Counterterrorism Blog

The U.S. Justice Department has obtained indictments against 50 of the top leaders in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for importing more than $25 billion worth of cocaine into the United States and other countries. This is the single largest narcotics trafficking indictment ever filed in U.S. history and represents a major commitment of U.S. government resources towards ending the leading narco-terror group in the Western Hemisphere. From the DOJ press release: "According to the indictment, the FARC currently supplies more than 50 percent of the world’s cocaine and more than 60 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States...According to the indictment, the charged FARC leaders used terrorism and violence to further the FARC’s cocaine-trafficking activities and ordered that Colombian farmers who sold cocaine paste to non-FARC buyers or otherwise violated the FARC’s strict cocaine policies be murdered." In addition, the State Department announced rewards of over $75 million for information leading to the capture of 24 of the FARC leaders charged today. Pertinent documents:

Indictment (43-page Acrobat file from FindLaw site)
Press conference transcript
U.S. DEA fact sheet about FARC terrorists
U.S. Justice Department press release

This is just the latest step taken to try to puruse the most active and dangerous terrorist organization operating south of our borders today. President Bush designated FARC as a "Significant Foreign Narcotics Trafficker" on May 29, 2003, and in February 2004, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added the names of FARC leaders to the list of “Tier II” persons designated under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act). President Bush’s Executive Order 13224 in October 2001 named FARC as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist." In October 1997, FARC was identified as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" under the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.