Mexico City – The U.S. government announced charges Wednesday against 50 leftist Colombian guerrilla leaders in connection with shipments of $25 billion in cocaine to the United States and other countries.
The guerrillas, all leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, were charged with managing the shipment of 60 percent of all cocaine consumed in the United States over the past decade or so, shipments that allegedly have totaled 2,500 metric tons.
The guerrillas and their enemies, Colombia’s right-wing paramilitary armies, have long been suspected of controlling Colombia’s billion-dollar illegal drug industry, including trading drugs for arms to fuel that nation’s 40-year civil conflict.
The indictment “concretizes” those suspicions, said John Walsh of the Washington Office on Latin America, a policy watchdog group.
Three of the 50 suspects named in the indictments have been arrested in Colombia, and U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday they had requested their extraditions. The U.S. State Department is offering $75 million in rewards for the apprehension of the other 47 suspects, all of whom prosecutors want to try in U.S. courts.
“We’re hoping the amounts being offered, up to $5 million each for some of the suspects, result in some arrests and in us being able to request further extraditions,” said U.S. Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe generally has acceded to U.S. extradition requests, granting more than 400 of them since he took office in 2002.
Among them are two FARC leaders who were captured and extradited to the United States last year.
Nayibe Rojas Valderama, also known as “Sonia,” and Juvenal Ovidio Palmeira, or “Simon Trinidad,” are awaiting trial in Washington this summer on drug and terrorism charges.
U.S. officials, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Karen P. Tandy, announced the indictments at a news conference at the Justice Department.
Andres Pastrana, the former Colombian president who is now ambassador to the U.S., also participated.
