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US: Two-ton cocaine load shipped under Saudi prince's protection

Herald Tribune ^ | March 11, 2005 | CATHERINE WILSON

Posted on by conservativecorner

MIAMI -- Federal prosecutors are tying a Saudi prince with diplomatic immunity to a 2-ton Colombian cocaine smuggling run from Venezuela to Paris on his personal aircraft and $10 million in artwork seized by drug agents pursuing the prince's ex-girlfriend.

In opening statements Tuesday, the defense responded that the government's case is built on the word of an enormously successful Colombian drug dealer who "duped" everyone by laundering drug money from behind bars while cooperating with federal agents.

Doris Mangeri Salazar, the ex-girlfriend and a Coral Gables real estate agent, and Ivan Lopez Vanegas, who was extradited from Colombia, are on trial on a drug conspiracy charge carrying a possible life sentence as the alleged brokers for Colombian traffickers and the prince who married into the Saudi royal family.

The defense points the finger at Juan Gabriel Usuga Norena, who was indicted with Medellin cartel kingpin Fabio Ochoa, as a storytelling liar.

As Lopez attorney Alan Soven told it, Usuga's offer was simple.

"I can get you the biggest fish in the world. How would you like a Saudi prince?" Soven said. "In their excitement to get the prince, they made a deal with the devil."

Douglas Williams, Mangeri's attorney, delayed his opening statement to the beginning of the defense case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Selmore said there is plenty of physical evidence, such as passport stamps, hotel receipts and photos from a desert encampment, from 1998 meetings in Saudi Arabia, Aruba and Venezuela to plot the cocaine delivery to a stash house in suburban Paris in 1999.

The interception of a cocaine courier at the Spanish border sent investigators backtracking to the French house, 1,769 pounds of cocaine and loads of suitcases used to smuggle the cocaine, Selmore said.

"The facade of legitimacy that these two defendants have build around themselves began to crumble," she said.

Lopez had approached Usuga with a proposition for flying cocaine on the plane used by Saudi prince and Swiss banker Nayef bin Sultan bin Fawwaz Al-Shaalan, Selmore charged. After marrying a royal princess, he flew the world with an entourage of dozens and diplomatic immunity that avoided luggage inspections.

Co-defendants Al-Shaalan and Jose Maria Clemente, a Spaniard beyond the reach of U.S. extradition, agreed to evenly split their profits, Selmore said. The prince would pay a broker fee to Mangeri, his college sweetheart at the University of Miami, and Clemente owed Lopez.

"It was a perfect fit," Selmore said. That is, until the bust on the trial run.

Netted in the wide-ranging Colombian drug crackdown dubbed Operation Millennium, Usuga started helping U.S. drug investigators in 2000 and told them about the prince. Mangeri was arrested in 2002 and Lopez was extradited in 2003.

"Usuga is a brilliant man believing that he is the smartest drug dealer in the history of the world," Soven said. "He must have seen the 'Scarface' movie 20 times. He thought he was invincible."

Sentenced to less than three years in prison in the Ochoa indictment, which netted the kingpin more than 30 years, Usuga wanted even less time. From prison, he offered up the prince and his coterie but was running three money-laundering side deals that had him handling money in three drug investigations, Soven said.

Sitting in U.S. custody are a landscape painting by Goya and a portrait by the Japanese artist Tsuguharu Foujita, which had been sent by Clemente to an informant purportedly to settle a drug debt. A Spanish gallery owner's claim to ownership has been rejected, leaving the artwork in government storage.



TOPICS:

Crime/Corruption

Foreign Affairs

News/Current Events

Politics/Elections

War on Terror

KEYWORDS:

arabia

cocaine

colombian

crime

drugs

geopolitics

prince

saud

saudi

saudiarabia

smuggling

wodlist





To: Howlin; Bahbah

Ooops!



To: conservativecorner

Sauduction.com.

This sounds like one of those stories from

by 3 posted onby USF (I see your Jihad and raise you a Crusade  © ®)

To: conservativecorner

Uh... while I don't mind seeing a saudi go to prison... if this is a Saudi citizen, and the flight was from Venezuela to Paris... how does the U.S. pick up jurisdiction?



To: conservativecorner

Will todays MSM give this the kind of coverage they are giving MJ ?



To: Ramius

Ah, nevermind. He was operating here, and its some kind of RICO thing. Gots it.



To: conservativecorner

Hand me a hundred.



by 7 posted onby Nitro ( We do it with a bang.)

To: conservativecorner

Correct me if I'm wrong, but ain't smuggling dope a head choppin' offense in Saudi Arabia?



by 8 posted onby yooper (If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there......)

To: yooper

You are 100% correct-a-mundo!



To: yooper

You'll end up at Chop Chop Square after Friday jumma...



But then of course, the whole place is run like a private pleasure palace for the thousands of royals, who often come to the west and drink, gamble and fornicate..



by 10 posted onby USF (I see your Jihad and raise you a Crusade  © ®)

To: conservativecorner

At this rate, the DEA will someday have unfettered jurisdiction over the entire planet. (Shudder.) That would be nearly the same as having the IRS become a UN agency to collect taxes worldwide.



Why is it that an agency WE pay for is stepping so far out of its' jurisdiction?



by 11 posted onby datura (Stress is best relieved using therapeutic high explosives.)

To: yooper

Correct me if I'm wrong, but ain't smuggling dope a head choppin' offense in Saudi Arabia?

======

Well, we must keep up our bankroll to FUND TERRORISM against DEMOCRACY in the Middle East...and to keep the Pals in plenty of C4 explosive...





To: conservativecorner

Sooooo, I wonder if this is one of the Saudi bigs that is financing terror?



To: McGavin999

To: EagleUSA

...and to keep the Pals in plenty of C4 explosive... Can you smoke that?



by 15 posted onby Mind-numbed Robot (Not all things that need to be done need to be done by the government.)

To: stand watie

A must read.



To: hoosiermama

bump



To: conservativecorner

We made Saudi Arabia, and we can break Saudi Arabia.



Some things deserve breaking.



After Iran, Syria and Mr. Lonerly in NK are taken care of, we have to take care of this corrupt backwater country that is fueling all of the hate.



Or at least take over the oil fields. For the godd of the world, you know.



by 18 posted onby exit82 (You see, I've been to the desert on a horse with no name--then I found FreeRepublic.)

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