From: David Goldman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Here's another story with a Communist spin...... Jan. 21, 2000 Drug traffickers move on Panama 'The big people are going to start coming,now that the Americans have moved out' By Julie Foster (C) 2000 WorldNetDaily.com Just three weeks after the official transfer of the Panama Canal, Colombian drug traffickers are setting up shop again in Panama after a decade-long expulsion that began with the U.S. ousting of Gen. Manuel Noriega for his drug cartel involvement there. The absence of U.S. military forces has left the door wide open for the return of drug traffickers who were expelled a decade ago, and at least one Panamanian intelligence officer has admitted publicly that Americans have good reasons to fear what may be in Panama's future. The discovery of mid-level traffickers' move back to Panama began early last year when the Panamanian coast guard stopped a speedboat, launching an investigation that uncovered a drug operation stretching from Colombia to the United States. By tapping telephone numbers retrieved from cellular and satellite phones found on board, law enforcement officials traced one-ton shipments of cocaine from the Colombian port of Cartagena through Haiti and the Dominican Republic to the U.S. Headquarters of the operation? Panama. In fact, Colombian drug dealers have been moving their families to isolated outskirts of Panama City in recent years, and have become very difficult to detect. Heriberto Coneo, the suspect arrested this month as a result of the speedboat investigation, is one example of low-profile traffickers returning to Panama, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. Coneo kept an apartment in the prestigious Pacific Hills, a development of three condominium towers in Panama City, and a house in Sarmeno, about an hour outside the city. The unpretentious three-bedroom house sits on a hill, barely visible from the road. The home has been described as the drug dealer's "retreat." The barely-literate Coneo sent his children to Panama's best private schools, and because he is from Colombia's Caribbean coast, he easily blended into Panamanian society, which is similar in culture and ethnic mixture. In fact, law enforcement authorities acknowledge that they likely would never have noticed him if not for the coast guard's routine stop of the speedboat last year. Early arrests in that case alerted Coneo, who then moved his family back to Colombia where he was found on Jan. 8. "They drive Toyotas," a source close to the narcotics business told the Times in reference to Panama's elusive new resident smugglers. "They don't go to nightclubs and sit with 20 showgirls. They don't go to nightclubs at all." "They were too obvious in the [high-rise] buildings," he said. "They are well-dressed and [well-groomed], but the people who visit them are not, so they are easy to spot." Law enforcement authorities said they are keeping tabs on other suspected drug traffickers, several of whom have moved their wives or mistresses to Panama while sending their children to boarding school or college in the United States or Europe. The suspects are detected only when they travel for visits. Foreign-born traffickers, however, allow police even fewer opportunities to detect them, said a Panamanian intelligence officer who attributes their elusiveness to weak immigration regulations. "They get on a plane from Colombia, buy a $5 tourist visa and, when they arrive, they disappear," said another source close to drug traffickers. Panama's extensive financial services sector offers them the opportunity to invest, and technological advances have allowed them to run their operations remotely. Panama's banking services have been an important conduit for laundering money, a practice that many believe has continued during Noriega's absence. Stricter banking laws enacted in 1998 may have put a damper on the laundering activities. Those laws, as well as U.S. anti-drug activities in Panama, have kept major Colombian drug-runners out of Panama until now. But Panamanian law enforcement officials fear that once big-money dealers see the relatively easy life being lived by mid-level dealers in Panama, larger traffickers will move in. "The big people are going to start coming, now that the Americans have moved out," said the Panamanian intelligence officer. "[Drug traffickers] set up camp here, they have safe houses here," said one source who has been arrested but not convicted on money laundering charges. The drug traffickers have taken a hint from rich Colombians who have moved their families to Panama over the last five years to avoid violence in their homeland, the source said. A Panamanian law enforcement official agreed, saying, "They have found a safe place to live in Panama." "This has happened for three reasons: neglect, neglect and neglect," said a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent to the Times. "When Colombians realize that their own country is unstable, it is impossible for them not to notice the dollarized economy of Panama," which in effect uses the U.S. currency as a secure alternative for their investments. As the U.S. has paid more attention to other foreign policy issues and Colombian drug production has grown, he said, Panama must inevitably feel the effects. However, some Panamanian authorities argue that the presence of narcotics traffickers is not something to worry about. They contend that drug lords will treat Panama as a sanctuary, and that the Colombian dealers' residence there is the best guarantee that the nation will not be used as a major transit route. "Panama has always been a refuge," said a high-ranking Panamanian official who requested anonymity, according to the Times report. "Drug dealers are no worse than [former Haitian dictator] Raoul Cedras," who moved to Panama just before U.S. troops occupied his country in 1994. WorldNetDaily has published repeated warnings by authorities that drug crimes would increase upon the transfer of the Panama Canal and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region. Last month, congressional investigator Al Santoli, who serves as national security advisor to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., told WorldNetDaily the greatest danger in the region is likely to be a "dirty" war which the Communist Chinese will wage in the region -- by supporting mercenaries, drug cartels, crime lords and hard-core revolutionaries throughout Central America. Santoli's delegation of congressional investigators made a special trip to Panama last May, and found evidence of both Chinese and Russian organized crime there. "Chinese organized crime operations are active in drugs, guns and illegal alien smuggling in Panama, and the Russian Mafia is known to be supplying weapons to Colombian narco-terrorist forces," the congressional investigators said in their report. "The war in neighboring Colombia against well-armed narco-terrorist forces, with a history of ties to Cuba, is escalating and threatens to spread throughout the region." The report also exposes Chinese intelligence officers' practice of buying off corrupt officials and eager business partners. "The Panamanian government has an ongoing reputation for corruption and mismanagement," states the report, which also notes that the Chinese came to control the vital waterway through crooked means. "By most accounts, an unfair and corrupt contractual bidding process, which was protested by the U.S. ambassador to Panama, enabled the Chinese Hutchison Whampoa company to outmaneuver American and Japanese companies for the long-term lease on the Canal ports," according to the congressional report. Said the Panamanian intelligence officer: "The Americans have got to be really worried, and I don't blame them." Julie Foster is a staff reporter for WorldNetDaily. --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- Get great offers on top-notch products that match your interests! Sign up for eLerts at: <a href=" http://clickme.onelist.com/ad/elerts1 ">Click Here</a> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
