COLOMBIAN COCAINE RING TARGETED BY UK

Britain is to target one of the most notorious Colombian cocaine
syndicates by demanding the extradition of its key members to face
trial in the UK.

Prosecutors have drawn up a hit-list of targets connected to the
powerful Cali cartel following evidence linking them to the supply of
drugs throughout Britain. The development follows the first
extradition to the UK from Colombia since the countries signed a
treaty in 1889.

Colombian national Carlos Arturo Sanchez-Corovado, 43, pleaded guilty
at Southwark crown court on Friday to his involvement in Britain's
biggest drugs ring, a London-based syndicate with direct links to the
Cali cartel, once regarded as the world's dominant cocaine supplier.

Prosecutors said that Sanchez-Corovado acted as "delivery man" for a
group that flooded Britain with more than UKP 1bn worth of Class-A
drugs over a decade. Although police began rounding up British-based
members of the cartel five years ago, Sanchez-Corovado fled to Colombia.

By 2006, 31 members of the ring had been sentenced, leaving just
Sanchez-Corovado outstanding. After Colombian authorities had been
persuaded to surrender him, Sanchez-Corovado was arrested in Cali
last August and extradited several weeks ago. He will be sentenced
next month after pleading guilty to money-laundering offences
relating to drug trafficking and to possessing false identification.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency confirmed yesterday it had
identified a number of other high-profile Colombian cocaine barons
they want to bring to justice

Beverley Parr of Soca said: "The extradition is a really promising
development for the future."

Alison Saunders, head of the Crown Prosecution Service's organised
crime division, added: "The message for people who come here to
commit crime is that there is no hiding place."

Police sources said the deal to extradite a member of the Cali cartel
had potentially placed the country's politicians at risk, including
vice-president Francisco Santos Calderon who had given his personal
backing to the deal. The support represents a marked shift from the
1990s when the cartel's links to the government led to allegations of
multi-million dollar bribery.

Sanchez-Corovado's syndicate employed hundreds of people in the UK to
launder the vast amounts of cash it generated, and many of them
masqueraded as pillars of the expatriate Colombian community.

Court documents indicate that a Colombian cafe on Holloway Road,
north London, doubled as a money laundering operation. The
ringleaders of the group, Jesus Anibal Ruiz-Henao, 45, and his
brother-in-law Mario Tascon, 32, were jailed for 19 and 17 years for
conspiracy to supply Class-A drugs and for money laundering offences.
They sold drugs on to gangs throughout the UK.

When detectives raided their north-west London homes in 2004, they
seized more than UKP 2.5m in cash and cocaine and cannabis valued at
UKP 100m. So significant was the ring that the price of cocaine
soared by 50 per cent after it was dismantled.