Liberia helps bust dope smugglers from South America

NY Times:

Over the past three years, United States authorities say, South American drug traffickers have worked to build a base in the West African nation of Liberia, where vast quantities of cocaine could be sent by boat or plane and then reshipped to markets in West Africa and Europe.

As part of the plan, the traffickers met with two senior Liberian officials, offering them millions of dollars in bribes to ensure safe passage for the shipments.

But what the traffickers did not realize was that both of the officials — one of whom is the son of the country’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — were secretly cooperating with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration to help break the foothold of drug rings in the region, a federal prosecutor in New York said Tuesday.

The prosecutor, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, announced the unsealing of narcotics conspiracy charges against nine defendants in the case, underscoring the international effort to combat a drug trade that “poses a serious threat to both countries.”

Russell Benson, who oversaw the investigation as the D.E.A.’s regional director for Europe and Africa, said the traffickers “wanted a safe haven that they could exploit as long as they could, and the best way to do that down there is go to the highest level and penetrate the government, and that’s what they tried to do.”

But what they did not think about was that the president’s son “would consider the rule of law more important than taking a bribe, and he picked up the phone and called us,” Mr. Benson said.

The takedown comes only days after President Obama met in Washington with the Liberian president and described what he called the “extraordinary cooperation” between the two countries in counterterrorism and drug trafficking.

...

The defendants in the case are a diverse lot, the authorities said, and include a Russian pilot, a Nigerian narcotics broker, a Colombian cocaine supplier and a Ghanaian maritime expert with expertise in sea routes that could evade law enforcement radar. Another defendant and his associates had partial ownership in a large commercial airline that operates in the region, and they intended to use passenger flights departing from Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, to move cocaine out of the country, an indictment charges.

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The defendants do not face terrorism charges, but court documents show one planned shipment involved four tons of cocaine supplied by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a rebel group that the United States government has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The FARC is the world’s largest supplier of cocaine, Mr. Bharara said.

Mr. Benson said that over the past decade, there had been a huge influx of Colombian drug organizations setting up operations in West Africa. One technique, he said, which the groups had used throughout Latin America, was to arrive “with a bag of cash” and see who could be bribed for use of an airport or seaport.

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The dope dealers have had better luck in Mali and Guinea-Bissau. Much of the FARC dope comes through Venezuela and is shipped by air. There have been recent reports that the dope dealers are trying to use crude submarines for the shipments. Props to Liberia for having leaders with integrity this time.