U.S. Red Tape Stalls Colombia Extradition Bid

Red tape in the United States may delay U.S. extradition proceedings against a millionaire drug money launderer arrested in Colombia, allowing him to go free without charges, American officials said here Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Colombian police said late Tuesday that they had arrested five suspects in the Friday assassination of presidential candidate Sen. Luis Carlos Galan, whose death had been blamed on cocaine traffickers. Galan had been an outspoken opponent of the drug-trafficking cartels.

Shown on Television

The five men--all Colombians--were shown on television after their arrest at a downtown Bogota apartment, according to the Associated Press. No other details were given.

Colombian authorities are prepared to hand over Eduardo Martinez Romero, the only major figure so far arrested in the nationwide crackdown against cocaine-trafficking cartels, but Washington has not yet filed a formal extradition request against him.

“The ball is in our court,” one American official told The Times. He said “some of us are worried” that the U.S. extradition proceedings will take longer than Colombian police can legally hold the prisoner without a warrant.

“What we have to do in the States is to get our act together and get all the papers translated and everything that is required by law,” the American official said. “There still are certain legal niceties that have to be taken care of. That’s why this guy has not just been whisked away.”

Colombian authorities may see the extradition of Martinez Romero as a “test case,” the U.S. official said, adding, “They want to see how fast we can move.”

Martinez Romero, 31, was indicted by an Atlanta federal jury in a $1.2-billion cocaine money-laundering scheme and is known as the “finance minister” of the notorious Medellin drug cartel. Colombian legal papers against him were filed with the U.S. Embassy in Bogota and with the Colombian Justice Ministry on Tuesday, according to Col. Oscar Carmona, chief of the national police force’s judicial investigation division.

But an American narcotics expert who spoke to reporters in Bogota on Tuesday said the procedure has been stalled by Washington’s failure to request Martinez Romero’s extradition.

The narcotics expert explained that when the U.S.-Colombian extradition treaty was nullified in 1987 by the Colombian Supreme Court, American authorities stopped filing extradition papers against the “probably hundreds” of Colombians subsequently indicted.

The extradition treaty’s validity was restored by President Virgilio Barco Vargas in one of a number of emergency decrees announced Saturday, after the killing of Galan.

Another decree, signed by Barco using special powers under a longstanding state of siege, increased the time police may hold a prisoner without charges from 48 hours to seven days.

But the American drug expert warned that unless the U.S. request is expedited, Martinez Romero stands a chance of being released Saturday, seven days after his arrest, because there are no charges against him in Colombia.

In Washington, Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said Tuesday that the United States has opened discussions with Colombia on what documents it will need to extradite any of those apprehended.

Thornburgh also issued a list of the “dozen most-wanted” Colombian drug-trafficking kingpins sought by the United States for prosecution in the wake of Barco’s emergency decree.

The 12 included the leaders of the Medellin and Cali cocaine cartels, the organizations believed responsible for the bulk of the cocaine being smuggled into the United States and for the killings of political, judicial and police officials that Thornburgh said has brought Colombia “to its knees.”

Last week’s victims of drug-related violence included Galan and Col. Valdemar Franklin Qintero, the chief of national police for the Medellin area.

Fearing extradition to other nations, drug dealers have been able to effectively halt prosecution in Colombia through assassination, bribery and threats.

Thornburgh said that he is furnishing the U.S. list to Colombian authorities and to Interpol “in recognition of the possibility that they have already fled Colombia.”

“We don’t know the whereabouts of any of these individuals,” Thornburgh said. “These drug kingpins have the means to flee to any corner of the globe.”

“Facing trial in the United States is what these drug lords fear the most,” Thornburgh said. “This list of a dozen priority offenders is only the first phase of our extradition efforts. Our review of those whom we seek for trial is ongoing, and the list is likely to be supplemented in the near future.”

The list issued by Thornburgh included suspected Medellin drug barons Pablo Escobar, 39, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, 42, and Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez, 40.

Three reputed top officials of the smaller Cali cartel also are being sought for prosecution in the United States--Gilberto Jose Rodriguez Orjuela, 50; Miguel Angel Rodriguez Orjuela, 45, and Jose Santacruz Londono, 45. Jaime Raul Orjuela Caballero, 46, an alleged Cali cartel member, is also on the list.

Four other reputed members of the Medellin cartel are being sought--Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, 32, and Juan David Ochoa Vasquez, 41, both brothers of Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez; Gustavo de Jesus Gaviria Rivero, 42, and Gerardo Moncada, 42.

Jose Ivan Duarte Acero, 37, a former police officer who allegedly works with the Medellin cartel and is suspected of attempting to murder two U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Colombia, is also on the list.

They are among 80 to 90 Colombians whose extradition has been requested by Washington. If arrested, they could be swiftly removed to the United States for trial under Barco’s new decree, U.S. officials say.

But they add that the major cartel bosses, who are enormously wealthy and well protected, are not under any immediate threat of capture.

All are believed to have gone into hiding, perhaps even before the crackdown began. Some, including Escobar, reportedly have fled to Panama.

‘Keeping the Pressure’

The U.S. narcotics expert told reporters that nabbing the kingpins may require weeks or months of intensified enforcement. “The key is keeping the momentum, keeping the pressure.”

In an unprecedented series of raids this year, Colombian police have seized 23 tons of cocaine, as much as was taken all of last year. More important, the American expert said, they also seized enough of the chemicals necessary to produce cocaine to cut off production of 200 to 300 tons more.

“The most notable success is in the area of precursor chemicals,” the expert said. “This has been a major blow, a tremendous blow.”

He said he believes the assassinations of Galan and Qintero were the actions of a cartel badly wounded by recent police activity. “All of this tremendous pressure on the cartel has caused the cartel to react in the only way it knows how.”

And the pressure has continued. The Defense Ministry announced that security forces have conducted more than 800 anti-narcotics raids since Saturday, detaining more than 11,000 suspects and seizing more than 600 firearms, 1,100 vehicles, 60 airplanes and 18 helicopters.

Properties raided have included luxury homes and ranches of Escobar and Rodriguez Gacha.

In the past, the pressure that has triggered the most violent reactions by the Medellin cartel has been the threat of extradition to the United States.

“For the members of the Colombian mafias, no greater threat exists than to be detained and sent to the United States, because they know perfectly well that it is a journey without return,” said an analysis Tuesday in the Bogota newspaper El Tiempo. “Against the possibility of spending the rest of their lives in an American prison, they prefer to ‘shoot their wad’ and respond with their entire capacity for death, which is considerable.”

Asked what Colombia needs most to fight the powerful cartels, Thornburgh said: “In my view, the drug cartels are sustained by the enormous appetite for drugs that exists, mostly in the United States. Every cocaine sniffer and crack smoker in this country contributes to the violence and the enormous profits that are reaped by the Colombian drug traffickers.”

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow, in Washington, contributed to this story.