Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n343/a07.html
and http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1947/a08.html

WITNESS LINKS BOATS TO DRUG CARTEL

TAMPA - An Admitted Drug Runner Testifies At The Trial Of Crewmen From
Boats Seized In The Eastern Pacific

A confessed drug runner testified Monday that two trawlers seized in the
eastern Pacific Ocean as part of a lengthy, secrecy-shrouded cocaine
investigation have long been used for smuggling by Colombia's notorious
Cali drug cartel.

Tito Zamora appeared as a government witness in the trial of six crewmen
arrested when the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy seized one of the trawlers, the
Layneyd, 200 miles off Ecuador on April 5. Federal agents said it was
carrying 4 tons of cocaine.

The seizure was one of 10 that have occurred in the same general area in
recent months. Together, they have resulted in the confiscation of 19 tons
of cocaine, federal agents say, with a street value in the tens of millions
of dollars. All the crewmen have been brought 2,000 miles to Tampa for trial.

Zamora's testimony did not offer clues into what ties the seizures to
Tampa, something the government has gone to great lengths to keep secret.
But he did become the first prosecution witness to link at least some of
the seized vessels to the Cali cartel - although FBI agents have said
previously that the investigation is aimed at the cartel.

Zamora testified that he made about a dozen drug runs for two men allegedly
prominent in the cartel before he "retired" in 1994.

One, he said, was Jose Castrillon-Henao, 48, who was described in an
indictment handed up in Tampa in 1998 as the man in charge of maritime
smuggling for the cartel. Castrillon-Henao was arrested in Panama shortly
afterward and flown on a government plane to MacDill Air Force Base. He
awaits trial.

The other, Zamora said, was Pedro Navarette, also named in the 1998
indictment as a drug smuggler, who allegedly was partners with
Castrillon-Henao in a Colombian fishing boat company that was a front for
cocaine smuggling.

Zamora said Navarette called him out of his retirement in 1998 to install
new radio equipment on the Layneyd and make one last drug run. He helped
ferry 3 tons of cocaine to another old trawler, the Rebelde, that in turn
carried the cocaine to Mexico, Zamora said.

The Rebelde was the first boat taken by the government in the current
string of seizures. It was confiscated in the eastern Pacific, like the
Layneyd, and towed to Tampa last February. Prosecutors said it was carrying
5 tons of cocaine. Its seven crewmen are in jail here awaiting trial.

Prosecutors have indicated that they may call another alleged drug
smuggler, Reynaldo Avenia-Soto, to testify in the Layneyd case, perhaps as
early as today. Avenia-Soto was indicted with Castrillon-Henao and is
cooperating with the government, federal agents say.

Castrillon-Henao has not been listed as a witness in the Layneyd trial.
Defense attorneys have long speculated that he might be orchestrating the
seizures from jail in exchange for leniency.

The trial is expected to last the rest of the week.