~snip~
On December 15, 1989, a Columbian army shoot-out with Medellin Cartel boss Rodriguez Gacha occurred. Gacha was killed, and shortly thereafter large stockpiles of cartel arms were seized, the majority of which were found to have been made in Israel. After months of investigation, it was determined that "Israeli intelligence ... had been providing weapons and terrorist training to the Medellin Cartel's assassination squads in collaboration with British mercenaries... . The funds to purchase the weapons ... had been provided by the U.S. State Department through a program personally run by Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams," who later pled guilty to Iran-Contra crimes."
EIR continues: "The trainer of Rodriguez Gacha's killer squads was a reserve Israeli army colonel named Yair Klein... . In a parallel operation, a group a British mercenaries also engaged in training the cartel hit squads... . The involvement of British intelligence in the CIA-Mossad Columbia deal was further confirmed when Louis Blom-Cooper and Geoffrey Robertson, both officials of Amnesty International, which is funded by British intelligence, were deployed to cover up the official U.S., British, and Israeli government sponsorship of the Klein operation... ." A shipload of Israeli arms was transferred on April 24, 1989 in the British Crown Colony of Antigua, to a Panamanian-registered ship, Sea Point, and "shuttled off to Rodriguez Gacha in Columbia... . The escrow deposit to ensure that the hundreds of guns left Israel on time had come through the Miami branch of the Israeli Bank Hapoalim" into which Elliott Abrams had deposited the funds to purchase the arms. On December 20, 1989, just a few days after the start of the Gacha shoot-out, the U.S. under President Bush invaded Panama, overthrew General Noriega, and installed in his place "a local Panamanian lawyer, Guillermo "Porky" Endara. A review of court records shows that President Endara and several of his law partners were the owners of record of the ship Sea Point in April 1989 when the ship had delivered the Israeli weapons to Rodriguez Gacha... . Furthermore, in Panama City, Endara was the co-owner, along with Rodriguez Gacha, of the drug money-laundering Banco Interoceánico." The British-Mossad-CIA intelligence combine thus lost or disposed of a former drug ally (Gacha) in Columbia, but almost simultaneously picked up a new one (Endara) in Panama.
A little more light is shed on this matter by the EIR: "In 1986, in Panama, Gen. Manuel Noriega closed down First Interamericas Bank after it was proven that the bank was owned by the Cali Cartel. In December 1989, U.S. occupation forces invaded Panama ... and proceeded to place four members of the board of that same First Interamericas Bank in power - as President, attorney general, president of the Supreme Court, and minister of the Treasury. The result: Drug running in Panama has grown since Noriega's ouster." Bush's strategy? "Specifically, a working alliance has been created between the U.S. government and the Cali Cartel, against the Medellin Cartel of Pablo Escobar and Rodriguez Gacha. The result has been ... that the Cali Cartel has become dominant among the different Columbian groups ... all with behind-the-scenes American approval." It seems clear that Washington wants the drug trade to continue, but that it also wants to be able to hire and fire those who it chooses to participate in the trade.
The EIR published a report in November 1990 detailing the growth of narcotic revenues over the immediately preceding years. The totals were astonishing, and contradicted the Bush administration's optimistic reports on the same subject. Growth was phenomenal in cultivation and street sales of all the major drugs - heroine, cocaine, and marijuana. Street sales of all drugs throughout the world had increased from $175 billion back in 1977 to $558 billion in 1989. Cumulative sales from 1977 to 1989 of drugs raised only in Ibero-America (Mexico and South and Central America) is nearly $2 trillion, dwarfing even Ibero-America's gigantic foreign debt of $430 billion. Worldwide addiction continues to grow. Some 70 million Americans are estimated to have used drugs at some point, with many of these remaining as addicts. Consumption has jumped throughout South America, including such places as Brazil, Peru, and Columbia. More millions of people are users in India, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, and other Asian countries. Europe is another very large market, with an unknown number of consumers.
Very little of the money raised from street sales is returned and kept by the countries raising the drugs. Some of the money is laundered by businesses having high cash turnover, such as restaurants and casinos. A great deal of it is sent out of the country in suitcases and deposited in off-shore banks which don't have the laws which U.S. banks do requiring cash deposits over $10,000 to be reported to the IRS. The great bulk of the $558 billion annual revenue (in 1989) is deposited in banks elsewhere. "Although no precise figures are available," says the EIR, "a leading anti-drug prosecutor in Switzerland, Paolo Bernasconi, told Italy's La Stampa newspaper in January 1990 that the leading money-laundering centers include the United States (Miami and Wall Street), Canada, Great Britain, and, of course, Switzerland."
(snip)
http://osdir.com/ml/culture.discuss.cia-drugs/2005-07/msg00655.html
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