5 U.S. soldiers accused of smuggling cocaine from Colombia

Posted on Thu, Mar. 31, 2005

5 U.S. soldiers accused of smuggling cocaine from Colombia

KIM HOUSEGO

Associated Press


BOGOTA, Colombia - Five U.S Army soldiers are under investigation for allegedly trying to smuggle some 32 pounds of cocaine from Colombia aboard a U.S. military aircraft, U.S. and Colombian officials said Thursday.

The soldiers were detained Tuesday as a result of the investigation, said Lt. Col. Eduardo Villavicencio, a spokesman for the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command.
(snip)

Up to 800 U.S. troops are permitted in Colombia, according to U.S. law, to train Colombian armed forces and to provide logistical support. Up to 600 Americans are also permitted in the country as U.S. government contractors.

It was the second major scandal to hit the U.S. military in Colombia.
(snip/...)

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/11279995.htm

...that we have so much going on in Columbia. You don't see Columbia in the ARMY OF ONE commercials, do ya? No wonder the war on drugs ain't being won--we're doing the transporting, apparently!

that's 32*16*28 grams, or 14,336 grams of uncut coke, which could easily be cut in half twice, resulting in over 50,000 grams of street coke... unless drug dealers don't do that anymore. anyway, if coke is still $100 a gram (god, i'm old, i have no idea what is going on with drugs anymore!), that's 5 million street value, or a million street bucks of coke per soldier. how many soldiers might be doing this?

How many didn't?

Is it like cockroaches, where they say for every one you see, there are 60 more that you don't? That's a lot of blow!

at Fort Benning, Georgia, soldiers were caught bringing in drugs (primarily coke) in their dufflebags..coming back from Colombia as part of the drug task force.

There's a "10%" rule: checking 10% of soldiers on flights coming in and out of CONUS...but there was a time when that rule wasn't always followed. Mainly due to some high ranking officer claiming "national security" and pitching a fit. Since some of the scandals they have gotten better about checking that 10% regularly....but it seems not good enough.

Anyway, a friend of ours involved in the "sting" had to be reassigned and placed under protection because of threats against his life (from other military members). The drug operation was widespread, throughout several MOS's, and netted enlisted and officer alike. The soldiers were bringing the drugs in, handing them off to the middleman-supplier (military) in Georgia & other states, who then got it out to the mid-level dealers (some military, some not) and from there, the street level dealers (some military,some not). It was a well run machine that was operating in several states across the south.

That COL who got popped? Many of the soldiers they busted in the operation described above worked under him in the task force. I was later told it was all a part of the same operation and same drug sting.

This new batch suggest once the COL and his wife were busted, someone else stepped in and took over...


I know of soldiers getting busted for dealing drugs at every army post I've ever lived on - to include here in Germany.

The corruption of Col. James Hiett

When the commander of U.S. anti-drug efforts in Colombia got involved in drug running, Congress should have rethought its massive military aid bill -- but it didn't.

By Bruce Shapiro
- - - - - - - - - -


July 05, 2000 | BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- I n two weeks, a retired Army colonel will stand for sentencing before Judge Edward Korman in the Cadman Plaza federal courthouse. The colonel's name has never been uttered on the Senate floor. You can rummage in vain for any mention of him in congressional committee testimony and reports.

Yet the case of Col. James Hiett, former commander of U.S. Army anti-drug advisors in Colombia, due to be sentenced in mid-July for covering up his wife's drug smuggling, has everything to do with the passage last week of more than $1 billion in military aid to Colombia. Hiett's case offers dark hints of what the United States is in for by turning the Colombian drug-war theater into a large-scale American military enterprise -- and it reveals, too, some of the costs of the drug war on America's own streets.


The Hiett scandal is already an international embarrassment to the United States, and its outlines have been widely reported. In the mid-1990s, while Hiett was still stationed in the United States, his wife Laurie Ann Hiett was treated in an Army hospital for drug addiction. Later Hiett was named by the Army to head the 200-strong battalion of military advisors in Bogotá. The couple went -- even though Laurie had lapsed back into addiction, snorting cocaine in front of her husband.

Soon she was buying cocaine through her Army-employed Colombian driver. By 1998 she was under investigation by the Army, not only for using drugs, but for shipping $700,000 worth of coke, wrapped in brown paper, to the United States in diplomatic mail. She handed some of the cash proceeds, collected on trips to New York, to her husband -- who proceeded to carefully spend the wad on household bills, to "dissipate," in his own word, the money trail. In May Laurie Hiett pleaded guilty to smuggling and was sentenced to five years in federal prison.

That much was reported, in detail, on "60 Minutes" and elsewhere. Less well known, but revealed in her sentencing hearing last May, is how the Army worked to protect her husband. First, Army investigators tipped him off about their investigation, in particular their pursuit of a $25,000 roll of cash Laurie had handed him. Then, after his wife was arrested, those same Army investigators quickly cleared Hiett of any wrongdoing. It was only U.S. Customs Service director Ray Kelly who insisted on pushing the investigation further after his agents became convinced of the officer's complicity in his wife's actions.
(snip/...)

http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2000/07/05/hiett/index.html



Army Col. James Hiett, who
commanded the U.S. military's anti-
drug operation in Colombia, leaves
Federal Court in Brooklyn with his
wife, Laurie

(CNN photo)

Posted on Fri, Apr. 01, 2005




ARMY
Soldiers eyed in cocaine probe

BY STEVE DUDLEY AND LUISA YANEZ
lyanez@herald.com

Five U.S. Army soldiers are under investigation for allegedly using a military plane to smuggle 35 pounds of cocaine from Colombia to the United States, the U.S. Southern Command announced Thursday.
(snip)

''Their name, sex and rank is not being released until we receive clearance,'' said Air Force Lt. Col. Eduardo Villavicencio, a spokesman for the command.

A Command spokesman, Air Force Lt. Col. Eduardo Villavicencio, would not say whether the five had been officially charged or whether they are officers or enlisted personnel. The soldiers had been under surveillance by U.S. and Colombian investigators for ''some time,'' a Colombian defense ministry spokeswoman told The Herald. Officials waited for the soldiers to attempt to enter the United States with the drugs before arresting them.

The United States has 500 soldiers in Colombia as part of a multibillion-dollar effort to aid counterdrug and counterinsurgency efforts. Many of these soldiers are special-forces personnel who train Colombian military personnel in antinarcotics warfare.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/11282291.htm
(Free registration is required)

But, you know, Terri Schiavo, Michael Jackson, Brad and Jennifer. We just don't have enough reporters! Besides, looking into military corruption isn't a real upper for our readers, and some of them might accuse us of not supporting the troops, and we just couldn't handle that. We might lose revenue, and one of our biggest ad-buyers is the Army -- hey, have you seen that cool "Army of One" ad?

But yes, we do proudly publish without fear or favor. Or so we tell ourselves.

junior must get dressed up in a military uniform and put on all the ribbons and medals that can be afforded one.

The mellon heads in this land of the free would eat it up, 'eh?

Oh, but they trod on corporate toes (controlling how people get high) in the process. That's not good.

Gyre

These soldiers were cutting into their cocaine trafficking profits. These soldiers are damn lucky to still be alive.

Don

How did O.J. get into this? My dad is just obsessed with O.J. Simpson. And my dad is the most racist person I ever known in my life. I can't even talk to him without him wedging O.J. into the conversation one way or another. He seems to be getting worse about it the older he gets too. Weird.

Don

It seemed somewhat far-fetched.... :hi:

I don't remember the details...

:hi:

It appears F. Lee Bailey may have hatched the idea. Looks as if it was his contention no one but a Colombian drug guy could sever arteries as quickly:

Q: COLOMBIAN NECKTIE. WHAT IS A COLOMBIAN NECKTIE, DETECTIVE FUHRMAN?

A: CUTTING SOMEBODY'S THROAT.

Q: DID YOU EVER HEAR IT CALLED A NECKLACE?

A: NO.

Q: THAT INCLUDES CUTTING THE THROAT SO SEVERELY THAT BOTH THE CAROTID ARTERIES ARE SEVERED, CORRECT?

A: I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THAT, BUT I JUST HEARD THE TERM.

Q: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY ARE SEVERED? DO YOU KNOW FROM YOUR TRAINING?

A: WELL, THE PERSON WILL BLEED PROFUSELY AND DIE.

Q: THE BLOOD PRESSURE DROPS TO ZERO AND DEATH OCCURS ALMOST IMMEDIATELY; ISN'T THAT SO?

A: I WOULD ASSUME SO.

Q: IF YOUR THROAT IS CUT THAT SEVERELY WHILE YOU ARE STANDING AND SOMEBODY IS HOLDING YOUR HEAD, YOU WOULD BE DEAD BEFORE YOU HIT THE GROUND, WOULDN'T YOU?
(snip/...)

...the reason that the Columbian Necktie is important is it lends reasonable doubt that OJ might not have killed Nicole and Ron, that someone who actually had practice in killing people probably committed these murders. someone who knew how to kill someone within a minute's time.
(snip)

http://www.tonypierce.com/blog/2004/06/top-ten-reasons-why-oj-is-not-guilty.htm

On edit:

The only thing I've EVER heard about Colombian drug terrorists is the horrendous behavior of the paramilitaries in going into villages and wiping out everyone, sometimes using chain saws.

Never heard of a Colombian necktie anywhere else.



Carlos Castaño, leader of
Colombia's feared AUC
paramilitary group, in a photo
dated Feb. 20, 2001 (Photo:
AFP).

America was awash in smack and pot thanks to the VietNam
war policy, who else remembers "Thai stick"?

They even made a movie:

http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/fnf96n8.html

I do. That was before the gop owned the news. This has been going on for a long time. Poppy bush is in it up to his neck and has been for a LONNNNNG time. He set up a little mafia when he was head of the CIA. Why do you think his son Jeb is the gov of Fla ? Isn't Fla where a lot of the drugs come in ? These people are dirty beyond all belief.

He and his shipmates would take LSD regularly, especially during drills during which all lights were out on ship.