U.S. Charges 9 Cocaine Cartel Suspects

U.S. officials on Thursday announced indictments against nine reputed members of Colombia’s largest drug cartel, an organization believed responsible for smuggling more than $10 billion worth of cocaine into the United States.

The Norte del Valle cartel, which supplanted the Medellin and Cali drug organizations in the early 1990s, could be the source of as much as 60% of the U.S. cocaine supply, Drug Enforcement Administration chief Karen Tandy said at a news conference.

With only one of the nine suspects in U.S. custody, officials announced rewards of up to $5 million for the capture of the others and added one to the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said the publicity could hamper the leaders’ ability to travel and help flush them out.

The grand jury indictment unsealed in Washington alleges that the Norte del Valle cartel leaders have sent more than 1 million pounds of cocaine from Colombia’s Pacific coast to the United States through Mexico since 1990. Acting in concert with a violent paramilitary organization called Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, the group was responsible for about 500 killings, Tandy said.

The cartel used bribery, kidnapping and murder in its operation, the indictment said.

Additional grand jury indictments unsealed Thursday in New York add conspiracy, money laundering and drug charges to the list of offenses brought against reputed cartel kingpins Luis Hernando Gomez Bustamante, Arcangel Henao Montoya and Wilmer Varela.

That part of the investigation dates to 1997, when U.S. agents began tracking drug money discovered in raids in Queens, N.Y.