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Decades of Colombian Drug War Brings... New, More Efficient Drug Organizations

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by GladiatoRowdy, Sep 24, 2004.

  1. GladiatoRowdy

    GladiatoRowdy Contributing Member

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    Newsbrief: Decades of Colombian Drug War Brings... New, More Efficient Drug Organizations 9/24/04

    Colombia's decades-long effort to wipe out the drug trade at the insistence and with the assistance of the United States has mainly succeeded in creating new, more efficient drug trafficking organizations, according to one of that country's top cops. In a Tuesday interview with the Associated Press, Col. Oscar Naranjo, head of the Colombian judicial police, said a new wave of "drug kingpins" is now emerging, and these individuals and their organizations are keeping a low profile while raking in profits from cocaine.

    Earlier traffickers, such as Pablo Escobar, the Medellin "cartel" leader gunned down by Colombian troops with US assistance in 1993, were often flamboyant and violent, even flamboyantly violent, and led lavish lifestyles, thus attracting the attention of Colombian and US authorities. But this new generation of traffickers, said Naranjo, are not interested in flaunting wealth or bloody vendettas, just business. "They're basically dedicated to laundering profits in the international financial system, and they're experts in marketing," he said.

    Trafficking styles change over the generations in response to law enforcement pressures, said Naranjo, who was described by AP as "one of Colombia's most respected law enforcement officers, who works closely with US drug agents." Naranjo identified four generations of Colombian traffickers.

    The first generation, he said, were the mar1juana smugglers of the 1960s and 1970s, who trafficked tons of "Colombian Gold" to the US. But they were soon eclipsed by the second generation, who turned to the more easily smuggled cocaine. Exemplified by Escobar and the Medellin "cartel," the traffickers of the 1980s waged a bloody, high-profile campaign of assassinations and bombings against the Colombian government in a bid to avoid extradition to the US. Escobar and his ilk were in turn replaced by the generation of the 1990s, led by the Cali "cartel," which Naranjo called "more sophisticated," and which resorted more frequently to bribery than bullets in order to operate.

    Now, after decades of prohibitionist war, Colombia faces not only leftist rebels, rightist paramilitaries, and the Northern Valley "cartel," an offshoot of the Cali "cartel," all of which either produce or distribute coca and cocaine, but a new generation of businesslike traffickers. "Today, they want to be invisible," he said. "We don't even know the names of the big capos."

    The new generation is less vulnerable to police because of one important difference with their predecessors -- they do not actually produce or monitor the production of cocaine, Naranjo said. Instead, they simply purchase the end product from either guerrillas or paramilitaries, who have established well-protected cocaine production facilities in areas they control, and then distribute it around the world.

    http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/355/colombia.shtml
     
  2. GladiatoRowdy

    GladiatoRowdy Contributing Member

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    No matter the sanctions, no matter the risk, with prohibition, the profits are so massive that drugs are guaranteed to show up on our streets and in the hands of our children. The more we increase the risk, the higher the prices go and the more incentive there is for people to sell drugs.

    Regulation is the only answer.
     

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