U.S. AGENCIES CELEBRATE BANNER YEAR IN DRUG WAR

The war on cocaine and other illegal drugs raged in new directions in 2004,
with agencies in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security claiming major
successes against the two most powerful Colombia-based cartels.

While the press spotlighted action in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Coast Guard and other
agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) spent the year
seizing record amounts of cocaine in the largely forgotten war on drugs.

ICE "achieved unprecedented success," working closely with Colombian
authorities and other agencies to interdict a mountain of more than 340,000
pounds of cocaine and 2.6 million pounds of marijuana, said ICE Assistant
Secretary Michael J. Garcia.

The Coast Guard alone, with cutters making major seizures in the Caribbean
and Colombian basin, seized 255,233 pounds of cocaine, breaking the
single-year record set in 1997, Homeland Security figures show.

But 2004 was topped by the extradition of several key players in the
once-dominant Cali drug cartel and the arrests of two top bosses in the
Norte Valle cartel, which law-enforcement authorities say is responsible
for about 40 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States.

Beginning last January, authorities in Panama working with ICE and DEA
agents arrested Arcangel de Jesus Henao-Montoya, known as "El Mocho," a top
player in the Norte Valle cartel. Extradited to the United States, he faces
charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy and money laundering.

A New York federal court indictment accuses "El Mocho" and the Norte Valle
cartel of paying Colombia's right-wing paramilitary group, the Autodefensas
Unidas de Colombia — a U.S.-designated terrorist organization —
to protect drug routes and laboratories.

Another arrest in the Norte Valle cartel, named for its roots in the
Northern Valle del Cauca region near Colombia's western coast, came in July
with the apprehension in Cuba of Luis Hernando Gomez-Bustamante, whom U.S.
officials describe as one of the cartel's "top leaders."

Although he is charged in New York, Gomez-Bustamante, who was caught trying
to enter Cuba with a phony Mexican passport, remains in Cuba, and it is not
clear whether he will be extradited.

A third major arrest came last week when Colombians working with ICE
apprehended Jose Dagoberto Florez-Rios, also accused of being a top cartel
boss. ICE officials said they hope he will be extradited to the United
States for trial in the coming months.

"It's been a banner year in bringing some these top guys down," one ICE
official said.

The arrests signal progress in the joint U.S.-Colombian effort to fight the
drug war. Arrests on Colombian soil can be carried out only by local
authorities, but U.S. authorities claim a key role, with ICE agents and
others operating on the ground with Colombians in Bogota.

In addition to the action against the Norte Valle, U.S. authorities say,
2004 was a bumper-crop year for extraditing Colombian drug lords,
particularly those involved with the Cali cartel.

Although 90 extraditions were made, ICE officials spent the holidays
toasting the transfer of one man they call "the highest-ranking drug
kingpin ever to face trial in the United States."

Colombian authorities last month extradited the founder of the Cali cartel,
Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela, to face narcotics-trafficking and
money-laundering charges in U.S. federal court in Miami.

The Cali cartel reportedly controlled about 80 percent of the cocaine
smuggled into the United States during the 1990s, taking over after Pablo
Escobar, head of the once-dominant Medellin cartel, was killed in 1993.

U.S. authorities hailed the extradition of Rodriguez-Orejuela as a new leap
of progress in the drug war since Colombia changed its extradition rules in
1997.

"The extradition of Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela marks the beginning of the
end of another chapter of the United States and Colombia's war against
narcotraffickers," said Robert J. Joura, the DEA's acting special agent in
charge. "Despite having been incarcerated since 1995, he has continued to
wield significant influence among cocaine trafficking organizations in that
country."