these international drug organizations, we need a new coordinated intelligence strategy which will identify the enemy and its weaknesses. Any General commanding a force knows that intelligence about the enemy's deployment, resources and strategy is essential to success. And the same is true for this war on drugs. We will hear in graphic detail the exploits of these drug kingpins. We will hear from a former member of a paramilitary group that was funded and trained under the auspices of the drug assassins, a Colombian author and journalist will describe how attacks against journalists have eroded Columbia's freedom of press to such an extent that few newspapers even cover issues related to drugs and the outlaw activities of the cartels for fear of physical retribution against reporters and editors. The deceptive, illusive activities of the cartels mandate a strategy based on intelligence to identify the enemy and determine the weak links in its operation. The FBI implemented just such a long term strategy to successfully prosecute and ultimately break up traditional organized crime groups in this country. Law enforcement agencies must do a better job of sharing intelligence and cooperating on investigations. We must create an accessible data base readily available to all agencies who need it. In short, if we are to fight a war on drugs, let's fight a smart war. The time to act is now before these narco traffickers gain control of entire regions of Latin America. I agree with President Bush and Director Bennett that we need a National Center for Drug Intelligence. I hope my colleagues will agree with me on this. Again I want to commend my good friend and colleague, the Chairman, Senator Nunn for holding these hearings. As I said, he has been a leader in Congress in the fight against drug traffickers. As I mentioned earlier, Senator Nunn and I have worked together on this important and timely investigation. This investigation has been a real joint effort and I look forward to continuing to work with Senator Nunn on this vital issue, and I also commend the Director, Mr. Bennett the FBI and DEA for their help and cooperation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator NUNN. Let me just make an administrative announcement here. We do have available on the table in the back of the room equipment for translation. We have simultaneous translation going on for people who speak Spanish and who may not understand clearly what is being said in English. Later during these hearings we will have Spanish speaking witnesses and we will have simultaneous translation available for those who need help, as the Chairman will, in translating that into English. Senator Roth I will ask you if you will introduce each panel as we go along here and then I will swear them in and we will receive their testimony. Senator ROTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First we will hear from Ms. Mary Vinson who will provide the staff report. This is the group that, of course, conducted the investigation that made these hearings possible. Senator NUNN. Do you swear the testimony you give before this Subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? TESTIMONY OF MARY K. VINSON, MINORITY INVESTIGATOR, PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS Ms. VINSON. I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Roth, and members of the Subcommittee. I have prepared a statement which I request be entered into the record,1 which I will summarize here. Last year the Minority staff of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations began an investigation of the structure of international drug trafficking organizations focusing on cocaine trafficking groups. Our goal was to identify the leaders of these organizations and determine how and to what extent these groups operate within defined structure. The staff contacted a wide variety of individuals in various locations, both domestically and overseas. Initially we canvassed pertinent Government agencies to learn what information had been collected and analyzed on cocaine trafficking organizations. Next we traveled to Los Angeles, New York, and Miami, three major centers of trafficking activity in this country. We interviewed Federal and local officials in those cities to determine what they knew about the narcotics traffickers who operate in their cities and how these regional trafficking networks relate to groups in supplying countries. Overseas we interviewed foreign and U.S. officials to learn what they knew of the groups trafficking cocaine in each country. And finally, we interviewed former members of drug trafficking organizations. The information on the charts 2 you see here is a synthesis of the information we gathered during this investigation. The charts represent our best estimate of who the major chiefs of the cocaine trade are and how these groups fit together. These charts are not purported to be comprehensive. Rather, they contain these organizations and individuals which could be identified and whose identities were corroborated by multiple sources. I would like at this point to submit to the Subcommittee under seal an exhibit describing the source of information for each individual and organization listed on the charts. These sources included law enforcement agencies, foreign officials, confidential informants and information taken from indictments. Each name or organization included in the chart was corroborated by at least two sources. I must add that while there are divergent opinions about how these groups interrelate, the configuration we have charted here represents our best understanding. Overall we found that indeed there are two major Colombian cartels which dominate the cocaine trade in the western hemisphere, the Medellin cartel and the Cali cartel. 1 See p. 109. 2 See Exhibits 1-3 on pp. 174-176. 3 Exhibit 4. Sealed exhibit. I do not use the word "cartel" in its strict economic sense, but simply to connote a group which acts as a unit toward a common goal. There are secondary trafficking organizations, such as those represented in the chart of the North Atlantic Coast groups, which are affiliated with both of the larger cartels and provide services to them in addition to conducting their own independent trafficking operations. Many of the major traffickers on the north coast made their initial fortune smuggling marijuana during the 1970's and now rent a variety of their smuggling services to the Cali or Medellin cartels. As previously indicated, there are many different views among U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies about the cartels. However, one uniform view that we found is that the Cali cartel, although smaller in number, runs a much more business like, less high profile operation than the Medellin cartel. The Medellin groups appear to be more loosely organized, informal and spontaneous in their operational style than Cali cartel. In fact, some law enforcements officials believe that the Cali cartel actually ships more cocaine to the United States than Medellin cartel. One of the witnesses you will hear from today, a Colombian journalist who has investigated cartels extensively, believes that the Cali cartel may be, indeed, the more significant of the two cartels. There have been many reports lately of a war between these two cartels. This, again, is the subject of some dispute within the agencies of our Government. Although there have been significant casualties in Colombia as a result of this war, it does not yet appear to have either threatened the existence or significantly affected the operations of the two cartels. During the course of the investigation we heard two distinctly separate views on how these organizations function. One view was that the groups were vertically integrated and run like corporations with each stage of the cocaine processing and distribution handled by a separate department. The other view was that the cartels are very loosely organized, consisting of a boss and a few trusted lieutenants who subcontract the services required to process and distribute the product. Under this view, the organizational configuration changes with each load of drugs. It appears, however, that the larger the trafficker, the deeper the vertical integration in the organization. We found definite indications that a trafficker of the stature of Gonzalez Rodriguez-Gacha, for example, will have his own paste suppliers, his own laboratories, his own stash sites and his own warehouses. He might rent space or services to other minor traffickers, but the infrastructure is his. As would make sense in any normal business setting, the smaller the trafficker, the less vertically integrated or the less of the infrastructure is his own. This is not to say that a major trafficker will use only his facilities. One person we interviewed characterized cocaine traffickers as organized primarily around opportunities. Although the staff did find evidence of a defined, stable infrastructure, these organizations are also extremely flexible and will use whatever channel is most economically profitable at any given moment to export as much cocaine as possible. In sum, we found that there are coherent, identifiable fixed cocaine trafficking organizations which exist and have directed the international cocaine trade for at least 10 years. We also found that there are large gaps in the information our Government has about these groups. There are several reasons for this lack of information. First, as Senator Roth indicated in his statement, because success in the drug war have heretofore been judged primarily on the basis of the body count approach—that is, drugs seized and arrests made-we have tended to emphasize tactical intelligence about specific loads of drugs over strategic intelligence about operations and organizations. Second, even when intelligence information is obtained, it is often not effectively used. It is not fully shared among agencies, or may not even be readily retrievable by the originating agency. There is, in fact, a great deal of information potentially available in many different places from many different sources, but it is not available in one place where it can be most effectively used by all U.S. Government agencies involved in the war on drugs. The intelligence portions of the Administration's drug strategy, which contemplate establishing a Center for Strategic Intelligence, would appear to be a good first step in correcting the problem. We should not, however, dismiss lightly the difficulties inherent in acquiring and sharing drug intelligence. The need to protect informants is vital, and the natural reluctance to share informant information outside the originating agency is one impediment. The fear of compromising sources and methods of intelligence gathered in court proceedings, as well as the limits and dangers of intelligence gathering in foreign countries, are additional obstacles. We also currently lack an adequate centralized automated data processing system which could securely store and retrieve this information. All of these concerns present serious problems, but these problems, difficult as they are, must be overcome if we are to effectively dismantle the international cocaine cartels. We cannot win the war on drugs until we finally fully understand the enemy, and we have far to go. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Senator ROTH. Thank you very much, Ms. Vinson. Let me ask you a few brief questions. As I understand it, essentially there are three cartels. Some would say four if you list the Bogota as a fourth organization. But the two most important are the Cali and Medellin. What percentage of the cocaine traffic do they control, do you know? Ms. VINSON. We consistently heard from people that we interviewed during the investigation that those two cartels together control 80 percent of the cocaine that comes into this country. Senator ROTH. So they are, without question, the 2 major factors in this trafficking? Ms. VINSON. Yes, sir. Senator ROTH. Now, you compared the two organizations. The Medellin Cartel is essentially the largest, but there are those who think that the Cali Cartel is more business-like on the long run, and a bigger threat; is that correct? Ms. VINSON. Yes, that is correct. Most of the public attention heretofore has been focused on Medellin because of their violence, and they have also made some efforts to enter the political arena in the past and consequently have drawn a lot of the attention. But Cali has consistently been running their operation for at least 10 years in a very organized and sophisticated fashion. Senator ROTH. Now, let us look at the organizational chart, itself. The Medellin Cartel is dominated by the three figures, is that correct, at the top of whose pictures are shown? Ms. VINSON. Yes, sir. Senator ROTH. Now, you have sub-divided the organizational chart by distribution, supply/distribution, transportation and undefined functions. What do you mean by "undefined functions"? MS. VINSON. This would mean from the information we have received which led to these charts that we don't know exactly what their specialized function or what the strength is, of those particular groups. We know that they are players in the cartel, but we don't have information as to what they specialize in. Senator ROTH. And each of these blocks are primarily identified by the individual who is the dominating figure? Ms. VINSON. Yes, sir. Senator ROTH. These blocks are pretty fluid? Ms. VINSON. They are fluid in the sense of who they work with within that sphere of the smaller blocks. They can float around and put together loads and form alliances and dissolve, but they are all basically affiliated with the Medellin cartel. Senator ROTH. And last, let me ask you, do we have any estimates about the size of these cartels and how many individuals are involved in these activities? Ms. VINSON. We heard numbers for the Medellin cartel as high as 100,000 persons. For the Cali cartel, we heard estimates varying between 2,500 to 6,000, persons. Senator ROTH. Do we have an estimate on what percentage of these are located in the United States? MS. VINSON. I cannot remember if we do or not. Senator ROTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator NUNN. Thank you. Ms. Vinson, let me ask you again to describe how those charts were put together. How did you go about making sure that any individual named on this chart really was part of a cartel? Ms. VINSON. Well first we were provided information that had already been collected by various agencies in the Government, and then we began to systematically try and corroborate by asking all the individuals that we interviewed about certain individuals and organizations and whether they recognized the name. That's the fashion in which we tried to corroborate and put together the chart. Senator NUNN. How many sources did you have to have before someone actually went on the chart? MS. VINSON. At least two. Senator NUNN. And they had to be independent sources? |