Seven charged in Panama-Colombia Ponzi drug case

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Saturday, 03.21.09
Seven charged in Panama-Colombia Ponzi drug case
BY GERARDO REYES
El Nuevo Herald

The principal suspects in a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme linked to scandals of alleged illicit payments to officials in Colombia and presidential candidates in Panama have been charged in a New York federal court with laundering drug trafficking profits.

At least 11 properties in South Florida and California have been seized in connection with the case, which involves the firm DMG and its principal broker and owner, David Murcia Guzmán. Six others were also charged.

According to the charges, the organization opened an account at a U.S. branch office of Merrill Lynch and deposited $2.1 million, an amount prosecutors hope to show is connected to money Mexican drug cartels paid to Colombian drug traffickers.

Following the scandal, several Colombian officials and one of President Alvaro Uribe's sons had to explain their links to the suspects.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/960777.html

[rabs]

1. Judi, have been watching this extradition business

from Colombia to the United States for a long time. It has not gotten much publicity in this country.

Notice the Herald article delicately says "one of President Alvaro Uribe's sons had to explain (his) links to the suspects." Too bad the article did not go on to explain those links. (Will look around later to see if can find more info.)

The DMG scandal is a very hot potato in Colombia and it would behoove Uribe to send David Murica to the United States to keep him from spilling the beans on the big shots who were involved in the multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme. Have read that a lot of Uribistas were involved.

The extradition of paramilitaries, FARC guerrillas and run-of-the-mill narco-traffickers to the United States has soared under Uribe's two terms. It was a way of handing crumbs to the bushista administration in order to say that Plan Colombia was working and to keep Plan Colombia funding flowing to Bogota.

Here is a recent TIME article that explains the extradition issue quite well.

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The policy helps Uribe stay in the good graces of the U.S. government, which props up the Andean nation with about $600 million in annual aid. It also rids Colombia of the headache of prosecuting and jailing criminal masterminds.

The mass extraditions have stymied Colombian prosecutors looking into paramilitary massacres and land grabs and hamstrung their efforts to compensate the victims of these crimes. True, the extradited all face lengthy prison terms in the U.S. But because they only have to answer for their drug crimes, the warlord defendants now have little motive for elaborating on their human rights atrocities back in their homeland.

Besides the cost to U.S. taxpayers of prosecuting all those extraditados — which often involves transportation and housing for witnesses, hiring bilingual lawyers and translating paperwork — tens of thousands of dollars are also spent annually to incarcerate each foreign detainee. What's more, for every Don Diego, there are dozens who rarely merit the trouble of extradition.

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http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1881510,00.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thanks for the deeper information on David Murcia. None of that was mentioned

in any of the conventional corporate media stories. This would be tremendous, if he could be pressed to reveal those big names who are involved. He seems a truly creepy young man. Please post anything you see on this guy. We've read about the uproar his scams caused, then we read about him once it was determined he was behind this disaster. If I'm not mistaken, one of the other men involved killed himself. Did you hear that?

I've heard Virginia Vallejo's book says Uribe helped with the legislation which worked to keep narco-traffickers from being deported when he was in the Senate, I think. (Can't remember how or when he was involved, but I do know she mentioned his involvement.)

It was funny seeing they got Don Diego and Don Berna mixed up. Someone probably got in a fair amount of trouble over that.

http://vivirlatino.com.nyud.net:8090/i/2007/09/wbaron112.jpg http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/media/images/40613000/jpg/_40613778_afp_donberna203.jpg

"Don Diego" (Diego Montoya), "Don Berna" (Diego Murillo)

[rabs]

3. DMG scandal embroils Panama presidential election

David Murcia went before a judge today in Bogota. At the hearing, he said he would rather be extradited to the United States than to face trial in Colombia. He said that in the U.S., there is "justice," while in Colombia he has already been "pre-judged." Shortly after he was arrested, he said that if he went down, others would go down with him. Murcia hobnobbed with Uribe's two sons before he was arrested this past November in Panama; Murcia was nabbed on Uribe's request to Interpol. .

In addition to the massive Ponzi scheme he ran in Colombia, Murcia is suspected of laundering more than (US)$1 bbbillion) in paramilitary drug money from Colombia.

In Panama, there is an uproar because Murcia has admitted that he gave (US)$6 million to the leading presidential candidate in the upcoming May elections, Balbina Herrera, and the leading candidate for mayor of Panama City, Bobby Velasquez. Murcia said each got three million dollars. Both Herrera and Velasquez have unsavory reputations for corruption.

Murcia said in a TV interview the election of Herrera and Velasquez would have provided "protection" for DMG operations in Panama.

My reading is that whoever is that the hidden powers behind the DMG (probably the powerful paramilitary cartels and some Uribistas) wanted to influence the elections so that Panama would become a giant narco-bank to launder billions in Colombian paramilitary drug money around the world.

Here is a backgrounder: (English)

http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_15/issue_05/news_special_01.html

[Judi Lynn]

4. This is remarkable. As if he hadn't done enough working his Ponzi scheme, he also laundered

money for the Norte del Valle cartel. From the article you linked in the Panama News:

In a series of jailhouse interviews, a young Colombian named David Murcia Guzmán had already shaken up the Panamanian political scene. First he said that the Balbina Herrera for president and Bobby Velásquez for mayor campaigns had "come knocking" on his door.

(Murcia is jailed in Colombia on charges that he ran a huge investment pyramid scheme through a series of companies under the DMG umbrella. However, his quick rise from rags to riches and the fact that the pyramid never collapsed (unless you consider governmental actions to shut it down), and from early on in the affair some of the major Colombian media have alleged that Murcia's real game wasn't a Ponzi scheme but the laundering of more than $1 billion in assets belonging to the mostly disbanded Valle del Norte Cartel and their allies in the at least theoretically demobilized right-wing AUC paramilitary. Murcia's business associates in Colombia included President Álvaro Uribe's two sons, and he is alleged to have bankrolled many politicians in Uribe's political camp, including governors, senators, judges, deputies and mayors. In Colombia one of the big differences between being nabbed for a pyramid scam and being nabbed for a major drug-related offense is that in the latter case one may be extradited to the United States.)

There were indignant denials from both PRD candidates' camps --- but initially, Velásquez denied taking money, not approaching Murcia. When pressed on the mismatch between the allegation and his first denial, Velásquez categorically said that he didn't know and had never met Murcia.

Murcia followed with allegations that he had met with Bobby Velásquez, his father Roberto Velásquez padre and representatives of the Herrera campaign; that he had paid $6 million in cash, half to the Velásquez campaign and half to the Herrera campaign, through the elder Velásquez; and that the Institutional Protection Service (SPI) had provided the services of presidential guards to work as his bodyguards. Murcia warned that if people wanted to deny these things, there were videotapes to prove the truth of many of these matters.

This guy must have believed he had so many high connections no one could touch him. He undertook an enormous amount of criminal activity.

Am I safe is believing ALL the major Panamanian Presidential candidates for their upcoming May 3 election are somehow caught up in this? The article indicates they'll be more or less protected until that election, too!

So what's Panamanian justice to do in the face of the ruling party's public relations melt-down and noises coming from the north? On the afternoon of March 19 it was announced that the Electoral Tribunal had stripped Bobby Velásquez, Balbina Herrera and Ricardo Martinelli of their candidates' immunity from criminal investigation or prosecution. For the PRD presidential and mayoral candidates, immunity was lifted on Gomez's petition in light of the allegations made by Murcia. For Martinelli, the investigation comes pursuant to a complaint by Balbina Herrera that one of the items in which Murcia dealt was gift certificates to the opposition presidential candidate's Super 99 grocery stores.

Stay tuned. The odds are that the Panamanian legal system won't be doing or revealing much before the elections. However, the press is in piranha attack mode, the admissions we have heard from the PRD camp suggest that they have been forced because there actually are videotapes out there which may surface before the voting, and there already seem to be unapproved leaks coming from within the SPI. And now, all of a sudden, we have a factor that the Panamanian system can't control --- the Americans --- involved in this scandal.

Enjoyed listening to the interview, although I couldn't concentrate effectively enough to grasp too much of what was said. That was some accent from Murcia. It seemed Lucy Molinar was easier to understand. Murcia is really creepy.

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/08hl9Bv9dScym/610x.jpg

Reuters Pictures 1 week ago
Colombian citizen Joanne Ivette Leon Bermudez (2nd L) answers journalists' question after
being released from jail in Montevideo March 19, 2009. Leon Bermudez was arrested January
13, 2009 by Interpol after the Colombian government accused her and her husband David
Murcia Guzman of money laundering and of swindling millions of dollars from Colombian
citizens.

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/00KScdk84LeVj/610x.jpg

http://www.portafolio.com.co.nyud.net:8090/economia/pais/2009-02-20/IMAGEN/IMAGEN-4827732-2.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_K26qJlOlqxc/SSmMNkIwyYI/AAAAAAAACKk/H0MWEqstVm0/s400/davidmurciajpg http://www.elnuevodia.com.co.nyud.net:8090/nuevodia/images/stories/nacional/7a3-ene-20.jpg
Thanks for providing the depth on this story. It has far more impact now that more is know, doesn't it? It's simply astonishing.

A whole lot of people are going to be very concerned about how this one progresses.