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Men of the Colombian Navy extradited for us in the plot to spy on anti -drug ships

Men of the Colombian Navy extradited for us in the plot to spy on anti -drug ships

Sakege012 mins

The former workers of the Colombian Navy Jair Alberto Alvarez Valenzuela and Luis Carlos Díaz Martínez are accused of helping drug traffickers to place tracking devices aboard the Colombian Navy ships.

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A couple of former employees of the Colombian Navy have been extradited to the United States In relation to a plot to help a narco intelligence operation FOIL drug interdiction to ships loaded with cocaine, federal officials announced Monday.

Colombian citizens Jair Alberto Alvarez Valenzuela, 54, and Luis Carlos Díaz Martínez, 32, worked for the country. National Navy. The United States Department of Justice said that the couple will be judged by an accusation of conspiracy to distribute cocaine that has a reasonable cause to believe that the United States would be illegally.

The two men developed sources within the Navy that betrayed the location of the ships of international law to drug traffickers, according to federal authorities.

The couple convinced the sailors to place GPS tracking devices aboard the Colombian Navy ships, according to the presentations of the Federal Court. Colombian drug traffickers monitored the devices to ensure that ships loaded with cocaine bound for the US. UU. They avoided detection.

The extradition of the couple is the last in federal efforts to frustrate smuggling on the high seas. The case shows the duration to which drug traffickers will send cocaine to the United States

Drug runners in Colombia – The main cocaine producer in the world – Move more than 1,000 metric tons of the country through the Pacific Ocean and the Waters of the Caribbean, according to a federal accusation in the last case.

Colombian police authorities to the United States have tried to eliminate maritime drug trafficking routes for decades. But traffickers have responded with diabolical inventiveness. They clear everything, from fleets of fishermen spy to artisanal submarines to avoid the authorities.

The two lawyers did not respond immediately to the requests for comments. The spokesmen of the Middle District of Florida did not respond either.

The authorities involved in the case included the Coast Guard Research Service, the Drug Control Administration, the Federal Office of National Security Research and Research.

How did they get the tracking devices in the ships?

The prosecutors of the scheme say that Álvarez Valenzuela and Díaz Martínez were involved, according to the Federal Court documents: put GPS tracking devices in Colombian Navy ships responsible for finding smuggling ships.

The application ships of the law take over thousands of kilograms of cocaine of the smuggling boats.

The Álvarez Valenzuela and Díaz Martínez group worked for the hope of avoiding detection knowing where some of the largest drug capture ships were at all times, US prosecutors said. The couple helped find sailors who enlisted to put tracking devices in the ships, The authorities said.

Díaz Martínez worked for the Colombian Navy until 2012; And Álvarez Valenzuela retired in 2022, according to an accusation.

Álvarez Valenzuela worked for the Navy as a civil electromechanical engineer at a Coast Guard station in Urabá, according to the Colombian newspaper reports Time. Urabá is an area on the Caribbean coast that houses some of the most powerful drug traffickers in the South American country.

According to judicial documents, they and other former Navy officials paid to the active service sailors thousands of dollars to hide follow -up devices aboard four key vessels: ARC Antioquia, Arc Punta back, arc November 11 and ARC Toledo.

The GPS location data included in the accusation show that the areas outside the Caribbean patrolled and the blind points off the coast of Panama and near the coasts of Colombia approached Cartagena.

The traffickers used GPS device data to direct “cocaine vessels around the Colombian Navy ships,” says the accusation.

Ships were tracked between November 2022 and March 2023, says the accusation.

Four sailors who put the tracking devices aboard the ships were also appointed in the accusation, as well as a sergeant and an Ensign or a low -ranking officer.

Who were they allegedly working for?

The group for which the former Navy employees worked, according to time, is perhaps the most powerful organized crime group in Colombia: the Gaitanists or the Gulf clan.

Gulf clan, as they are called in Spanish, is a drug trafficking organization that formed in the early 2000s, according to Insight Crime, a group of experts focused on organized crime.

They trained in Urabá, where Álvarez Valenzuela worked, but they have expanded in much of Colombia.

Urabá is still vital for the Gulf clan. It provides access to the Caribbean and is close to the Pacific, allowing the organization to order a lot of cocaine export from the country, says Insight.

What ships were monitoring?

It is alleged that the four ships that the group put tracking devices in Caribbean waters monitored around the Gulf of Urabá, according to the GPS location data included in the accusation.

They monitored a variety of different waters depending on the boat class.

Antioquia arc is a Frigate with missiles Built in Germany and is among the most armed ships of the Colombian Navy. ARC means armed of the Republic of Colombia.

Back tip is a coastal patrol boat built in its country of origin. TO Publication of the Colombian Navy He says it was mainly built in order to intercept and inspect potential smuggling ships.

ARC November 11 is another coastal patrol boat destined to catch drug traffickers, according to The Navy. The Toledo is a American manufacturing Patrol Boat.

Further: The Narco-Submarine team arrested in the plot to transport thousands of kilos of Coca-Cola on the high seas

Narco-subs and fishermen spies

The corrupt authorities responsible for finding drug traffickers is just one of the many ways in which smugglers aim to bring cocaine to the United States without being detected by the police.

Narco-Submarines have become a significant force in international drug trafficking, allowing smugglers to surreptitiously move Colombian cocaine Around the world.

Artisanal ships are generally not true underwater. Part of the vehicle protrudes from water. But they are camouflaged to avoid naval patrols and potentially deliver Dozens of millions of dollars of cocaine by container.

It is suspected In the late 80s When the US authorities took energetic measures against the operating slats and low -flight airplanes used to attract drugs at that time.

By 2009, police authorities said that more than a third of contraband drugs in the United States rose aboard submersible, according to the Washington Post.

Drug traffickers carry out surveillance operations to ensure that narco-surrounds move through the waters without being detected.

A crew of Colombians of six men accused of using a fleet of submarines to transport more than 5,000 kilograms of cocaine to the United States developed a network of spies disguised as fishermen to take into account the application ships of the law.

Simulated fishermen were placed along the narco-submarines routes and served to alert crews about any application boat of the law that patrols the same waters, according to the Department of Justice.

Michael Loria is a national reporter on the US Breaking News desktop. Uu today. Contact him at [email protected], @mchael_mchael or in (202) 290-4585.

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