The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reportedly bungled a conspiracy against Colombia’s war crimes tribunal in an attempt to cover up a botched conspiracy against demobilized guerrillas.
A DEA agent and a Colombian accomplice tried to entrap the chief prosecutor and a magistrate of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) in order to accuse them of bribery in late 2018, according to evidence obtained by Noticias Uno.
The news program made chats of the alleged counternarcotics cop public in which the DEA official plotted a botched conspiracy to entrap the JEP’s top prosecutor, Giovanni Alvarez, and magistrate Ivan Gonzalez.
The failed operation cost the head of Colombia’s chief prosecutor, triggered a surge in illegal armed groups formed by former FARC guerrillas and strained relations between the two countries.
A conspiracy to cover up a conspiracy
Fake Sinaloa Cartel attorney “Gerardo Assab” appeared in Colombia in October 2018, according to Noticias Uno.
Assab looks a lot like Marco Aurelio Garcia, one of the DEA agents who was reportedly involved in the failed conspiracy to fabricate drug trafficking charges against former FARC leaders “Ivan Marquez” and “Jesus Santrich.”
This conspiracy was shoddy from the beginning, but going really wrong because Colombia’s prosecution released evidence indicating a charge against former FARC leader “Jesus Santrich” was a hoax.
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Alleged serial bungler “Gerardo Assab”
In an apparent attempt to cover up the failed conspiracy against the former FARC leader, the alleged DEA agent tried to neutralize the JEP by trying another conspiracy, this time with bribes, Assab told a Colombian associate.
The alleged counternarcotics cop had a $6 million budget to convince the top JEP officials for “proceedings to delay the holiday of our friend,” Assab told his associate on December 4, 2018.
The alleged DEA agent stressed that “no resources will be released without a meeting” that would provide the evidence to take down the JEP’s judicial officials.
The plan was simple: if only a judge would fall in the trap not even a virtually blind former guerrilla chief would fall in, nobody would think the average DEA agent is an imbecile.
The plan failed and to add insult to injury, local media revealed evidence that then-US ambassador Kevin Whitaker was lying that the Department of Justice never received a request for evidence.
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Stupid enough for the DEA
Assab and Colombia’s prosecution had to settle for less, so they bribed an assistant prosecutor who got a job at the JEP two days after the prosecution’s October 2018 blunder instead.
Prosecution cameras recorded an alleged DEA agent giving assistant prosecutor Carlos Julio Bermeo $40,000 in March 2019.
Bermeo had absolutely nothing to do with the Santrich case, but at least fell in the DEA trap.
The prosecution claimed Bermeo agreed to delay the former guerrilla leader’s extradition, which the assistant prosecutor denies and the prosecution has yet to prove.
“There is even talk of a magistrate,” the prosecutor told the court, indicating he knew about the failed conspiracy to bribe Gonzalez.
The money was for “the return of documents sent by a foreign intelligence agency” the US government has yet to send, according to the JEP and Colombia’s Supreme Court.
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Washington and Bogota degenerate
Alvarez immediately smelled a rat and ordered to investigate the JEP’s entire prosecution unit while US authorities were becoming increasingly desperate.
By April, congressmen accused Whitaker of trying to extort them into limiting the JEP’s powers and court officials began avoiding the ambassador like the plague.
The DEA’s disaster was complete in May last year when the JEP ordered to investigate the feds and Colombia’s chief prosecutor, Nestor Humberto Martinez, instead.
Martinez resigned immediately and Santrich disappeared weeks after his release as FARC guerrillas throughout Colombia began to rearm.
Whitaker was replaced almost immediately, leaving the his successor, US Ambassador Philip Goldberg, to take the biggest punch that came last month.
El Espectador released evidence of the the DEA and Colombia’s prosecution had been conspiring to sink Colombia’s peace process since February 2017, triggering treason charges against Martinez.
The former chief prosecutor’s future became even bleaker after the publication of evidence he conspired with the DEA in an attack on Colombia’s justice system.