US Attorney Damian Williams from New York published evidence that confirms that DEA agents allegedly conspired to traffic cocaine from Colombia in 2017.
In a letter to New York judge Valerie Caproni, Williams alleged that a Colombian citizen without a criminal record, Armando Gomez, “attempted to import tons of cocaine into the United States” in 2017.
The same letter contained evidence suggesting that Williams’ own assistant, Jason Richman, helped fabricate these charges in a botched conspiracy to extradite former guerrilla leader “Jesus Santrich” in 2018.
In fact, the evidence suggests that the DEA coordinated the export of cocaine it allegedly received from Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office in a “controlled delivery.”
In the trial against Santrich, Richman testified under oath that the allegedly fabricated charges against Gomez and the former FARC chief were “the result of a drug trafficking investigation in Colombia.”
DEA agent Brian Witek testified under oath that he coordinated the conspiracy to traffic the drugs to support the fabricated charges against Santrich “following the instructions” of “American law enforcement authorities.”
US embassy took part in DEA plot to discredit Colombia’s war crimes tribunal
Attack against national sovereignty
“Jesus Santrich” (Screenshot: YouTube)
Colombia’s war crimes tribunal JEP discovered the conspiracy and called it “an attack against the national sovereignty” in 2019.
Santrich was assassinated by a member of Colombia’s military official in Venezuela in May 2021, effectively ending the New York investigation into the fabricated charges against the former guerrilla chief.
Despite the discovery of the DEA hoax and the death of Santrich, the criminal investigations against Gomez continued.
Did a DEA hoax devastate Colombia’s peace process?
US prosecutors add evidence to DEA drug trafficking claims
Ironically, this revealed even more evidence that Gomez allegedly had been moving drugs for the DEA.
In December last year, Williams provided judge Valerie Caproni images of Gomez allegedly delivering five kilograms of cocaine to an DEA informants on November 1, 2017.
Image: New York prosecution
Document leaked to Colombian press in November 2020 had already made it evident that these drugs were part of a “controlled delivery” of 10 kilograms that had been signed off by Colombia’s former Organized Crime chief, Alvaro Osorio, on October 17, 2017.
Prosecution document showing the provision and delivery of cocaine to the DEA.
The New York prosecution documents suggest that the DEA subsequently exported five kilos of the cocaine to the United States on December 7, 2017. What happened to the remaining five kilograms is a mystery.
Williams asked the judge to sentence Gomez in order to “send a message to those anywhere who would consider following the well-trodden path of the defendant and his co-conspirators.”
The New York prosecutor stressed that the trial “continues to receive significant press coverage in Colombia,” mainly because of the involvement of the DEA and the assistant US attorney in conspiracies to traffic drugs and subsequent efforts to undermine the peace process in the South American country.
DEA bungled conspiracy against Colombia’s war crimes tribunal: report
Colombian investigations
JEP president Roberto Carlos Vidal (Image: Twitter)
The JEP reportedly pressed charges against the prosecution’s former International Affair director, Ana Fabiola Castro, for her alleged role in trying to cover up the conspiracy last week.
Senator Ivan Cepeda and former Senator Antonio Sanguino announced criminal charges against Witek and other DEA traffickers on fraud and illegal wiretapping charges in 2019 already.
Colombia’s Prosecutor General Francisco Barbosa has been reluctant to open a criminal investigation into compelling evidence suggesting that the DEA’s top official in Bogota at the time, ‘Craig Michelin, took part in a conspiracy to discredit the JEP in late 2018 and early 2019 when it became clear in late 2018 that their conspiracy was falling apart.
