*Who wants to bet that the price of street dope goes anywhere after this?
(...)
"The cartel is said to have operated sophisticated drugs labs in the country’s jungles, engaged ruthless hit men and used submarines to transport the drugs all over the world.
"As investigators delved deeper into the case, even experienced agents were said to have "marveled at the enormity and sophistication" of the cartel.
"Their tentacles reach all over the globe," one ICE agent, who declined to be named, told the American broadcaster.
"It's mind-boggling the kind of profit these guys were producing. They invest in businesses, big investments, apartment complexes, office buildings.
"But there's so much left over that they have to do something with this cash. Sometimes all that's left is to hoard it and hide it."
He added: ""This case is not big - it's huge."
William Brownfield, the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, said the operation began last September at Buenaventura, a busy Colombian port, after officials intercepted a suspicious fertilizer container that was later found with more than $28million (£19million) worth of shrink-wrapped cash. (((You have to wonder how many of these cash boats are wandering around at one time.)))
John Morton, the ICE Assistant Secretary, said the case sent a warning to "drug kingpins all over the world (that) they are never too big to fail". (((I know that anti-dope guys like a good bumper-sticker pitch.... but that "too big to fail" bailout thing sends a warning to anti-drug cops that they might fail because the finance crisis broke the government.)))
"In fact, this case proves that the drug trafficking organizations put themselves in a double bind," he said.
"The larger their network of operations and the more illegal narcotics and cash that flow from their base of operations, the more clues are out there for ICE to trace back to them." (((So, uh, where did the missing trillion in real-estate money go? Oh wait, there's a little bit of it, anyhow:)))
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1722741020100617
James Dinkins, the Homeland Security's executive associate director added: "This drug trafficking organisation (DTO) was a far cry from a few small-time hoodlums.
"These corrupt people were involved in murder, kidnapping and other forms of violence and lawlessness, but posed as legitimate business owners. They invested in apartment complexes and office buildings, yet they still had money to hide."...
