News • 09 FEBRUARY 2003

Maltese link to Cali cocaine cartel

By David Lindsay

A Maltese company has been linked to the notorious Cali cocaine cartel in part of a United State’s extradition request being heard in Colombia.

According to Bogota’s newspaper El Tiempo, the Maltese connection came to light when documents showed a company in Malta had endorsed a loan amounting to USD3.2 million for the purchase of a freighter, The Harbour, which was later used to smuggle copious amounts of cocaine.

If successful, the US extradition request will see Cali kingpin Joaquin Maria Valencia tried in a Florida court for drug trafficking and money laundering.

The Maltese company, which Valencia’s four sisters were thought to be involved in, remains unnamed.

Joaquin Maria Valencia was arrested in Bogota, Colombia last week. His arrest crowned a massive international investigation into the cartel’s operations. The investigation, dubbed Operation Panama Express was one of the largest US drug probes ever. It dates back more than a decade and has resulted in the seizure of more than 180 tons of cocaine.

Although the transaction implicating the Maltese company took place over ten years ago, a Florida court believes it has sufficient evidence to tie Valencia to The Harbour. The freighter was seized in 1992 by the US Coast Guard off Cuba en route from Valparaiso, Chile to Baltimore, USA as part of the Operation. Five kilos of cocaine were discovered hidden in the hold.

Like most activities in the criminal underworld, and particularly those on the scale of the Cali cartel, the tale is an intricate web of aliases and subterfuge.

The Tampa court believes it can link Valencia to The Harbour through its purchase, the testimony of colleagues in the drug trade gathered by the US Drug Enforcement Agency and through declarations of Chilean shipping industrialist Manuel Losada.

Losada admitted that in 1992 he had formed a company with a Colombian to purchase The Harbour. He also testified that when he went into business with Valencia, not yet head of the Cali cartel, he had presented himself as Oscar Martinez, an entrepreneur interested in industrial fishing.

According to the authorities Losada and Martinez requested financing from Banalco, a Panamanian banking organisation. The organisation requested a guarantee, which was, in turn, supplied by the Maltese company. Although Valencia’s sisters were linked to the purchase, they denied any knowledge of it.

Before The Harbour was intercepted it left the port of Valparaiso empty, and proceeded to El Callao, Peru where one ton of cocaine was loaded, while the remaining four kilos were transferred aboard at open sea. The cocaine seized was identified as having originated from former Cali cartel leader Jose Santacruz.

In April 2002, following ten years of investigation, a DEA agent established that the true identity of Losada’s partner in the Harbour purchase was Valencia, using the name Oscar Martinez as an alias. Valencia, also known as El Joven due to the young age at which he is said to have taken over the cartel, has used the alias several times in the past and the name has turned up in earlier cocaine seizures.

Many other cocaine seizures followed that of The Harbour and some 175 people have been arrested as part of the operation, for the most part poor South American fishermen recruited by Cali cartel middlemen.