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Yet snuffing out the business in Colombia remains a disheartening undertaking. For one, the traffickers have infiltrated virtually every segment of Colombian society. At least 100 air force personnel and 200 national policemen have reportedly been discharged because of drug connections; last year Attorney General Jimenez ordered investigations of 400 judges suspected of complicity in the trade. A particularly damaging cocaine link was revealed earlier this month when Roman Medina, the personal press secretary of President Betancur, was arrested on suspicion of helping smuggle 2.7 kilos of cocaine into Spain in two diplomatic pouches.
But the key figures in the cocaine business continue to elude the authorities. Washington has stationed 16 antinarcotics agents in Colombia and hopes to budget a record $9.2 million for its Colombian campaign in fiscal 1985. By comparison, Drug King Escobar is said to command a personal army of more than 2,000 retainers and a fortune estimated at more than $2 billion. Escobar, who is suspected of having taken out the contract on Lara's life and is wanted in the U.S. on charges of smuggling ten tons of cocaine into the country, at one time faced just one charge in Colombia: illegally importing 82 of the 1,500 exotic animals in his private zoo.
Even if "Los Grandes Mafiosos" could be caught, moreover, it is unlikely that they would be held for long. When the drug war was declared, ex-Smuggler Fabio Ochoa voluntarily gave himself up to the police. "I have nothing to fear," he announced. Sure enough, the authorities could muster no more % serious charge against him than illegal possession of firearms. Six weeks later he was released on bail, and the case is now in limbo. "We know who (the cocaine kings) are, and we can't nail them," says Police Captain Guillermo Benavides. "But the worst thing is that even if we could get all the bosses, new ones would immediately take their places. They'd pop up like mushrooms."
As the business of the Colombian drug czars has emerged from the shadows, their illicit dealings with neighboring countries like Panama have also come to light. Ever since the cocaine market began to prosper, some Panamanians have taken money in exchange for allowing the coqueros to use their country as a transshipment point. In addition, a few corrupt Panamanian bankers have permitted the Colombians to take advantage of the strictest banking secrecy laws in the hemisphere by laundering drug dollars. Last June U.S. customs agents in Miami discovered that a DC-8 jet transport, owned by Inair, at the time Panama's largest air cargo company, was carrying more than a ton of coke, stuffed in freezers, neatly packaged in kilo-size parcels and specially coded for efficient delivery in the U.S. "They had been shipping the Colombians' coke for them for some time," says a former Inair associate.
More worrisome for U.S. agents, Panama's role as a middleman has changed to that of a leading player in the drug scene. Last May, in Panama's Darien rain forest, authorities came upon an elaborate cocaine laboratory, almost identical to the complexes across the Colombian border. Some of the 22 Colombians arrested at the site claimed that they had earned the right to process cocaine by paying off a leading Panamanian official. The Colombians were sent home without being charged with a crime.