42 charged with $2.88 drag trading

Press, 4 May 1984, Page 6

42 charged with $2.88 drag trading

NZPA-AP Miami Forty-two people, including three former Dade County detectives, were indicted yesterday on charged concerning the smuggling of more than eight tonnes of cocaine, valued about $2.8 billion. The indictment, issued by a state-wide grand jury, had alleged that the group had imported the cocaine into the United States from Colombia, the Bahamas, and Belize from June, 1982, to November, 1983, said Philip Ramer, of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The cocaine, of which all but 400 kg had been success-

fully distributed, had a street value of $2.8 billion, he said. “When the machine added up, I almost fell out of the chair,” he said. The department believed that 7.2 kilograms was the largest amount of cocaine ever detailed in a single indictment. Twenty people had been arrested, nine were believed to be out of the country, and 13 others were being sought. About one-third of those indicted were Floridians, Mr Ramer said. The rest were from Pennsylvania, Colorado, Belize, the Bahamas, and Colombia, he said. Most of those arrested

had been picked up yesterday by departmental agents and were in the Palm Beach county jail, he said. Some were in Federal custody, including one in Indiana, one in Pennsylvania, and one in New York City. The Government would seek extradition of those out of the country. Law enforcement officials seized 154 kg of cocaine at West Palm Beach International Airport on March 20, 1983. Another 250 kg had been seized on October 24, 1983, on the Caribbean island of Anguilla, Mr Ramer said. ® In Neiva, Colombia, the country’s President said

that Colombia would agree to extradition requests for suspected drug traffickers. The President, Dr Belisario Betancur, was speaking at the funeral service for the Justice Minister, Dr Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, a leading figure in the country’s fight against drugs, who was shot dead by allegedly hired killers outside his home this week. The Colombian Government declared a state of siege and an all-out war against the drug trade in a ' quick reaction to his assassination. The United States has sought the extradition of about 20 Colombians sus-

pected of illegal drugs dealing but so far the requests have not been met. But yesterday, Dr Betancur said that the fight against drugs was a universal operation against a universal attack. “We are up against people who have created an empire without frontiers, with a black flag as their emblem, and indignity and death as their only aims,” he said. Narcotics experts say that Colombia, where cocaine paste from Bolivia and Peru is processed in jungle factories, has become the western hemisphere’s main export centre for the drug.