Counterterrorism Blog

The U.S. Treasury continued to target the Colombian FARC narco-terrorist group, by designating entities and individual FARC leaders under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. The action freezes any assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting U.S. persons from conducting business transactions with the designated persons. From the Treasury press release:

"Today's designations focus on a FARC financial network that involves two Colombian money exchange business, Cambios El Trebol and Cambios Nasdaq Ltda. Both are based in Bogota, Colombia. The FARC used these Colombian money exchange businesses, or "profesionales del cambio" as they are commonly known in Colombia, to launder narcotics proceeds... Myriam Rincon Molina and Jose Edilberto Camacho Bernal, two individuals who are tied to these money exchange businesses and who act on behalf of the FARC, were also designated today... Today's OFAC action also targets Nilson Calderon Velandia (alias "Villa") and Carlos Olimpo Diaz Herrera, both major drug traffickers for the FARC."

Carlos Olimpo Diaz Herrera owns Cambios Nasdaq Ltd. and also is responsible for the production and sale of cocaine for the FARC's 27th Front. The press release included an Acrobat file of the involvement of the designated persons in the 27th Front's financial flows.

You can read a transcript of our live panel on March 19, "Compañeros de Armas ("Friends in Arms"): Chavez, FARC & South America," which I moderated. Contributing Experts Douglas Farah and Jonathan Winer were joined by former O.A.S. and U.S. State Department senior counter-terrorism official Steven Monblatt. You can also read over 70 previous posts about FARC written by our Contributing Experts.

UPDATE: The Drug Enforcement Administration today announced the extradition of another FARC leader, Juan Jose Martinez Vega, from Colombia to the U.S. to face cocaine conspiracy charges. He was one of 50 FARC leaders and operatives indicted in 2006 for running FARC's cocaine exporting operations into the U.S. (see my post in March 2006 with the indictment). "Over several years, MARTINEZ VEGA made dozens of such deliveries to the 16th Front, including a delivery in February 2002 of approximately 37 tons of weapons and ammunition in exchange for approximately 2,500 kilograms of cocaine paste and 750 million Colombian pesos."