Richard Fifer, convicted drug dealer and chairman of Petaquilla Minerals (PTQ.to)

Don't fret, kissing one's wife at Christmas is not illegal

I think we'll just go with the facts on this one. Back when Richard Fifer (Chairman of the Petaquilla Minerals (PTQ.to) and vendor of the Panama Copper project to Inmet) was a youth of 18, he spent his days selling marijuana and cocaine in the US controlled canal zone of Panama. Y'know, just like any other scumbag who wanted to get rich and didn't care how it happened. That is until he got caught, arrested, thrown in jail and sent up before the judge where he pleaded guilty to the charges of both possession and distribution.

He was given a sentence of 18 months in jail, of which 90 days was under lock-up and the other 15 months suspended under four years of probation. He kept his nose clean during his probation period and was eventually discharged from probation by the courts. So how do we know all these details about a past that Richard Glenn Fifer Jr has always been at pains to deny ever happened? Simple; we've read the court documents, checked them for veracity and found them to be factual. Now you can check them out too, by downloading a PDF of the docs from right here (the file is 4.8Mb, so give it a bit of time, yeah?).

UPDATE: A couple of people have now written in saying they've had trouble downloading the PDF file (while others have had no such problem). If you're having problems, mail me and I'll send you a copy by return (but make sure your mailbox can handle a 5Mb dump).

Regarding Richard Fifer of Petaquilla Minerals (PTQ.to), cocaine, marijuana and prison

Richard Fifer, cocaine dealer

IKN would like to make it clear that Richard Glenn Fifer Carles, erstwhile governor of the Coclé region of Panama, qualified geologist and Chairman and main force behind Panama gold company Petaquilla Minerals (PTQ.to), does not have a criminal record for marijuana dealing.

The truth is that he has a criminal record for cocaine and marijuana dealing and has done his time in prison for the crimes committed, too.

Yeah, really. This guy is a drug dealing scumbag and the truth is upon us. Watch this space next week for the dirty details that he's tried to keep covered up for years.

News from the permissive narco-state of Bolivia

Sorry guys, another stereotype set up by the bullshit lies of Mary O'Grady, Andres Idiotoppenheimer and all the propaganda gang up there that you're just going to have to throw out with the trash one of these fine days. Prensa Latina reports (translation IKN):

La Paz, Feb 14th (PL): In January, Bolivia's Special Forces in the Fight Against Narcotrafficking (Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotráfico (FELCN)) confiscated more than 161 tonnes of cocaine and marijuana inside national territory, according to the newspaper Cambio. This work is the result of 750 operations in Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and La Paz, according to the daily.

FELCN officers destroyed 334 drugs factories, a crystallization plant and 461 coca leaf maceration sites as well as arresting more than 251 people including Bolivians and foreigners.

The Director General of FELCN, Colonel Félix Molina, explained to Cambio that the statistics demonstrated the effectiveness of the police forces charged with the fight against drugs, which will be further improved by the pending reorganization of two special groups that will investigate narcotraffickers' monetary fortunes.

Yesterday, the national police force also reported the detention of two Colombians with more than 300kg of cocaine in the western region of Santa Cruz. The director of FELCN in the western area, Jorge Romero, said that the hypothesis is that two two arrested persons were installing a refining lab or possibly trying to remove the lab from the country by air.

The government of Bolivia recognizes that various large-scale drugs making labs dismantled in 2009 in the country used the same techniques as the narcotrafficking mafia of Colombia.

Evo's Bolivia is Combatting Narcos better than the DEA ever did

So much for the DEA. Here are the solid statistics that show how Bolivia has increased drugs interception and confiscation since the DEA were thrown out of the country.

Yes, that says 'increased', gringos. Read on.

Click to enlarge

This top chart shows the amount of cocaine confiscated in Bolivia every year since 2000. The 7.19 metric tonnes so far this year is right on schedule to match the 2008 totals. Remember that the DEA were thrown out in 2008. Since that time drugs interceptions have clearly rocketed.

On to the perhaps even-more impressive bottom chart. Although cocaine is the headline drug of Bolivia, the country is also a big marijuana-growing area especially in the eastern provinces of Santa Cruz and Beni. This second chart shows the really impressive job the Bolivia FELCN anti-narco police force has been doing against the marijuana traffickers since the US DEA left town. In the first three months of 2009 Bolivia has already confiscated more marijuana than in the whole of 2008, in itself the all-time record year. Again, it surely makes you wonder what the DEA was doing all this time, doesn't it?

Oh, and by the way, since January 2008 the FELCN has grounded nine light aircraft used by the drug scum out of commission and locked away 4,363 people, too. All details from the relevant website right here.

It's strange that left to its own devices, Bolivia (as it said it would) has become far more effective in the fight against drug trafficking. Remember that the USA took away the ATPDEA preferential trade deals in late 2008 because it said it wasn't doing enough in the so-called "war against drugs", but even without trade deals and DEA leadership, Bolivia is doing a far better job than at any point under the US anti-narco lead. As the Vice Minister in charge of operations, Felipe Cáceres, said yesterday:

"Despite the fact that the opposition and media want to discredit the work of the FELCN, the national government is hitting this illicit activity hard. "The neoliberal governments that protect nacrotraffickers and repress coca producers ran between 3,000 and 4,000 operations every year, something that doesn't happen with this government that, under its policy of zero cocaine and zero illegal drugs, is leading a massive struggle against the people and family clans involved in narcotrafficking, and with positive results."

Seriously, it's about time people started asking the DEA exactly what it was doing all this time in Bolivia and whether, as both long-standing rumours and the recent statistics indicate, the DEA really was part of the trafficking problem and not its solution.

And what are they doing in Colombia?

turn on, tune in, vote for me

The concept of buying votes is illegal, scandalous and abhorrant...for you guys up there. Down here it's illegal, normal and happens all the time, but today's example even impressed your jaded correspondent.

In Cordoba Argentina, the Peronist (PJ) party were holding internal elections to decide on the next batch of local leaders. In order to encourage some of the younger party members to turn out and vote (specifically for their party ticket of course), not one but two of the candidates offered marijuana joints to anyone who'd go in the booth and put a tick by their name.

I think this one even beats out the Argentine local elections in the Rioja region in which one ticket offered a lottery for a breast enlargement operation to anyone that supported them (presumably more popular with women than men, but ya never knowz these daze).