Pinochet 'sold cocaine to Europe and US'

international | crime and justice | other press

Thursday July 13, 2006 14:38

by T

Thatcher's friend caught out.

Augusto Pinochet's $26m (£14m) fortune was amassed through cocaine sales to Europe and the US, the general's former top aide for intelligence has alleged.

According to the Guardian newspaper the ex-dictator of Chile, Pinochet amassed his $26m fortune through selling cocaine to Europe and the US according to the former head of intelligence. Naturally Pinochet denies the charges but it seems there is a lot of evidence about.

We should recall the time a few years ago when Pinochet was detained in London, Thatcher lobbied hard in the background to get him released and described him as 'a friend of Britain' mainly for the assistance he gave during the Falklands War. We can be quite sure the British and indeed US Intelligence agencies would have been pretty much aware of his drug dealing activities.

One should recall that Thatcher famously said that we don't negotiate with terrorists referring to the IRA on hunger strike at the time, although it has since come out that at the very same time their beloved SAS was help train the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in land mines laying techniques and other stuff. No doubt she had also said something about the scurge of drugs.... yet was quite happy to cosy up to Pinochet.

Some quotes from the Guardian article are:

In testimony sent to Chilean Judge Claudio Pavez, Manuel Contreras alleges that Pinochet and his son Marco Antonio organised a massive production and distribution network, selling cocaine to Europe and the US in the mid-1980s.

According to Contreras, once Pinochet's ally and now a bitter enemy, Pinochet ordered the army to build a clandestine cocaine laboratory in Talagante, a rural town 24 miles from Santiago. There he had chemists mix cocaine with other chemicals to produce what Contreras described as a "black cocaine" capable of being smuggled past drug agents in the US and Europe.

AND

The mastermind behind the cocaine operation, alleges Contreras, was Eugenio Berríos, a renegade chemist who was used repeatedly by Pinochet's secret police force, DINA, to run clandestine laboratory experiments. Earlier testimony and documents show that Berríos and the lab tested anthrax and botulism and were able to produce the deadly gas sarin.

The biological weapons were slated to be used against Pinochet's personal enemies and in a massive form against enemy troops in the event of an invasion by Argentina. The drug operation, says Contreras, was designed to raise cash for the dictator.

AND

The details of the cocaine operation came as part of an investigation into the murder of Colonel Gerardo Huber, a top intelligence operative and close friend of Contreras.

Huber was found murdered in the middle of an investigation that implicated the Chilean army in breaking a UN weapons embargo and sending arms to Croatia in 1991. Huber, who had extensive first hand knowledge of the deals and was expected to testify before Chilean judges, was kidnapped and his body dumped in a remote area.

Full article at

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Pinochet 'sold cocaine to Europe and US'