Alleged Cartel Leader Held in Colombia Crackdown

Jesus Amayak Russa, the alleged leader of an Atlantic Coast drug cartel responsible for shipping tons of cocaine to the United States through Central America, Haiti and Mexico, was arrested along with four other suspected cartel members in simultaneous raids in two cities, Colombian authorities announced Friday.

Intelligence officials described Amayak Russa’s capture by an elite anti-drug squad Thursday as proof of Colombian law enforcement’s commitment to preventing new groups from filling the vacuum left by the near destruction of Colombia’s Cali cartel.

“This is part of a tremendous effort by the police to capture leaders of emerging new cartels and destroy their financial infrastructure,” said Guillermo Uribe, Colombia’s national security advisor.

Until August 1994, the Cali cartel dominated the global drug market with control of 80% of the world’s cocaine exports and the largest share of heroin production outside Asia, drug authorities say. But with five of the cartel’s seven alleged leaders in jail, dozens of new organizations--believed to include Amayak Russa’s Coast cartel--have emerged to claim shares of its $7 billion in annual profits.

As a result, although the cocaine market was temporarily disrupted by the Cali cartel arrests, the price of coca paste--the raw material of cocaine--has rebounded, and cocaine exports to the United States are back up to previous levels, intelligence sources said. Authorities blame a new group of mini-cartels for the rebound.

The new organizations have learned from the mistakes of the Cali cartel’s leaders, who paid off politicians and bought their way into high society and business in an effort to ensure impunity, drug authorities here say.

In contrast, many of the new groups are staffed by low-key, middle-class business people and professionals. Or they may consist of humble young traffickers who enter the trade to make a quick profit from a couple of shipments to the United States before plowing the earnings into legitimate businesses, authorities say.

The Coast cartel is believed to have bought impunity by bankrolling paramilitary groups that fight guerrillas on Colombia’s Atlantic Coast. In return for that help, intelligence officials said, local military commanders gave the cartel free rein to produce coca leaves in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains and to export them from the region’s deep-water ports.

The organization has existed for many years, authorities said, but took on added importance when the Cali cartel was dismantled.

Amayak offered no resistance when he was arrested at a luxurious residence in the Atlantic Coast city of Barranquilla. Four other alleged cartel members were arrested in a raid in Bogota, the capital.

A third raid of suspected cartel property was conducted in the tropical beach resort of Santa Marta, but no arrests were made.

“Our efforts didn’t end with the capture of the big bosses,” said Gen. Luis Enrique Montenegro, the deputy commander of the national police. “One of our big concerns now is capturing the low-profile traffickers from the organization who continue to run the business in the street and the economic infrastructure.”

Authorities say they are gathering evidence against six mid-level drug traffickers from the old Cali cartel who are trying to revive the organization’s export operations.

Another drug organization that long operated in the shadow of the Cali cartel, in the northern part of the state of Valle not far from Cali, is believed to have installed new cocaine-processing laboratories in the deep canyons between Bogota, Medellin and Cali.