Narco News '02

Narco-Candidate In Colombia

Uribe's Rise from Medellín:

Precursor to a Narco-State

His Campaign Manager, the DEA, and the Case of the 50,000 Kilos

By Al Giordano

A Narco News Investigative Report

In 1997 and 1998, alert U.S. Customs agents in California seized three suspicious Colombia-bound ships that, the agents discovered, were laden with 50,000 kilos of potassium permanganate, a key "precursor chemical" necessary for the manufacture of cocaine.

According to a document signed by then-DEA chief Donnie R. Marshall on August 3, 2001, the ships were each destined for Medellín, Colombia, to a company called GMP Productos Quimicos, S. A. (GMP Chemical Products).

The 50,000 kilos of the precursor chemical destined for GMP were enough to make half-a-million kilos of cocaine hydrochloride, with a street value of $15 billion U.S. dollars.

The owner of GMP Chemical Products, according to the 2001 DEA chief's report, is Pedro Juan Moreno Villa, the campaign manager, former chief of staff, and longtime right-hand-man for front-running Colombian presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe Vélez.

Mr. Moreno was Uribe's political alter-ego before, during and after those nervous 1997 and 1998 months when he awaited those contraband shipments.

When Uribe was governor of the state of Antioquia from 1995 to 1997 - from its capitol of Medellín - Moreno was chief of staff in Governor Uribe's office. During those years, according to then-DEA chief Marshall, ""Between 1994 and 1998, GMP was the largest importer of potassium permanganate into Colombia."

This is the story of the Narco-Candidate, Alvaro Uribe, whose 1982 election as mayor of Medellín, whose 1995 election as governor of Antioquia and whose pending ascendance this year to the presidency of Colombia each mark new chapters in the evolution of the modern Narco-State.

Three ships set sail for Medellín, and in their wake, the facts…

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