of 3.4 tons
of cocaine in Argentina and Brazil.

Most of the drugs from Argentina seized by Spanish authorities have
been camouflaged in cargo ships with myriad exports, like wind
turbines and pizza ovens.

"Spain is the main entry point of South American cocaine, and we have
seen increased efforts to diversify routes, often using Africa," said
Ignacio Cosido, an expert in trans-Atlantic organized crime at the
Madrid-based Strategic Studies Group.

In the most recent case, the plane bound from Buenos Aires to
Barcelona stopped over in Cape Verde for refueling. Interior Minister
Florencio Randazzo previously insisted that the drugs had been loaded
there, not in Argentina. But Security Minister Nilda Garre
acknowledged last week that airport controls "had relaxed a bit" and
that she was rethinking whether the drugs could have been loaded in Argentina.

The Spanish police arrested three men, including Gustavo Julia and
Gaston Miret, the pilot and co-pilots of the Challenger 604. Mr.
Julia is a chief shareholder in Medical Jet and son of Brig. Gen.
Jose Julia, who ran the Argentine Air Force from 1989 to 1993 under
President Carlos Menem. Mr. Miret is a son of Brig. Gen. Jose Miret,
who was the legal and technical secretary of the former Argentine
dictator Jorge Videla. The third man arrested was Eduardo Julia, a
brother of Gustavo Julia.

Santiago Gimenez Olavarriaga, the lawyer for the three Argentines,
said this month that his clients had no knowledge they were
transporting cocaine. "They said they didn't have anything to do with
it," Mr. Gimenez said.

Charles Newbery contributed reporting from Pinamar, Argentina, and
Andres Cala from Barcelona, Spain.