Pubdate: Sun, 17 May 2009
Source: Observer, The (UK)
Copyright: 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.observer.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/315
Author: Mark Townsend
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

COLOMBIAN COCAINE RING TARGETED BY UK

Britain is to target one of the most notorious Colombian cocaine 
syndicates by demanding the extradition of its key members to face 
trial in the UK.

Prosecutors have drawn up a hit-list of targets connected to the 
powerful Cali cartel following evidence linking them to the supply of 
drugs throughout Britain. The development follows the first 
extradition to the UK from Colombia since the countries signed a 
treaty in 1889.

Colombian national Carlos Arturo Sanchez-Corovado, 43, pleaded guilty 
at Southwark crown court on Friday to his involvement in Britain's 
biggest drugs ring, a London-based syndicate with direct links to the 
Cali cartel, once regarded as the world's dominant cocaine supplier.

Prosecutors said that Sanchez-Corovado acted as "delivery man" for a 
group that flooded Britain with more than UKP 1bn worth of Class-A 
drugs over a decade. Although police began rounding up British-based 
members of the cartel five years ago, Sanchez-Corovado fled to Colombia.

By 2006, 31 members of the ring had been sentenced, leaving just 
Sanchez-Corovado outstanding. After Colombian authorities had been 
persuaded to surrender him, Sanchez-Corovado was arrested in Cali 
last August and extradited several weeks ago. He will be sentenced 
next month after pleading guilty to money-laundering offences 
relating to drug trafficking and to possessing false identification.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency confirmed yesterday it had 
identified a number of other high-profile Colombian cocaine barons 
they want to bring to justice

Beverley Parr of Soca said: "The extradition is a really promising 
development for the future."

Alison Saunders, head of the Crown Prosecution Service's organised 
crime division, added: "The message for people who come here to 
commit crime is that there is no hiding place."

Police sources said the deal to extradite a member of the Cali cartel 
had potentially placed the country's politicians at risk, including 
vice-president Francisco Santos Calderon who had given his personal 
backing to the deal. The support represents a marked shift from the 
1990s when the cartel's links to the government led to allegations of 
multi-million dollar bribery.

Sanchez-Corovado's syndicate employed hundreds of people in the UK to 
launder the vast amounts of cash it generated, and many of them 
masqueraded as pillars of the expatriate Colombian community.

Court documents indicate that a Colombian cafe on Holloway Road, 
north London, doubled as a money laundering operation. The 
ringleaders of the group, Jesus Anibal Ruiz-Henao, 45, and his 
brother-in-law Mario Tascon, 32, were jailed for 19 and 17 years for 
conspiracy to supply Class-A drugs and for money laundering offences. 
They sold drugs on to gangs throughout the UK.

When detectives raided their north-west London homes in 2004, they 
seized more than UKP 2.5m in cash and cocaine and cannabis valued at 
UKP 100m. So significant was the ring that the price of cocaine 
soared by 50 per cent after it was dismantled.
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