INFO-RUSS: Reuter: Russian+Russian Drug Cartels (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

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Subject: INFO-RUSS: Reuter: Russian+Russian Drug Cartels
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[ Reuters New Media]
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Monday September 29 9:06 AM EDT

Post: Russian Mob, Drug Cartels Joining Forces

WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Russian organized crime groups, flush with dollars,
are forming alliances with Colombian drug traffickers in the Caribbean,
acquiring cocaine for delivery to Europe and providing weapons to Latin
American mafias, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The newspaper, quoting U.S., European and Latin American law enforcement
officials, said the Russian groups were also opening banks and front
companies across the Caribbean, largely using them to launder millions of
dollars from drug sales and other criminal activities.

The officials were quoted as saying that the growing alliances between
Russian and Colombian criminal organizations were the most dangerous trend
in drug smuggling in the Western Hemisphere.

Barry McCaffrey, the Clinton administration's national drug control policy
director, said the Russian groups were among the "most threatening criminal
organizations based in the United States."

The newspaper quoted him and other sources as saying that the Russian groups
offered drug cartels access to sophisticated weapons and brought access to
new drug markets in the former Soviet Union at a time when consumption was
falling in the United States.

The sources told the Post recent undercover operations had detected attempts
by Russian groups to sell Colombian drug traffickers a submarine,
helicopters and surface-to-air missiles.