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Colombia Extradites 2 Police Officers

Posted on: Friday, 5 January 2007, 00:00 CST

By JOSHUA GOODMAN

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia has extradited to the United States a police officer and a former policeman charged with helping smuggle more than 2 tons of cocaine into the U.S. on cargo flights, U.S. officials said Thursday.

Leonidas Molina Triana, a former major in the Colombia's national police, and Humberto Avila, a patrolman at Bogota's El Dorado airport, were arrested in April as part a joint probe by prosecutors in New York and law enforcement agencies in Colombia, the United States and Mexico.

Four other current and former officers, as well as a commercial airline employee, are expected to be extradited soon, Erin McKenzie-Mulvey, a DEA spokeswoman in New York, told The Associated Press.

Operation "Caso Dorado," or Golden Case, was based on an indictment from a U.S. District Court in New York alleging that Colombia's Norte del Valle cartel - the country's biggest - recruited workers at Avianca Airlines and police at Bogota's El Dorado airport to ship cocaine on commercial aircraft.

Authorities said corrupt police officials and Avianca employees falsified paperwork in October 2005 that allowed 901 pounds of cocaine to pass through the airline's cargo facility undetected.

The drugs were seized by law enforcement authorities in Mexico, allegedly en route to the United States.

Shipments totaling nearly 2 tons were intercepted in Mexico in March and April 2006.

If convicted, the defendants face a minimum of 10 years in prison. The charges carry a maximum life sentence, but the United States has assured Colombia that it will not seek life sentences for defendants extradited from the South American country.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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