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DEA bags Narco-State cop

Submitted November 22, 2005 - 11:29 pm by Bill Conroy
Well, DEA seems to have snagged at least one major target in Guatemala's "Narco-State."

He wasn't part of the military/intelligence cabal. Rather, he was a cop, in fact, Guatemala's top anti-drug law enforcer.

From an AP report:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Guatemala's top anti-drug investigators have been arrested on charges they conspired to import and distribute cocaine in the United States after being lured to America for what they thought was training on fighting drug traffickers.

A three-count indictment issued Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Washington names Adan Castillo, chief of Guatemala's special anti-drug police force, who has lamented the slow pace of progress in combating cocaine smugglers in Guatemala. Also indicted were Jorge Aguilar Garcia, Castillo's deputy, and Rubilio Orlando Palacios, another police official.

They were arrested Tuesday after arriving in the United States for Drug Enforcement Administration training on stopping drug trafficking in ports, Guatemala's interior minister and two U.S. law enforcement officials said. In reality, the DEA had been investigating the men for four months with the help of the Guatemalan government.

Unfortunately, even if this proves to be a legit bust, it does nothing to address the narco-corruption Smyth writes about with respect to the Guatemalan military.

In fact, it may actually help give groups like the Kaibiles more cover.

After all, if you take down the main man charged with investigating narco-corruption in Guatemala (because he is an alleged smuggler himself) that doesn't say much for the infrastructure in place to target narco-corruption in the military.

I wonder who set him up?

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