Tom Raffanello and R. Allen Stanford

Tom Raffanello (for it is he)

Waaaaaaay back on the 19th February 2009, your humble servant wrote this post that mentioned a certain Tom Raffanello. At the time of the Stanford Ponzi blow-up, Raffanello was head of Stanford Financial Group's security department. Previous to that he was head of Miami's DEA. Here's how my post went:

There's a lot of speculation and chatter about possible connections between Cur Allen Stanford and the heady world of narcotrafficking this morning, but away from pure jawboning there is a solid and verifiable link between Stanford and the world of drugs.

However, it's...err...ahem...on the other side of the ....errr...coin. A guy called Tom Raffanello is (or perhaps was) head of the Stanford Financial Group security department. The thing is that once upon a time......errrr.....how can I put this?...hmmmmm....he was head of the Miami DEA! Yep, true, here's a link to Google returns that show our friend Tom was a DEA guy way back then.

Now, of course, we all know that the Miami DEA fight drugs to man and never take bribes and don't have the slightest suspicion of wrongdoing in their illustrious and squeaky-clean history.

All the same, quite a coincidence, n'est pas?

Bad pennies are as bad pennies does. Last week Raffanello was indicted by the US good-guy-bad-guy people. Here's Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A security director for the shuttered Stanford Financial Group, and a deputy, were indicted for their alleged role in obstructing the probe of group's alleged $7 billion fraud, court documents unsealed on Thursday showed.

Thomas Raffanello, a former security director at the group's office at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was charged with three counts.

And here's Reuters again

 FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Sept 11 (Reuters) - The security
chief accused of illegally shredding documents at Stanford
Financial Group was simply "taking out the garbage" and
committed no crime, his lawyer said in a court filing.

 Thomas Raffanello, 61, who before joining Stanford was
chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Miami
office, was taken into a Fort Lauderdale federal courtroom in
shackles on Friday to face charges of conspiracy, obstruction
of justice and destroying records.

 Raffanello served as the global security chief for Stanford
Financial Group (SFG), the Texas-based banking company accused
in an alleged $7 billion Ponzi scheme that bilked investors who
bought certificates of deposit from Stanford's Caribbean bank.

 Raffanello, of Coral Gables, Florida, and a deputy, Bruce
Perraud, 42, of Weston, Florida, are accused of shredding
documents at SFG's Fort Lauderdale offices after the
court-appointed receiver for Stanford ordered company employees
not to destroy any documents.

 U.S. Magistrate Robin Rosenbaum granted Raffanello $100,000
bond at his brief hearing on Friday. Raffanello was set to
be arraigned on Sept. 18

So now that he's been arraigned, the word is on the street about Stanford's connection to the world of Miami drugs and the people he employed who were so keen on covering up for him....about seven months after IKN first broke the connection.

Just sayin'

Cocaine: Good article in The Economist

Y'know sometimes The Economist talks crap on LatAm, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't it's a good place to go to get a snappy, concise view of issues down here and I'm glad to say that this report on the cocaine business is one of The Economist's better efforts. In not-so-many words it manages to get the nuanced view (not black'n'white like the normal dumbass reporting on LatAm in English) and also add up figures correctly (more than others bother to do).

Meanwhile, to emphasize that Bolivia really is doing a good job in cracking down on smugglers, another story hit today which tells how its FELCN drug enforcement agents took days to stake out a gang and then finally moved in, arresting an Italian, a Peruvian and ten Bolivians along with 232 kilos of marching powder. All without the aid of a safety net or the US DEA (often involved with the smuggling, not the arresting).

Finally, although clearly biased in favour of Evo's team I do like this headline from BoliviaSol today. "The Allies of the USA are the World's Biggest Producers of Cocaine". I like it cos it's true and it cuts to the chase.

Massive cocaine bust in Ecuador

This week has not been a good one for the narco scum. First there was the cocaine factory discovered and dismantled in Santa Cruz, Bolivia on May 7th. It was just being set up, had U$1m of chemical raw materials ready to roll and was estimated to be able to churn out 1.5 metric tonnes (MT) per month. The Bolivian specialist (and brave and very successful) FELCN, without the aid of the DEA, did the legwork.

Then yesterday, Venezuelan authorities arrested three people and confiscated a cool 2MT of cocaine. Again, no DEA. Again, a country supposedly unhelpful in the fight against narcotrafficking.

But today the mother of all seizures went down today in that other AxisOfEvo country, Ecuador. Three Ecuadorians and two Russians arrested, and 17MT (yep, seventeen metric tonnes) of cocaine that was on its way to Spain. In fact, the Ecuador police are still counting up the haul (it was hidden in a cargo of molasses) and say it might even get to 21MT.

Meanwhile, all quiet on the confiscation front in Colombia and Peru, the world's two biggest suppliers with an anti-narco squad run by the US DEA. Funny that, innit?

UPDATE: My mistake, Peru along with a US frigate managed to grab 250kg of cocaine in an offshore raid.

More on the DEA

After this morning's post that shows how Bolivia has been fighting the narcos far more effectively since it chucked out the US DEA, a reader in Venezuela sent me the link to this story published yesterday in Venezuela. The similarities are very clear: 1) a national government fed up with the USA's attitude to Latin America 2) the fairly recent expulsion of the DEA from its territory and 3) how its combat against the drugs scourge has reportedly changed since the DEA left town.

Proven stories of corrupt DEA agents have been around for some time, of course. But what's being called into question here are not a few rogue elements but the whole philosophy behind the DEA. Here's the translation of the whole article.

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The Government Detects that Drug Cartels Operate Inside the DEA

April 2, 2009

The Vice-President of Venezuela, Ramón Carrizáles, states that facts demonstrate that the efficiency of the DEA is a lie.

The Vice-President of Venezuela, Ramón Carrizáles Rengifo, stated this Thursday that drug cartels have been detected operating inside the DEA.

While talking about the delivery of 120 transport units destined for the fight against drug trafficking and illegal use of narcotics, Carrizález stated that during the period of cooperation between Venezuela and the DEA, 2001 to 2004, 153 tonnes of drugs were confiscated, but in the period 2005 to 2008 after the cooperation was terminated, 250 tonnes were confiscated.

"We have nearly doubled the quantity of drugs that were captured when we co-operated with the DEA", he said. "This is proof that the efficiency of the DEA is a lie. Countries show better results when their own security forces fight against drugs." He added, "When the DEA was in Venezuela it didn't do anything except favour drug trafficking".

He reiterated that the Government of Venezuela always says that it is impossible to control and succeed against narcotraffickers if consumption is not controlled and if the biggest consumers of drugs do not accept that the problem is inside their own borders.

"With this act of delivery of (the 120) vehicles to prevent the social integration of drugs, Venezuela is taking an important step in the fight against the production, trafficking and consumption of drugs, the Vice President said.

He detailed that so far this year, Venezuelan forces have confiscated 8,936kg of drugs, including cocaine, marijuana, crack, basuko and heroin "because our fight against drug trafficking is a frontal assault".

Bolivia: This'll confuse 'em

Bolivia, that little country that booted out the US DEA people last year, has just made its (and I quote) "biggest drug bust in a decade".

All on their little lonesome ownsome, without the help of safety nets or "help" from up North, Bolivia's Special Force in the Fight Against Narcotrafficking (Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotráfico (FELCN)) intercepted a plane flying between the eastern Santa Cruz part of Bolivia last week and arrested the two on board. The two arrestees then took police to home base, which turns out to be a 1,000 hectare cocaine mega-processing area that is capable of making 100kg of cocaine per day.

So the FELCN, the same guys that intercepted a record 27 metric tonnes (MT) of drugs in Bolivia last year (which compares well to the 100MT estimated country production; consider Peru confiscated 29MT from an estimated 290MT of production) has just taken a potential of 36MT per year off the market and has clearly dealt a major blow the the scum that profit from the cocaine trade.

Strange how these people suddenly get put out of business after the DEA leaves, isn't it? Beats me how the world's premier drugs squad with all that technology and manpower and funding and stuff could miss a 1,000 hectare (UPDATE CORRECTION, that should read ACRES) cocaine factory all this time, then the small brown people are put in charge and the biggest freakin' bust in a decade happens.

Unless.................

Stanford and drugs: an interesting coincidence

There's a lot of speculation and chatter about possible connections between Cur Allen Stanford and the heady world of narcotrafficking this morning, but away from pure jawboning there is a solid and verifiable link between Stanford and the world of drugs.

However, it's...err...ahem...on the other side of the ....errr...coin. A guy called Tom Raffanello is (or perhaps was) head of the Stanford Financial Group security department. The thing is that once upon a time......errrr.....how can I put this?...hmmmmm....he was head of the Miami DEA! Yep, true, here's a link to Google returns that show our friend Tom was a DEA guy way back then.

Now, of course, we all know that the Miami DEA fight drugs to man and never take bribes and don't have the slightest suspicion of wrongdoing in their illustrious and squeaky-clean history.

All the same, quite a coincidence, n'est pas?

Full IKN Stanford coverage found here

Definitely not suspicious at all...oh no

On December 29th, Panama's Public Ministry (equivalent of State Dep't in the US, I suppose*) announced the country's police force had stopped a band of drugs runners. In the operation one Colombian national died from bullet wounds in the shoot-out with police and two other Colombians were arrested. A total of "at least 250kg of cocaine" was also seized in the raid. All in all it looked like a goodly sized win for the whitehats in the ongoing LatAm cops'n'robbers cocaine game.

Then today, police announced that there were six arrests, not three. All six, including the dead person, are Panamanian nationals, not Colombians. And the haul from the raid was just 132kg of cocaine and 5kg of heroin. To give you a visual idea, this is what 51kg of cocaine looks like (a photo I found from a 2007 seizure in Kentucky, USA).

What are we looking at here? That to me looks like 20kg per grip bag, more or less. So 137kg of drugs is seven bags' worth, and 250kg is 12 or 13 bags' worth. You want to tell me that a professional drugs-fighting squad can mistake "at least 250kg" for an eventual 137kg total in drugs? Or let's put it another way: Do you, kind and gentle reader, have any trouble in telling the difference between the volumes of three sacks of cement and six sacks of cement? These people are kidding us, right?

This is the way the DEA hold themselves accountable in the ongoing "war against drugs", by the way. The DEA has controlled (cough, splutter, ahem) this drugs trafficking route since Noriega's time. Keep blaming the Axis of Evo, boyz.



*UPDATE AND CORRECTION: RG at Mexfiles know better and informs that the equivalent is the US Attorney General's office. Thanks for the correction.

The DEA in Bolivia

So come on, riddle me this one dudettes and dudes:

What were the 37 US Drug Enforcement Agency agents in Bolivia doing with 1,000 (one thousand) M-16 machine guns?

Below is an excerpt from this fascinating report written by Roger Burbach and published in Upside Down World. Will the US keep insisting on Evo's paranoia? Go click that link and read for yourself. Unmissable.

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Then on November 1, Morales released a bomb shell by announcing the indefinite suspension of the activities of the US Drug Enforcement Administration in Bolivia, and the expulsion of the 37 DEA agents from the country. “Agents of the DEA carried out political espionage, including the financing of delinquent groups,” Morales declared. He pointed to a key U.S. operative involved in these activities: “Steven Faucette, the regional agent of the DEA in Santa Cruz, who on a diplomatic mission of the U.S. embassy made trips to Trinidad and Riberalta [cities in the Media Luna provinces of Beni and Pando, respectively] with the objective of financing the Civics who were committed to carrying out a civic coup.”

Morales went on to disclose that a plane with North American registry called Super King had flown to airports in the Media Luna without registering flight plans or providing notification of “the cargo it transferred to pick up vehicles when it landed on the runway, in clear violation of our national sovereignty.” Bolivian intelligence also discovered seven security houses run by the US “that carried out political espionage,” including telephone surveillance of political, police and military authorities (19)

The DEA and its 37 agents were expelled from the country. The Bolivian government appropriated what amounted to a DEA military arsenal, including airplanes, boats, ground transport vehicles, communications equipment and one thousand M-16 machine guns.

Unfortunately for Colombian Drug Traffickers, the DEA doesn't work in Venezuela any more

Here's the link to the AFP story in Spanish, and underneath is the OttoTrans. Beats me why I can't find it in English....after all, capturing a big wheel narco wanted on 16 charges in the USA should be hailed as a big breakthrough in the fight, should it not?

Oh yeah...The Venezuelans arrested him. And his friends. And his friends have already been deported to the USA by Venezuela. So all this time the DEA has had to catch these guys, and they only get collars felt when they cross into territory where the DEA doesn't operate. Funny that, innit? Anyway, we can't have stuff like that spreading around so as usual no English versions available on this story bar my translation.

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Suspected Colombian Narcotrafficker Wanted by USA Captured in Venezuela

Caracas, 15 November 2008, 02:52pm ET A suspected Colombian drug trafficker wanted by the US courts was captured Friday in Venezuela where the process for his extradition has already started, authorities informed on Saturday.

The detainee was identified as May Adalberto Michel Palacios, 40 years old, who the US Department of Justice accuses of 16 charges related to drug trafficking, according to state news agency ABN.

Palacios is connected with the Colombians Wilmer Villadiego Coneo and Henry Fortis Coneo who were deported from Venezuela to the USA last week.

So far this year, Venezuelan authorities have captured, amongst others, the presumed Colombian drugs chiefs Marcos José Orozco Wilches and Aldo Mario Alvarez Durán, the Venezolano-USA Heber Antonio Pulgar Chacón and the Italian Giovanni Civile

Venezuelan authorities arrested 3,467 people connected with narcotrafficking operations in the first six months of 2008, according to data from the National Antidrugs Office.

Now follow the bouncing ball, everybody

Gary Larson: A true hero of mankind

It's not just the English-speaking world that gets fed BS propaganda about the Bolivia of Evo Morales. When actual hard figures and third-party corroborated facts are studied it's clear that Bolivia under Morales is doing a good job in controlling the local cocaine production and trafficking business (or if you like, a damned better job than in Colombia). However that won't stop the opposition from making shit up.

1) Los Tiempos is a Bolivian newspaper out of Cochabamba owned by the very wealthy and very anti-Morales Canelas family.

2) InfoBAE is a way right-wing financial rag that circulates amongst the movers and shakers of the Argentine business community.

3) Los Tiempos runs an editorial hit piece that says "Bolivia is advancing on very dangerous ground. The virtual legalization of narcotrafficking has acquired the air of State policy and this is something that cannot be left unpunished." Total BS of course, backed up by bias and prejudice of the authors and owners of the authors, not by anything as boring as a fact.

4) But sure enough InfoBAE picks up on the story, spins it and this morning presented Argentina with the headline....

"The DEA Expulsion: Bolivians Admit They Will Be the Centre of Narcotrafficking"

....based entirely on the previous day's slanted and factually incorrect editorial in the Morales-hating newspaper.

Now if this kind of media connection sounds familiar to you, that's because it is. In fact Latin America has this technique down to a tee. Read Memory in Latin America's note right here on how the CIA funded Chile's El Mercurio newspaper against the Allende regime and towards the fascism of Pinochet for a great and lasting example. Here's an excerpt from Lillie's note:

"...The El Mercurio network was used by the CIA to "launder propaganda, disinformation, fake themes and scare stories which were then circulated through 70 percent of the Chilean press and 90 percent of the Chilean radio. The USIA and the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) in turn circulated these stories all over the world...."

Old habits die hard, y'see. Lying and falsifying the events happening in Bolivia isn't just limited to the English-speaking press. The subversion of true democracy is also alive and well and living in South America.

Hugo Chávez is directly responsible for selling cocaine to your children

These last few days have seen another round of bickering between the USA and Venezuela, and the bone being picked at is drugs. Again.

• US Drugs Czar John Walters (note to self; must check if that's the same guy who directed Hairspray) last week said Venezuela wasn't doing enough to stop drug trafficking, and part of the problem is that Venezuela denies entry visas to his DEA troops. Again.

• Venezuela replies, saying that the arrogance of DEA agents that both demand a visa and specify which day they want to arrive in Venezuela shows no sovereign respect and wouldn't go down well anywhere. Again.

• And the DEA say that Venezuela has been a major problem since they were kicked out three years ago. Again.

• And Venezuela says the DEA agents were kicked out because they were corrupt and part of the trafficking problem, not the solution. Again.

• So the two sides bicker like little children...one as bad as the other...and thing kind of boils up and we get stupid "Chávez Kills Our Firstborns" headlines. Again.

It all gets a little strange when you look at the drug trade logically. It's kind of difficult to understand when you think about the basics.

1) They know where it's grown, and coca bushes tend to stay in the same neighbourhoods as where you plant them.

2) They know where it's consumed, and the people tend to stay in the same neighbourhoods as where you put them.

3) But the blame is constantly levelled at the governments of the places where the cocaine passes through, which probably involves planes, trains and automobiles (and high powered boats, and submarines, and cargo containers and bicycles for all I know) that move quickly and are harder to pin down than...let's say....a bush. Or a zapped out cokehead.

Also, a lot of fingers are wagged at the (small) amount of drugs seized inside Venezuela. The latest batch of numbers used for the fingerwagging are "256 tonnes" (amount of cocaine the US thinks got shipped through Venezuela in 2007) and "34.15 tonnes" (the amount of drugs seized by Venezuelan anti-drugs dudes so far this year). Now I don't know whether those numbers are true, false or whatevs, but it's clear that the idea behind presenting the two numbers is to get you to say "Hah! Venezuela SUCKS at drugbustin".

But if we take Peru as our comparative to Venezuela we at least get a bit of context. In 2007 the UN estimated Peru's cocaine production at 290 tonnes. So far this year, the Peru authorities have seized 27 tonnes of merchandise. And remember this is a country where it's actually produced, not just a transport route. In fact it's second only to Colombia as world producer, but Chávez still gets the blame. I wonder why?* And talking of Colombia, the bulk of the world's cocaine is still produced there even though the US gov't has thrown over U$6.7Bn at Plan Colombia. What gives?

Well, one thing that gives is the Venezuela/Colombia border is controlled by ruthless Colombian right wing paramilitaries that are not prosecuted in the way that the just-as-bad FARC are, but even then we're scratching the surface of an extremely complex logistical process. Therefore, why get deep into an issue when we can dumb it all down and just blame Chávez?

So really, the only conclusion we can draw from these numbers is that those nasty cocaine guys are slippery little eels and tough to catch. Which is true everywhere, but especially true when you have the Peruvian government, judiciary and police forces in your pocket.

*Well, I don't really. Bit of irony on display.