U.S. Designates Businessman Here as Drug Kingpin

U.S. Designates Businessman Here as Drug Kingpin

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff


In a revelation that is sure to unsettle the central government, the U.S. Treasury Department Thursday designated a Colombian living in Costa Rica as a high-ranking official of the terrorist Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia.

The disclosure was by the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Officially the man, José Cayetano Melo Perilla, has been designated a drug kingpin. The disclosure means that U.S. citizens are barred from doing business with the man or the four companies the department said he operates.

Melo runs a tomato production facility in Costa Rica under the name of Carillanca S.A. This is a well-known agricultural enterprise that has been in business for at least 10 years. Last year the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture included the facility on a tour it ran for Caribbean government ministers. The institute said that Carillanca exports 30 percent of its production to the United States and several Caribbean islands, such as Puerto Rico and Martinique. The other 70 percent is sold to the Wal-Mart supermarket chain in Costa Rica, the institute said.

The company produces tomatoes in greenhouses, using hydroponics and environmentally friendly technologies, said the institute.

Thursday's action, pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act), is the Office of Foreign Assets Control's tenth set of designations against the Fuerzas Armadas, known as FARC, since 2004. These designations under the Kingpin Act freeze any assets Melo and his companies may have under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibit U.S. persons from conducting financial or commercial transactions with them.

"Although recent actions by the Colombian government have undercut the FARC significantly, it continues to be the leading trafficker of narcotics out of Colombia," said Adam J. Szubin, director of Foreign Asset Control. "Today's designation builds on our long standing campaign against the FARC by targeting a key trafficker and money launderer."

Melo, a Colombian national and resident of Costa Rica, is a narcotics trafficker and important financial contact for the Fuerzas Armadas' 27th Front, which is led by Luis Eduardo López Méndez (a.k.a. "Efren Arboleda"), said the Treasury Department. López Méndez ultimately reports to the Fuerzas Armadas; chief of military operations and commander of the Eastern Bloc, Victor Julio Suarez Rojas (a.k.a. "Mono Jojoy"), it said. Suarez Rojas and López Méndez were previously designated as kingpin, Suarez Rojas Feb.18, 2004, and López Méndez Nov. 1, 2007, according to the Treasury Department.

In addition to the Costa Rican hydroponic tomato company, also designated Thursday were the following companies owned by Melo: Carillanca Colombia y Cia S en CS, a Colombian company
dedicated to hydroponic agriculture; Carillanca C.A., a company located in Venezuela whose focus is real estate and construction; and Parqueadero De La 25-13, a commercial parking lot located in Bogota, Colombia, said the Treasury Department.

The Fuerzas Armadas was identified by President George Bush as a significant foreign narcotics trafficker, or drug kingpin, pursuant to the Kingpin Act on May 29, 2003. The State Department designated the Fuerzas Armadas as a specially designated global terrorist in 2001 pursuant to Executive Order 13224 and as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, said the Treasury Department.

In addition to the 82 drug kingpins designated by the president, 498 businesses and individuals have been designated pursuant to the Kingpin Act since June 2000, said the Treasury Department. None of them was a Costa Rican resident.

Penalties for violations of the Kingpin Act include civil penalties of up to $1.075 million per violation, criminal penalties for corporate officers up to 30 years in prison and $5 million in fines, and criminal fines for corporations up to $10 million. Other individuals face up to 10 years in prison for criminal violations of the Kingpin Act and fines determined pursuant to Title 18 of the United States Code, said the Treasury Department.

The Treasury Department credited the Drug Enforcement Administration for providing the information that led to Thursday's action. Agents of the U.S. anti-drug organization are stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Pavas.

This is the third major disclosure of penetration of Costa Rican society by Colombian terrorists in the last three years. In 2006 Fuerzas Armadas commander Héctor Orlando Martínez Quinto was arrested while living an apparently normal life in Puntarenas. Investigators eventually credited him with organized elements of the Pacific coast fishing fleet as drug smugglers. He had managed to gain residency, as has Melo. Martínez was a commander in the Frente 58 and was considered the front's main logistical officer outside the country.

After Colombian soldiers raided across the border into Ecuador March 1, 2008, data on a confiscated Fuerzas Armadas computer led Costa Rican police to the home of a elderly professor who was holding a stash of money in a household safe for a Fuerzas Armadas leader.

Although not directly related to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, aides to President Óscar Arias Sánchez said two years ago that illegal Colombians had entered the country with the intent to assassinate high government officials. The theory was that the Arias administration was intercepting too many drug smuggling boats. Several young men were rounded up and deported, but none had the profile of a paid assassin.

When they arrived in Colombia they were set free by officials there.