Pubdate: Monday,August 30,1999 Source: Orange County Register (CA) Copyright: 1999 The Orange County Register Contact: http://www.ocregister.com/ Author: David Kidwell-Knight Ridder Newspapers MIAMI STING A TALE OF CORRUPTION Crime: Drug Agents Found That Almost Anything Could Pass Through The Airport (Miami)-Agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration rolled their eyes three years ago as a longtime informant - a fat man with a habit of spitting in agents' faces as he talked - began to spin a yearn of rampant corruption at Miami International Airport. He told the agents he could win them entry into an underworld of greedy airport crews, corrupt law enforcement, and a decades-old airport culture where for the right price anything - anything - could pass without detection any any flight. Fugitives, drugs, explosives - anything. They shrugged. "Nobody wanted to deal with the guy, I mean he's obnoxious," said one law-enforcement source close to the case. "But he had good information in the past. We figured he was exaggerating, but there was probably something there." It was there, and then some. Records and interviews with more than a dozen federal law-enforcement sources involved in Operations Ramp Rat and Sky Chef reveal new details of a 21/2-year undercover sting that last week left 58 people - - mostly American Airlines employees - indicted. The sting began when undercover Miami Beach Detective Luis King was introduced as a drug smuggler to the first target in March 1997. To keep it credible, Drug Enforcement Agent Henry Cuervo posed as his boss from Colombia. Jannette Colmenares, 36, who authorities say got to know many airport employees while living in a Miami Springs apartment complex in the 1980s, described in detail her ability to smuggle without complications through the airport, according to records and sources. Neither Colmenares nor her lawyer could be reached for comment. She allegedly told the undercover agents she had Immigration and Customs inspectors on the payroll, and her going rate was 3,500 a kilo. The DEA-led task force called U.S.Customs Internal Affairs. DEA provided wiretaps and electronic surveillance. Customs sent in help - Internal Affairs Agent Luis Pacheco, Supervisor Jack Devaney and lots of cash. One problem: Colmenares was telling false tales from the start. "But she knew things and was able to accomplish things that made us believe her," one law-enforcement source said. Agents used Colmenares to run three loads of illegal drugs totaling 33 kilos. Still, they were no closer to proof of any wrongdoing at Customs. In an attempt to draw a corrupt inspector into the open, agents told Colmenares that a woman was coming through Miami with two kilos of heroin strapped to her waist and that she needed the inspector to escort her through the airport. When the woman - an undercover policewoman from Santiago, Chile - arrived, there was no escort. But both agencies were stunned when she was able to walk through checkpoints at both INS and U.S.Customs unheeded. Colmenares contended she had done her job. Agents thought she had successfully banked on incompetence. They decided to arrest her and confront her with her crimes. "She told us it was all a lie," one source said. "She said she concocted the stories about corrupt law enforcement to jack up her prices." Colmenares was released, and that's about when agents got their first big break. One of Colmenares' smugglers - a longtime American Airlines ramp employee well trusted by co-workers - agreed to turn informant in exchange for immunity. The source confirmed what the fat man said, and agreed to turn the trust earned from years working the ramps against colleagues. "From then on, we couldn't keep up with the business that was coming in," one source said. "In the end, we had to turn people away because we didn't have the money to pay them." The new source put the word out about a connection that wanted to move drugs. The crews were sharp. They never wanted to meet outside the safety of airport grounds, and never with newcomers. Secrecy was so ingrained, sources said, that an undercover sting would have been impossible without help from inside. Cuervo posed as the Colombian who supplied the drugs. King portrayed the smuggler who collected the drugs and paid corrupt airport couriers at destination cities around the country. Some of the corrupt members of ramp crews - who normally worked with members of their own ethnic groups - surprised agents with their audacity. Not only did they smuggle drugs through the terminal unchecked, they would use their employee benefit of free plane rides - often paying the $5 fee for an employee upgrade to first class while they smuggled, authorities said. Ramp workers were also adept at spotting valuables in luggage. In one instance, DEA agents working on an unrelated case in New York tipped Miami agents that a shipment of $100,000 in drug cash was coming through in luggage. Agents watched as a frantic cash courier desperately searched the baggage-claim carousel for his missing luggage, in vain. It was stolen by baggage handlers in transit. Said on source: Poetic justice." Most often, corrupt workers would carry the drugs on the plane in knapsacks, but in one case, the smugglers removed an exit-sign panel and hung the drug packets on string inside the cavity. "We call it dope on a rope," one source said. In April 1998, flight attendants on American Airlines Flight 960 from Cali, Colombia - unable to brew a decent cup of coffee - opened the coffee filter to investigate the reason and found a packet of heroin. Ramp mechanics had turned off the water supply in an effort to ensure that passengers would not be served coffee and the heroin would not be found. Police and customs officials then began investigating alleged corruption among the company that supplies airplanes with in-flight meals. At a price of 2,500 to 3,500 per kilogram, Sky Chef employees would board the plane, retrieve concealed drugs from international flights, and walk them out the front door of the airport. Their favored method was to conceal the drugs inside the food carts used to bring passenger meals on board. In 1995, according to airline records, American Airlines management replaced all the employees in the Line Control center - where planes and crews are dispatched to gates. Within weeks, the managers were being asked by corrupt ramp chiefs to take bribes of $50,000 to $100,000 make sure that certain planes and crews were assigned specific gates. The managers made internal reports, which went to the DEA. But by early 1997, American allowed the nonmanagement employees back in. The reports dried up. - --- MAP posted-by: manemez j lovitto