TRAFFICKERS INFILTRATE MILITARY IN COLOMBIA

Officers Provided Secret Information on U.S. Navy Ships

BOGOTA, Colombia -- An investigation by the Colombian Defense
Ministry has found that drug traffickers and rebels from the
country's largest guerrilla group infiltrated the U.S.-backed
military here, paying high-ranking officers for classified
information to help elude capture and continue smuggling cocaine.

The information obtained by the powerful Norte del Valle drug cartel
included the secret positioning of U.S. naval vessels and aircraft in
the Caribbean early last year, part of a carefully coordinated web
designed to stop cocaine from reaching the United States, according
to high-ranking Colombian military officials. The cartel is headed by
Diego Montoya, who is on the FBI's list of most wanted fugitives.

Separately, rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
or FARC, obtained reports about army operations against guerrilla
commanders in the far south, officials say. Gen. Freddy Padilla, head
of the armed forces, said in an interview that most of the
information that was leaked was from 2003 or earlier.

The episodes, some of which have been outlined in the Colombian press
in the past month, represent the most serious cases of infiltration
here in recent years and are a blow to a military that depends on
U.S. funds and training. The U.S. government has provided $5.4
billion in mostly military aid to Colombia this decade, making the
country the biggest recipient of American support outside the Middle
East and Afghanistan and helping to make the Colombian military the
second-largest force in Latin America.

In interviews, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and the commanders
of the armed forces said that the breaches were discovered by
military counterintelligence operatives and that the evidence was
turned over to the attorney general's office, which has opened
several investigations. While other cases of infiltration have been
discovered in the past, officials suggested that those cases often
were not investigated properly.

"From the beginning, I've said we have to see how penetrated we are,"
said Santos, a civilian who has headed the Defense Ministry for 15
months. "The situation is a penetration of some sectors of the
military forces, and it's a small percentage of the forces. We cannot
say it's generalized."

Santos also said that he has sacked about 150 officers during his
tenure, many of whom were suspected of corruption or ties to
traffickers or illegal armed groups. He said investigators are
continuing to search for moles in the ministry.

So far, two lieutenant colonels in the army have been arrested, as
have four majors and a noncommissioned officer. Two army generals
also resigned from the army's Third Division in the city of Cali,
where investigators say traffickers had built close links with
corrupt officers. In the navy, Rear Adm. Gabriel Arango has been
cashiered, officials say, and is under investigation along with 10
other naval officers.

Adam Isacson, who tracks the Colombian military for the Center for
International Policy in Washington, said the military should be
commended for revealing the corruption. But he said the scandal
probably would give more leverage to Democrats on Capitol Hill, who
have pushed for cuts in aid to Colombia.

"When you have this new layer of corruption allegations," he said,
"it's just going to give more fuel to the legislative opposition here
in Washington."

The case of Arango, a promising commander in the Caribbean port of
Cartagena, has captured the most attention here. When a fishing boat
used to smuggle cocaine was intercepted in January 2006 by the
Colombian coast guard, in a region Arango oversaw, investigators
found navigational charts on board that showed not only the
positioning of U.S. vessels but also that of warships from Britain,
the Netherlands and Colombia.

Investigators said some information useful to traffickers was
provided by a former navy sailor who served as middleman, Victor
Palmera, who was arrested last week. But Arango's ties to traffickers
were reportedly tight. Investigators said they found that Arango had
provided a fingerprint on a receipt for a $115,000 payment he'd
received from Norte del Valle traffickers, a common way of ensuring
allegiance in Colombia's underworld. He also had met with traffickers
or had associates meet with them, witnesses have told investigators.
Arango has vehemently denied collaborating with traffickers.

Colombian authorities have passed on their findings, particularly the
navigational charts, to the Drug Enforcement Administration and other
U.S. agencies. The Colombian military does not track the coordinates
of U.S., Dutch or British ships on patrol, suggesting there had been
a breach in American security.

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota would not discuss the case or say whether
it was investigating.

At the Southern Command in Florida, the American headquarters for
U.S. military operations in Latin America, a spokesman said the
military was unaware of any American investigation into the
allegations. The spokesman, Jose Ruiz, said security measures were
tight at an interagency anti-drug task force in Key West, Fla., that
coordinates anti-drug monitoring in the Caribbean for the United
States and its allies, including Colombia.

The Joint Interagency Task Force-South, or JIATF-S, as it is known,
is run by the Defense Department. "JIATF-South has very stringent and
effective security measures," Ruiz said, "and as of today, we have no
reason to believe that those security measures have been compromised."

While traffickers on the coast received detailed information,
high-ranking officers in Colombia's southwest were allegedly on
cartel chief Montoya's payroll, prosecutors say. Those officers
include Lt. Col. Javier Escobar, who was chief of operations for the
Third Division's Third Brigade in Cali, Defense Ministry officials say.

The investigation into the activities of rogue officers in the Third
Division has shed light on a murky episode from 2006 that angered
Colombian officials and raised questions among U.S. lawmakers. On May
22, a platoon of troops ambushed and killed 10 members of an elite,
U.S.-trained team of policemen that was on a counter-drug operation
in the town of Jamundi.

Authorities now say that army Col. Bayron Carvajal and several
soldiers -- all of whom were arrested last year -- were probably in
the pay of the Norte del Valle cartel. "You can presume that Jamundi
is connected to the penetration of the Third Brigade," Santos said,
"because of where it happened, because of the ties to narco-trafficking."

The military also found that a guerrilla who was killed in combat in
the southern state of Meta in July had been carrying portable hard
drives that contained maps outlining anti-guerrilla operations and
other information about Omega, an operation aimed at capturing
guerrilla commanders.

El Tiempo, Colombia's most influential newspaper, said in an
editorial that the disclosures showed that intelligence and
counterintelligence had become "the weakest flank" in Colombia's
effort to fight the guerrillas and drug traffickers.

Military officials acknowledged the concerns but said a restructuring
of the military intelligence apparatus has been in the works. "We
started restructuring the counterintelligence more than nine months
ago, and it was because we were restructuring, because we
strengthened the counterintelligence, that we were able to discover
this," Santos said.