COCAINE SMUGGLING U.S. indicts 9 in Colombian cartel

The cartel reportedly did $10 billion worth of business since 1990.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft announced Thursday the indictment of nine people believed to be the top leaders of Colombia's largest drug cartel allegedly responsible for smuggling half of all the cocaine that enters the United States in recent years.
The racketeering and smuggling charges against the alleged leaders of the so-called Norte de Valle cartel, coupled with a U.S.-Colombian manhunt for them, will cripple the cartel's drug-smuggling activities, Ashcroft and drug enforcement officials said.
"We are disabling the single largest source of cocaine to the United States," Ashcroft said after the indictment was unsealed in Washington. He conceded, however, that some of the ringleaders "will be difficult to apprehend." Only one of the nine indicted is in custody.
$10 billion business
According to the indictment, the Colombian cartel has exported more than 1.2 million pounds of cocaine since 1990, mainly from Colombia's Pacific coast through Mexico into the United States. The cocaine was worth about $10 billion, "roughly equivalent to the combined budgets of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Prisons," said Karen Tandy, head of the DEA.
A key target of the U.S.-Colombian manhunt is Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez, alias "Don Diego." He's on the FBI's 10 most wanted list with a reward of up to $5 million for his capture. Last month, Colombian police raided Montoya's ranches and homes and seized an estimated $76.3 million in property.
Consolidating power
Since the 1990s, when Colombia's Cali and Medellin cartels were broken up, the Norte de Valle cartel has used brutality, bribery and an alliance with a violent Colombian paramilitary group to consolidate its power, the indictment says.