Pubdate: Tue, 09 Sep 2003
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2003 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact:  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159

A NEW PIPELINE FOR COCAINE

LOS AMATES   Starting as a small-time smuggler deep in the countryside, a 
trucking company boss has become Central America's most-wanted drug 
suspect, using platoons of pilots, fishermen and truck drivers to turn 
Guatemala's sliver of Caribbean coast into a major pipeline for Colombian 
cocaine.

U.S. and Guatemalan officials say Otto Herrera succeeded in building a 
small but powerful smuggling gang because Guatemala's government did little 
in recent years to stop the drug trade.

Now, facing increasing pressure from Washington, President Alfonso Portillo 
is taking steps to crack down on drug smugglers. But even one of the 
country's top drug investigators acknowledges more needs to be done.

"Guatemala was a paradise for them. There was total freedom, a green light 
for narcos for three full years," said Jorge Paredes, national director of 
anti-drug investigations. "The government of Guatemala lost its will to 
attack the problem."

The problem got so bad after Portillo took office at the beginning of 2000 
that President Bush dropped Guatemala in January from Washington's list of 
allies in the counter-narcotics effort, citing corruption that reached to 
the highest level of government.

Guatemala has long been a transit point for shipping narcotics to Mexico 
and the United States. But with Mexican President Vicente Fox increasing 
efforts to cripple his country's narcotics trade, Colombian smugglers began 
working more closely with Guatemalan gangs that collect, store and prepare 
drugs, a U.S. State Department official said.

"They were making drug flights in broad daylight and in fairly developed 
areas," the official said.

Successful drug raids in other parts of Central America, including El 
Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, made Guatemala an even more 
popular route for narcotics flowing from South America's jungles to U.S. 
streets. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says half of the 400 tons 
of cocaine smuggled through Central America each year passes through Guatemala.

Herrera has disappeared since the crackdown began. In April, authorities 
stormed a house they said was owned by one of his associates in an upscale 
Guatemala City neighborhood and discovered $14.4 million in cash.

Los Amates, a sun-scorched town of 70,000 people, is home to Herrera's 
trucking company and is the center of his alleged drug operation.

In the heart of banana-growing country, the town's muddy streets are 
clogged with new sports cars. Its ultramodern banks seem more suited for a 
first-world financial district than a town with two restaurants.

Authorities say the gang's leaders have moved elsewhere, but dozens of 
farmers-turned-smugglers live in heavily guarded ranches near the town.

Mayor Julio Humberto Alvarez said he often straps three pistols to his 
waist and travels with a pack of neighbors for protection. He agreed to 
speak about drug trafficking in Los Amates but only in an interview at a 
highway restaurant two hours away.

He said drug-related violence often kills up to 25 people a month in Los 
Amates, although federal officials couldn't confirm the town's murder rate.

"Many of our people are hardworking farmers, but too many others are 
trafficking for Herrera," Alvarez said.

Much of the cocaine arriving in Guatemala comes aboard ships that steam 
into Puerto Barrios, the country's only major Caribbean port, 55 miles 
north of Los Amates.

Small planes also fly in from South America, landing at heavily guarded 
clandestine airstrips in the mountains outside town or dropping drug 
packages to fishing boats in the shallow coastal waters. Speedboats capable 
of carrying up to a ton of cocaine rendezvous with fishermen.

Guatemala is stepping up efforts against drug smugglers. The three tons of 
cocaine seized in the first five months of this year was almost double the 
amount for all of 2002.

The government also replaced the agents on its anti-narcotics force and 
signed an agreement giving the U.S. Coast Guard greater freedom to enter 
Guatemalan waters in search of drug vessels.

But resources remain scarce. Luis Mauricio Palacios, head of the anti- drug 
office in Puerto Barrios, said his agents don't even have boats to search 
for skiffs making drug runs.

"If we get good intelligence that drugs are on the way, we have places we 
can rent boats for a night or two," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart