Eight years ago Cali, Columbia anti-narcotics teams raided a condo complex owned
by Jose Santacruz Londono. The raid produced not drugs, but a huge $1.5 million
network of computers capable of vast amounts of data-mining. The mainframe was
sent to the United States and it has been deduced that the smugglers were tapped
into every U.S. diplomat in Colombia's office and residential numbers. With
this information, they can correlate relationships and discovers sources of
intelligence, spies, or turncoats. This discovery helped illuminate the real
capabilities of drug traffickers compared to the forces pitted against them. The
cocaine business reportedly takes in $80 billion each year. With that money,
drug lords are buying radar detection devices to map out coverage, submarines
and minisubs to avoid the Columbian Navy's inability to detect underwater
vessels, GPS, satellite radios, and laptops and cell phones for text messaging
encrypted orders. They use the Internet to transfer cash from U.S. dollars to
Columbian Pesos, which is also a lucrative business. On a $1 million cash
exchange, $200,000 is kept by the "banker." The narcotics industry is
recruiting IT mercenaries from every nation with electronic warfare specialists,
Italian engineers who designed Columbia's submarine fleet are believed to have
been recruited to design and build subs for the drug lords as well. Children of
the cartel leaders are being sent to U.S. engineering and aeronautics schools.
The DEA, as well as other U.S. agencies involved in the drug war, are restricted
by budget constraints, while budgets are no object for their adversaries, whose
lowest tier men have night vision goggles as well as other high tech tools.
President Bush is asking Congress for an expansion of the $1.3 billion anti-drug
aid to increase the military's role in Columbia. In 2001, 450 tons of cocaine
was shipped to the United States from Columbia.
http://www.ds-osac.org/edb/cyber/news/story.cfm?KEY=8444