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.

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