DRUG BIGS WANTED TO PAY IN ART: FEDS

MIAMI - A federal grand jury has charged four people - including a Saudi
prince - in a multimillion-dollar international drug-smuggling conspiracy,
in which payments were to be made in classical works of art.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Miami yesterday told The Post the
defendants tried to pay for 2,000 kilos of cocaine with paintings by
Spanish master Francisco de Goya and 20th-century Impressionist Tsuguharu
Foujita.

"DEA agents got wind of the deal, and the paintings, which had been flown
from Switzerland to a prominent New York City art-storage warehouse, were
confiscated by our agents," said DEA spokesman Joe Kilmer.

"Each of those paintings is said to be worth more than $1 million."

The famous works were Goya's 1793 "El Atraco a la Diligencia (Attack on a
Coach)" and Foujita's 1926 "Buste de Jeune Femme (Bust of a Young Woman)."

Agents say one of the four suspects, Miami Realtor Doris Salazar, was
arrested Tuesday at her luxury home in Coral Gables, where she was found
hiding in a closet.

The other three defendants are still at large. They are Saudi Prince Nayef
Bin Sultan Bin Fawwaz al-Shaalan, Spanish art collector Jose Maria Clemente
and Miami businessman Ivan Lopez Vanegas.

Kilmer said al-Shaalan is believed to be in Saudi Arabia. He lived in Miami
in the 1980s but skipped bond in 1984 on federal drug charges in
Mississippi. Vanegas was last known to be living in Key Biscayne, and
Clemente, a Spaniard, is believed to be in Switzerland.

According to the indictment, issued on July 11 and unsealed Wednesday,
Salazar in 1998 introduced al-Shaalan to unnamed Colombian drug traffickers
looking for ways to export cocaine to Europe.

Al-Shaalan allegedly told the smugglers he could use his diplomatic status
to fly drugs from Caracas to Paris. What al-Shaalan didn't know was that
the traffickers were cooperating with the DEA, authorities said.

A deal was struck, and the cocaine arrived in Paris on al-Shaalan's private
jet on May 16, 1999, according to the DEA.

But the DEA tipped off local authorities who seized 400 pounds of cocaine
in Spain and 1,750 pounds in Paris.

Without the cocaine to sell, investigators said, the defendants couldn't
pay their suppliers, so Clemente tried to pay one of them with the artwork.