Inside ICE: Volume 2, Issue 24

ICE, Colombians Work Together To Dismantle Norte Valle Cartel

Around noon on October 29, thirty members of the Colombian National Police (CNP) special “Jungla” unit, working with the ICE Attaché Office in Bogotá, stormed a ranch in northwest Colombia. Following a firefight in which a Colombian officer was wounded, the CNP arrested Jhonny Cano-Correa, aka “Flechas” or “Santiago.” It was the latest victory in a 10-year battle that has led ICE to the heart of Colombia’s largest and most dangerous drug smuggling organization—the Norte Valle Cartel.

In the mid-1990s, legacy U.S. Customs agents in New York faced a puzzling question: How could a group of storefront money wire services be moving $800 million to Colombia every year, a figure that was more than the total income of every Colombian in the city? To solve the riddle, the agents, members of the anti-money laundering El Dorado Task Force in New York, launched “Operation Wire Drill.”

The case began in earnest in August 1996, when the agents obtained a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO). This order required 22 licensed money-remitting firms and their representatives in the New York area to report information about the senders and recipients of all cash-purchased wire transmissions of $750 or more to Colombia. Normally, such remitters would only have to report transmissions of $3,000 or more.

The GTO allowed the agents to gather reams of data. They found that many of the remitters were moving the same amounts as they had before the GTO, but were not reporting these transactions because they were structuring them beneath the $750 threshold and fabricating the identity of the senders. In some cases, the agents learned that remitters were picking random names for senders out of the Yellow Pages. The GTO data, along with information from other sources, gave the agents the probable cause needed to obtain and execute search warrants on several of the remitting firms. The results of those search warrants confirmed what ICE agents had suspected: The remitting firms were laundering massive amounts in drug proceeds for the Norte Valle Cartel.

The agents in New York followed the money trail, and by 2001 the investigation began to unravel the structure and hierarchy of the Norte Valle Cartel. The agents made more than a dozen arrests and got information from defendants and other confidential informants. With that information, they determined that Luis Hernando Gomez Bustamante, aka “Rasguno,” led the cartel.

When ICE became an agency in 2003, the investigation continued. Ultimately, ICE agents were able to identify and bring charges against the leaders of the Norte Valle Cartel. Gomez-Bustamante, Arcangel de Jesus Henao Montoya (aka “El Mocho,” the second-in-command), and Wilmer Varela (an enforcer) were charged in various indictments during 2002–2004. Also charged were Jhonny Cano-Correa (another cartel enforcer), Aldemar Rendon-Ramirez, Dagoberto Rios-Flores, aka “Chuma,” and other key cartel leaders.

These indictments alleged that between 1990 and 2004, the Norte Valle Cartel was responsible for exporting more than 1.2 million pounds of cocaine to the United States, worth roughly $10 billion. The cartel was considered the largest and most feared drug organization in Colombia, responsible for roughly 30 to 50 percent of the cocaine smuggled to the United States. Additional indictments accused the Norte Valle Cartel of using the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary organization in Colombia, to protect its drug smuggling routes. The United States government has designated AUC as a foreign terrorist organization.

Following the indictments, with the help and cooperation of foreign governments, ICE went after the Norte Valle Cartel’s leadership:

• On Jan. 15, 2004, Henao Montoya, the cartel’s second-in-command, was captured in Panama and expelled to the United States He arrived on a plane in New York where he was arrested by ICE agents.
• On July 2, 2004, Gomez-Bustamante, the leader of the cartel, was detained by Cuban authorities after entering that nation on a false passport. He is thought to be in custody in Cuba.
• On Dec. 28, 2004, Rios-Flores, aka “Chuma,” was arrested outside Medellin, Colombia, by Colombian authorities. He awaits extradition to the United States.
• On July 14 of this year, Jose Aldemar Rendon-Ramirez, a key cartel finance officer, was arrested outside Medellin. He too awaits extradition to the United States.

The arrest of Cano-Correa was the latest blow to the Norte Valle Cartel. Colombian authorities found grenades, grenade launchers, assault weapons and ammunition inside the ranch.

Cano-Correa was taken to Bogotá for processing and then transported to a high-security prison in Colombia. The arrest was the result of a joint coordinated information-sharing effort by the Colombian National Police, the ICE Attaché in Bogotá and the Drug Enforcement Administration in Bogotá.

Cano-Correa was known as an enforcer for, and one of the most violent and dangerous members of, the Norte Valle Cartel. After the arrest of several cartel leaders, he is believed to have assumed an increasingly prominent role for the cartel. Colombian authorities believe he had essentially become the number three man in the cartel, overseeing financing and finding new smuggling routes.

A Link To Murder

In January 1997, legacy U.S. Customs agents began executing about 35 search warrants on money-remitting firms, including three on a business in Queens called Tele-Austin. The the agents found documents at these three locations indicating that between 1993 and 1997 about $70 million in drug proceeds was laundered through Tele-Austin and sent to Colombia. The owner of the Tele-Austin businesses fled to Colombia after the search warrants were served, but was arrested by the agents in August 1997 in Miami. The agents quickly determined that he was merely a front, and that the true owner of Tele-Austin was Juan Alberto Monsalve, aka “El Loco,” who was in Colombia.

The link to Monsalve was a link to murder. the agents found evidence that Monsalve had ordered two homicides in Queens over unpaid drug debts. Agents also gathered evidence indicating that Monsalve was the New York representative for Colombia’s Norte Valle Cartel. Monsalve was indicted for the murders in Queens, for laundering roughly $70 million in drug proceeds and for smuggling roughly 30,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States. In March 2000, Monsalve crossed the Mexican border into the United States. Four days later, the agents arrested him in New York City. Monsalve eventually pleaded guilty to one of the homicides and the drug trafficking charges. A federal judge sentenced him to two life sentences. Monsalve’s arrest and conviction was a key to unravelling the structure and hierarchy of the Norte Valle Cartel.

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