The Manhattan Federal Prosecutor charged five Colombians Thursday with conspiracy to murder a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent and conspiracy to import narcotics. The
Colombians will be tried in New York.
U.S. authorities allege that the
defendants plotted to kill a suspected DEA
informant and the DEA agent who worked with the informant, but the plan
was revealed by another DEA informant the defendants did not know was
cooperating with U.S. authorities, AP reported.
The five belonged to a Colombian drug organization that considered itself at war with U.S. drug agents, authorities said.
It is alleged that one defendant, Carlos Alexander Silva Baltan, 31, told a DEA informant
that the drug organization intended to kill the DEA agent stationed in
Colombia in retaliation for a narcotics seizure by Colombian
authorities in Buenaventura, Colombia.
The
defendants were arrested June 11 in Panama by Panamanian authorities
and were extradited to the United States for prosecution.
They face life in prison for conspiring to murder a U.S. Federal Agent.