Top Colombian paramilitary warlord linked to Italian drug bust (right-wing)

[Judi Lynn]

Top Colombian paramilitary warlord linked to Italian drug bust
The Associated PressPublished: November 22, 2006

BOGOTA, Colombia: One of Colombia's most feared warlords, an architect of a peace deal between right-wing paramilitaries and the government, was linked Wednesday to a major drug crackdown in which 76 people were arrested in Italy, Spain, the United States and several South American countries.

Colombia's chief federal prosecutor's office said Salvatore Mancuso invested in an upscale Italian restaurant in the Caribbean resort town of Cartagena that was used to launder profits from cocaine shipments to Europe.

Authorities said the L'enoteca Restaurant and other assets seized Wednesday, including a nationwide chain of 58 men's clothing stores, were owned by the leaders of the criminal ring: an Italian father and son from Rome — Giorgio and Christian Sale — who lived in Colombia.

In total, police seized assets worth upward of US$35 million (€27 million) during raids in eight Colombian cities Wednesday. Also confiscated as part of the multi-country police investigation were 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of cocaine, arms and a villa in Ardea, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Rome, which was being used as a drug refinery, Italian police said in a statement.
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Mancuso is wanted by a U.S. federal court on charges of being among Colombia's biggest drug traffickers, but President Alvaro Uribe has suspended his extradition order as part of a peace deal that Mancuso helped broker and which has led to the demobilization of more than 30,000 right-wing fighters.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/22/america/LA_GEN_Colombia_Paramilitary_Drugs.php

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Salvatore Mancuso.

He used to work for this psycho right-wing butcher, Carlos Castaño, who was murdered last year under orders of his own paramilitary brother.





The Colombian right-wing pResident Uribe and his friend

[Judi Lynn]

1. Colombian GovernmeShaken By Lawmakers' nt Paramilitary Ties

Colombian GovernmeShaken By Lawmakers' nt Paramilitary Ties
Investigation Leads to Arrest of Current, Former Officials

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 18, 2006; A17

BOGOTA, Colombia, Nov. 17 -- The government of President Álvaro Uribe is being shaken by its most serious political crisis yet, as details emerge about members of Congress who collaborated with right-wing death squads to spread terror and exert political control across Colombia's Caribbean coast.

Two senators, Álvaro García and Jairo Merlano, are in custody, as is a congressman, Eric Morris, and a former congresswoman, Muriel Benito. Four local officials have been arrested, and a warrant has been issued for a former governor, Salvador Arana. All are from the state of Sucre, where the attorney general's office has been exhuming bodies from mass graves -- victims of a paramilitary campaign to erode civilian support for Marxist rebels in Colombia's long conflict.

The investigation, which has revealed how lawmakers and paramilitary commanders rigged elections and planned assassinations, has shaken Colombia's Congress to its core. One powerful senator from Cesar state, Álvaro Araujo, has warned that if he is targeted in the investigation, it would taint relatives of his in the government and, ultimately, the president, whom he has strongly supported.

The arrests and disclosures about the investigation, which is focusing on at least five more members of Congress, come weeks after prosecutors leaked a report revealing how paramilitary fighters have killed hundreds of people, trafficked cocaine to the United States and sacked government institutions while negotiating a disarmament with Uribe's government.

Mario Iguarán, the attorney general, said the crisis is worse than the scandal that tarnished former president Ernesto Samper, who in the 1990s was accused of having used drug money to fund his political campaign. The United States withdrew his visa in response.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/17/AR2006111701843_pf.html