{{A former navy chief of the small West African nation of Guinea-Bissau who is suspected of being a kingpin in the international cocaine trade was brought to the U.S. for trial on drug charges following his arrest at sea by federal drug agents, authorities said Friday.}}
Four other men apprehended in the operation also were brought to New York for trial, the Drug Enforcement Administration and federal prosecutors said in a joint release.
Two more men were arrested in Colombia Friday as part of a related investigation and were awaiting extradition.
Rear Adm. Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto and two other Guinea-Bissau nationals were taken into custody Tuesday aboard a vessel in international waters in the eastern Atlantic Ocean while two others were arrested Thursday in a West African country and later transferred to U.S. custody, the release said.
Na Tchuto was charged with conspiring to import narcotics into the United States.
Three others were charged with conspiring to sell weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, to be used to protect the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, cocaine processing operations in Colombia against U.S. military forces.
The arrests were made based on evidence gathered by confidential sources who posed as representatives or associates of the FARC as they communicated with the defendants beginning last summer, authorities said.
Prosecutors said the evidence includes a series of audio recordings and videotaped meetings over several months in Guinea-Bissau.
According to court papers, the defendants agreed to receive cocaine off the coast of Guinea-Bissau and to store the cocaine in storage houses there prior to their shipment to the United States.
The U.S. government alleged that the defendants also agreed that a portion of the cocaine would be used to pay Guinea-Bissau government officials to provide safe passage for the cocaine through Guineau-Bissau.
Prosecutors said Na Tchuto discussed shipping ton-quantities of cocaine from South America to Guinea Bissau by sea, saying it was a good time to transport drugs because Guinea Bissau government was weak because of a recent coup d’etat.
They said he also said his fee would be $1 million per 1,000 kilograms of cocaine received in Guinea Bissau for the use of a company he owned to hide the shipments before they were moved to the United States. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart called the arrests “significant victories against terrorism and international drug trafficking.”
{Associated Press}
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