CIA Pursued Anti-Drug Ties, Despite Possible Links To Cartels LIMA, Peru -- The CIA paid the Peruvian intelligence organization run by fallen spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos $1 million a year for 10 years to fight drug trafficking, despite evidence that Montesinos was also in business with Colombia's big drug cartels, Knight Ridder has learned. Montesinos, in jail near Lima on corruption charges, is now dragging the CIA into his legal battles, asking Peruvian court officials to interrogate two CIA officers as part of his defense against charges that he helped smuggle guns to guerrillas who allegedly provide protection to drug cartels. [continues 1271 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Peruvian officers involved in the downing of an American missionary plane did not hear or could not understand warnings from a CIA-hired crew that might have saved the lives of a missionary and her infant daughter, a videotape released Thursday showed. The American pilots repeatedly expressed doubts that the missionary's Cessna float plane was a drug flight, as they had initially suspected, but didn't explicitly try to stop the Peruvians until the shooting began. ''No! Don't shoot! No mas! No mas!'' - no more - the unidentified American co-pilot shouted after the Cessna was fired on. [continues 771 words]
An inquiry has found that the downing of an American missionary plane over Peru was caused by an array of problems--and U.S. and Peruvian officials, as well as the plane's pilot, share responsibility, officials said. Peru's air force shot down the Cessna on April 20 after a CIA-operated surveillance aircraft initially identified it as a possible drug plane. An American missionary, Veronica Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed, and pilot Kevin Donaldson, 42, was seriously injured. The report is not expected to be released until late this week. [end]
LIMA, Peru -- Last July 28, Alejandro Toledo donned a gas mask, put his life on the line and marched into street chaos. Peru's capital was ablaze in protest of President Alberto Fujimori's third inauguration after a rigged election. Saturday, one year to the day later, Toledo donned the presidential sash as the first elected Indian-blood president of an Andean nation, after Fujimori resigned and left the country last fall. "What we said in the campaign is true. After 500 years a person of this ethnicity is elected to lead the destiny of Peru," Toledo said Thursday at a news conference. [continues 902 words]
LIMA, Peru -- Police have arrested two former high-level officials from disgraced ex-president Alberto Fujimori's administration on corruption charges. Former Attorney General Blanca Nelida Colan was arrested Wednesday on charges of cover-up, perjury, official negligence and illicit enrichment, a judicial spokeswoman said. Jose Portillo, former head of Peru's election board, was arrested in connection with the alleged forgery of 1 million signatures to help Fujimori's coalition qualify to run in elections last year, the spokeswoman said. [continues 131 words]
Neighbor's Ambassador Asks U.S. For More Anti-Drug Funds. WASHINGTON -- Peru has seen a huge increase in crops of heroin-producing opium poppies as a result of U.S.-backed efforts to fight drugs in neighboring Colombia, Peru's ambassador said in a letter to U.S. lawmakers. In the letter, Ambassador Carlos Alzamora said that "the situation is a clear indication of the first effects of the spillover of Plan Colombia: Intelligence information shows that Colombian criminal cartels are relocating their opium poppy operations in Peru." [continues 576 words]
CIA Gave Millions To Peru's Anti-Drug Chief The Central Intelligence Agency gave ex-Peruvian spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos at least $10 million in cash over the last decade and high-tech surveillance equipment that he used for personal gain. Montesinos, who now faces trial on murder, arms and drug trafficking charges, as well as murder, among others, had founded and personally controlled a counter-drug unit within Peru's National Intelligence Service, known by its Spanish acronym SIN. It was to that Narcotics Intelligence Division, known as DIN, that the CIA directed at least $10 million in cash payments from 1990 until September 2000, according to U.S. officials. Most of the money was to have financed intelligence activities in the drug war, though officials acknowledged a small part was for antiterrorist activities. [continues 723 words]
LIMA, Peru, July 11 -- Vladimiro L. Montesinos, the former spy chief who dominated Peru from the shadows for a decade and lived a life gilded with beachside mansions and diamond-crusted watches, is now spending his nights on a skimpy foam mattress over a cold slab of concrete. Food is delivered to him through a trapdoor in his tiny cell in the prison block inside the naval base in the port of Callao near Lima. There is a single spigot of cold water for washing up. He spends his time reading law books and a dogeared copy of the Peruvian Constitution under a single naked light bulb and a thin stream of light from a tiny skylight, according to senior law enforcement officials. [continues 1253 words]
Montesinos Returns Home To Face A List Of Criminal Charges LIMA, Peru -- Vladimiro Montesinos, Latin America's most-wanted fugitive and the shadowy Peruvian spy chief, came home in handcuffs Monday to face a slew of charges ranging from drug and arms trafficking to leading death squads. Montesinos, 56, who was captured in Venezuela on Saturday night reportedly with crucial help from the FBI, returned in a Peruvian police plane Monday morning. Hundreds of heavily armed security personnel shielded Montesinos from a crush of media photographers and prevented Peruvians from getting a view of the man many believed the real and unelected ruler of Peru from 1990 to 2000. [continues 439 words]
BUENOS AIRES -- Vladimiro Montesinos, the former Peruvian spy chief who evaded an international manhunt for eight months before his arrest last weekend, was flown to Lima today in handcuffs and a bulletproof vest and began what promises to be months of questioning and legal processing. Once a top aide to former President Alberto K. Fujimori who had cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Montesinos was evicted early this morning from Venezuela, where he had been hiding. Peruvian prosecutors say he faces a possible life sentence on charges he was involved in arms trafficking, money laundering, death squad activities, torture, the purchasing of faulty armaments for kickbacks, and the bribing of officials to fix the election last year for Mr. Fujimori, who is now in exile in Japan. [continues 654 words]
BUENOS AIRES, June 25 - Vladimiro Montesinos, the former Peruvian spy chief and longtime C.I.A. agent wanted on charges of gun running, money laundering and collaborating with drug traffickers, was returned to the Peruvian capital today after being captured in Venezuela on Saturday night with crucial help from the F.B.I. A Peruvian National Police plane that left Caracas early this morning touched down in Lima after a brief refueling stop in a jungle border city, and Mr. Montesinos was whisked to a waiting helicopter. [continues 1335 words]
CARACAS, Venezuela - After a tense stakeout, Venezuelan secret police captured South America's most wanted man, Peru's ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, accused of amassing a fortune by dealing drugs and weapons. The capture, announced Sunday by Venezuela's president, ends an eight-month chase for the man many Peruvians say effectively ran their country for years with a network of corruption. His scandals led to the downfall in November of Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. Montesinos was seized inside a Caracas safehouse late Saturday, a beaming President Hugo Chavez announced during a summit of Andean leaders in the central Venezuelan city of Valencia. [continues 99 words]
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Peruvian spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, who allegedly amassed a fortune from drug trafficking, arms deals and money laundering while working as the right-hand-man of Peru's leader Alberto Fujimori, was captured in Caracas, officials said Sunday. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had been accused by some Peruvian officials of harboring the fugitive, reported the capture at a summit of Andean leaders in Valencia, Venezuela. He said the former spy chief was caught inside a Caracas safehouse late Saturday. [continues 836 words]
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - After a tense stakeout, Venezuelan secret police captured South America's most wanted man, Peru's ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, accused of amassing a fortune by dealing drugs and weapons. The capture, announced Sunday by Venezuela's president, ends an eight-month chase for the man many Peruvians say effectively ran their country for years with a network of corruption. Montesinos was seized inside a Caracas safehouse late Saturday, a beaming President Hugo Chavez announced during a summit of Andean leaders in the central Venezuelan city of Valencia. [continues 369 words]
Latin America: Arrest in Venezuela ends eight months on the run for Vladimiro Montesinos. Officials say the FBI played a key role in the capture of Lima's longtime power broker. CARACAS, Venezuela--Former Peruvian intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, the mysterious spymaster who was the power behind Peru's throne for a decade, was arrested here after a desperate eight months on the run, Venezuelan officials announced Sunday. Venezuelan military intelligence agents captured Montesinos at 10:30 p.m. Saturday at a safe house in a Caracas slum, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said. The arrest took place as the fugitive prepared to move to another hide-out with the help of accomplices, authorities said. [continues 1211 words]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States has widened its investigation with Peru into the downing of a U.S. missionary plane to include aerial narcotics interception programs in Peru and Colombia, a U.S. State Department official said Monday. U.S. missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter were killed in April when a Peruvian air force plane shot down the single-engine Cessna in which they were flying. The aircraft was suspected of carrying drug traffickers; it wasn't. A nearby CIA-contracted surveillance plane had been providing intelligence on the missionary plane to the Peruvians as part of a joint drug interception program. Drug interception flights in Peru and Colombia have been suspended pending the results of the investigation. [continues 198 words]
Ex-Spy Chief Ran A `Narco State,' It Says LIMA, Peru -- Fugitive former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos and more than 200 of his cronies turned Peru into a ``sort of narco state,'' a congressional commission has concluded. In its final report, excerpts of which were released late Friday, the panel said ``networks of support for this illicit activity were set up, using the concentration of information that Montesinos had'' about local and international drug figures. The report accused 222 people -- including military chiefs, business leaders and politicians -- with being implicated in Montesinos' network. The panel said Montesinos, who for more than a decade was the right-hand man of disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori, should face charges of treason. [continues 352 words]
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -- Fugitive former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos and his cronies turned Peru into a "narco state," a congressional commission investigating his alleged web of corruption said after completing seven months of work. In its final report, excerpts of which were released late on Friday, the panel said the previous regime had "turned Peru into a sort of narco state, in which networks of support for this illicit activity were set up, using the concentration of information that Montesinos had in the SIN (intelligence services)" on local and international drugs figures. [continues 422 words]
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - President-elect Alejandro Toledo sees the fight against drugs as one of the lynchpins of Peru's relationship with the United States, and does not rule out appointing a drugs Czar to the cabinet. ``This is a central issue in relations with the United States. We have talked and we have set aside some more days to talk some more. I am going to Washington and we'll bring the subject up again,'' Toledo told reporters late on Wednesday. [continues 409 words]
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - President-elect Alejandro Toledo sees the fight against drugs as one of the lynchpins of Peru's relationship with the United States, and does not rule out appointing a drugs Czar to the cabinet. ``This is a central issue in relations with the United States. We have talked and we have set aside some more days to talk some more. I am going to Washington and we'll bring the subject up again,'' Toledo told reporters late on Wednesday. [continues 410 words]
Inside Peru
