When Fighting Drugs Means Fighting Terror
PJM Correspondent in Brasilia*
On August 7th, 44-year old Juan Carlos Ram√≠rez Abad√≠a, America’s most wanted international drug trafficker, was arrested at a luxury housing complex in Aldeia da Serra, an upscale suburb of Sao Paulo, Brazil. This was the result of a two year long joint operation of the Brazilian Federal Police and the DEA.
Abadía was one of the most influential Colombian drug lords in the now extinct Cali Cartel and, upon his early release from prison in Colombia five years ago, was believed to be the leader of the North Valle Cartel, which smuggled into the US approximately 500 tons of cocaine worth in excess of $10 billion between 1990 and 2004.
He was wanted for at least 300 murders in Colombia and 15 in the US, including DEA agents – he had a prize on his head of $5 million, which will be transferred to the Brazilian Federal Police and will help fund further anti-drug operations.
Abadía allegedly moved to Brazil three years ago in order to establish a money-laundering scheme involving investments in real estate and luxury cars. In order to evade detection, he kept a low profile, seldom leaving his mansion Рhe commanded his illicit businesses using cell phones and the Internet. He also underwent several plastic surgeries which left his face virtually unrecognizable. The initial police raid found over $1 million dollars (in euros, dollars and reais) stashed into the floor tiling, fake walls and secret passageways, as well as 150 cell phones. According to the State Department, his personal fortune is worth at least $1.8 billion.
The American government has already asked for his extradition to the US, where he will most likely face life imprisonment.
It is clear that this is a major step in the global war on drugs. What evades most analysts, though, are the significant effects events like this have on fighting terror, both locally and internationally.
South America is the home of one of the most populous Arab communities outside the Middle East.
The tri-border area between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina was the home base of the Iranian-funded Hizballah terrorists who committed the bloodiest terrorist attacks of the subcontinent in Argentina in 1992 and 1994 (114 killed and hundreds injured), and where infamous Al-Qaeda terrorist and 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had established a massive fundraising operation.(link in Spanish)
Other countries in the region like Ecuador, Chile and Colombia are also struggling to keep influential and dangerous members of their substantial Moslem communities under surveillance.
David Meir-Levi, in a 2004 article at FrontPage Magazine outlined the threat in a simple, yet insightful way:
“Why would Middle Eastern terror groups spend untold millions of dollars to set up bases in South America? Certainly to benefit from the drug trade and money-laundering opportunities that lax or corrupt governments afford. Clearly, to attack South American targets (inter alia, Israeli or American embassies, Jewish communities, and/or other institutions that are involved in South American financial, political, or military interaction with the USA). Probably also to facilitate the planning and execution of future terror attacks in South America or abroad.”
Moslems in the region, religiously and ideologically sympathetic to terror organizations like Hizballah and Hamas, if not actual members of the groups, have taken notice of the local rampant drug trafficking industry combined with the notoriously inefficient law enforcement as an ideal opportunity to raise funds for those groups.
The don’t alway do so by avoiding the authorities – in some cases, they are cultivating their relationships with certain regimes. The rise of contrarian governments like Hugo Ch√°vez’s in Venezuela and Evo Morales’ in Bolivia, and the growing rabid anti-Americanism they represent have shown potential for alliances.
There have reportedly been, in the past few years, many high level meetings between Hizbullah operatives and senior FARC leaders, both in Colombia and in Lebanon.
The FARC – Spanish acronym for “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia” – is a paramilitary Communist guerilla group, with deep ties with Colombian cocaine and heroin cartels, which control a significant portion of the territory of that country. For ideological reasons, they are openly supported by Ch√°vez’s regime, which provides them with funding, weapons and training.
Although this scenario may look like a very intricate web of conflicting interests, the reasoning behind religious Muslim leaders cozying up to South American drug lords and anti-American dictators, is quite simple.
First, the environment in Latin America is ideal for their fundraising activities – they can get significant amounts of money with little effort and almost no danger of being thwarted by corrupt law enforcement, which is presumably showing solidarity to their their anti-Americanism.
Second, as a bonus, the radical Moslem groups believe they are helping to bring about the demise of American society by flooding it with cheap, easy-to-obtain drugs and encouraging Americans to succumb to their vices and sins.
A depressing situation – which is why the arrest of major drug lords like Abad√≠a should be applauded – not only for the immediate beneficial effect of bringing fewer drugs being available to our youth, but for the damage it will do to terrorists’ funding schemes all over the world.
* Pajamas Media correspondent in Brasilia is a writer who wishes to remain anonymous.
Fighting drugs has always meant fighting terror. Prior to 9/11, Al Qaeda was funded in no small part by the profits from Afghan poppy fields. The Taliban “banned” heroin growth in the early 90s, only to sock away stores of it and traffic it along the Silk Road to Israel and Western Europe. The trade itself has been funding Islamic dictatorships for centuries. Once the west cracked down on the poppy farming and occupied much of Afghanistan, they needed another source for their lucrative export. Naturally, they turned to unstable latin American countries. The black market has no borders, and just as international arms trade proceeds without recourse under the watchful eye of the UN, the drug trade does as well.
I agree with this report.Khalid Sheik Mohammed enter to the Tri-Border-Area via Brazil some years ago.He was in Foz do Iguazu,Brazil,and later leave the country.But just now the iranian regime colonization on southamerica its go round.About the fundraising operations for HAMAS,HIZBALLAH and other groups in TBA and connected locations,in Iquique,Chile,(Zona Franca)or Montevideo(Uruguay)there is no updates news.
The shape of the next World War is coming into focus.
Socialism, Communism, and all those forms of social and economic fascism are aligning with the forces of Islam — a viler form of genocidal fascism than even Nazism was…
The most harrowing part about it is this: The West is terrifyingly compromised with millions of leftists and socialists abetting our externam leftist and socialist enemies — and we are not only permitting Muslims to enter and colonize the West, but are still stuck on stupid trying to “win their hearts and minds”.
Muslims will never stop pushing Jihad until their sinister religion carpets the planet in hatred and despair. And the hopelessness and despair that Communism and world Socialism have done little to stop or impede the march of Marxism in all its vile manifestations.
Generally I’m a positive and hopeful person — but I’m not sure the free minds still living in the free world can marshall the force to annihilate those who would relish annihilating us… And the out-of-control breeding projects of the Muslims, when coupled with the out-of-control breeding projects of the third world, Communism’s petri dish — Communism’s natural victims — don’t bode well for the enlightened modern age.
Unfortunately, I can identify all too easily with Morton Doodslag’s thoughtful comments. I, too, am a natural born optimist who feels himself steadily slipping into pessimism. We seem to be in a national state of denial. Once I thought that the best thing that could happen to break us out of this complacency would be a really scary major attack that was just barely thwarted at the last minute. That way we could have the ‘best of both worlds’ — scaring us into finally getting serious, without any actual loss of life. After the enormous “Bojinka”(sp) plot was uncovered, to blow a dozen or so airlines out of the sky simulaneously, I thought that that would finally do it. What could be more frightening than that scenario. Of course, I was wrong. Within just a matter of days the whole affair was forgotten. No big deal.
Between the liberal Democrats unrelenting obstructionism and our seeming inability to be moved be even the most blatant threats, I must admit that sometimes I find myself losing faith in our ability to cope these terrible threats.
“Forming”? I have been looking at transnational terrorism for quite some time and I can say we definitively saw this ‘forming’ in 2000. When Interopol’s Assistant Director of their Criminal Intelligence Directorate came to the US to testify before the House subcommittee on Crime we get such lovely bits as this (lengthy quote to follow):
“Strategic Alliances between Crime Groups: the Colombian Nexus
The strategies devised by Colombian drug cartels merit a discussion in further detail. Over the years, these criminal entities have formed numerous alliances with other criminal groups in order to extend the scope of their illicit business. Their rational, and, incidentally, highly successful strategic decision making has led to providing them with a more global reach. The presence of terrorist groups in the area explains the obvious link between drugs and the arms trade in that region.
Generally speaking, the formation of alliances can be viewed as a response by a particular firm or company to overcome its own limitations. With the emergence of global markets, alliances are becoming a necessity for almost any business. Each firm has something that the other needs or wants, such as knowledge of a certain market or an established distribution network. Drug cartels, although an illegitimate business, are forming alliances with other organized criminal groups around the world to extend their operations and conquer new markets.
In order to smuggle their illicit products into the U.S., Colombian drug cartels began forming alliances with Mexican groups, who have a well-developed smuggling infrastructure for transporting drugs across the vast border with the United States. As Mexicans began to charge more for their services, Colombians established relationships with various Dominican, Jamaican, Puerto Rican, and African-American groups which act as smugglers and retailers for Colombian wholesale cocaine. Colombians have also formed an alliance with some of the Nigerian drug trafficking groups based on product exchange. In the early 1990s, Nigerian groups supplied heroin to Colombian drug traffickers in exchange for cocaine. Colombians were able to develop their own heroin market, while Nigerians started selling cocaine in Western Europe. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, an important alliance was formed between Colombian drug cartels and the Sicilian Mafia. Since the cocaine market in the U.S. was saturated, and because cocaine could be sold with higher profit margins in Europe, Colombians wanted to enter the European drug market. The Cosa Nostra’s well established heroin network was easily applicable to cocaine. In addition, the Sicilians had an excellent knowledge of European conditions and were able to neutralize law enforcement officials through bribery and corruption more effectively than the Colombians. From the Sicilian perspective, the alliance with Colombians was an opportunity to regain part of the market that had been lost to Chinese heroin traffickers. In recent years, South American drug cartels have been forming alliances with East European/Russian Organized Crime Groups in order to support and diversify their operations. East European groups have offered drug cartels access to sophisticated weapons that were previously not available. Helicopters, surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, and even submarines are on the drug cartels’ “shopping list.” The East European groups provided new drug markets in Russia, the former Soviet Republics, and Eastern Europe, while consumption was decreasing in the U.S. In 1993, Russian police intercepted a ton of South American cocaine which had been shipped to St. Petersburg by one Russian crime syndicate working with a Colombian drug cartel. In another example, a Russian crime leader was arrested in January 1997 in Miami by U.S. agents for the exportation of cocaine from Ecuador to St. Petersburg (Russia) and then to the United States. In exchange for these services, drug cartels pay for transactions with high quality cocaine. East European/Russian crime syndicates and corrupt military officers are supplying sophisticated weapons to Colombian rebels in exchange for huge shipments of cocaine. Although the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) receives most of the arms, some of them are distributed to Hezbollah factions.”
That is only one excerpt from lengthy testimony, which also ties al Qaeda to Albanian Mafia and the GIA, plus those interconnects with the older Mafias and the Russian and Eastern European Mafias. We can reliably finger *when* this started by following one of the major individuals who created the interconnects between organized crime, the narcotics trade, terrorism, and money laundering: the guy we are extraditing from Spain Monzer al-Kassar. His involvement with Iran/Contra gave him entree to Central and South America and from that to Carlos Menem and setting up his own terror/INTEL organization there with Syrian and Iranian help. One of the prime individuals he used to help in this was Imad Mugniyah, prior to bin Laden the man responsible for the most loss of American lives by terrorism. By utilizing Kassar’s oversight of the Bekaa valley drug trade and his narcotics trafficking networks into the US, he married up capability and trade for S. American cocaine trade back to Europe. Add in his already known arms running past international blockades in Bosnia and Somalia, and you have someone with the breadth and depth of contacts to have gotten transnational terrorism off on the right footing for distributed income via the drug trade.
“Forming”? If you are only *now* realizing this, then you are in for a rude surprise as transnational terrorism of the islamic sort takes on a hispanic face. It is already in the Caribbean and the first Islamic coup in the western hemisphere was in Trinidad. Those groups have already formed allegiances with terrorist organizations that are global in scope and use their own cocaine trade to bolster them financially. One of the more recent groups was investigated as it looked to be planning to hijack a liquid natural gas container ship and do something with it in a city along the US eastern seaboard. Mind you they are only ‘amateurs’.
Not to worry, if Kassar steps foot in the US, we will see what professional and untraceable terrorism looks like here at home.
There’s little reason to celebrate the arrest of drug lords. (I do celebrate the arrest of murderous thugs.) Repeal of all of America’s drug laws would be cause for real celebration. Please read “Our Right to Drugs” and “Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers.” Both books are by Thomas Szasz. A little bit of Lysander Spooner’s “Vices are Not Crimes” is more than a little relevent as well. Cheers.
Fighting drugs has always meant SUPPORTING terrorism.
Milton Friedman called the drug war a socialist enterprise because it amounted to price supports for criminals.
Now we can add terrorists to the list.