
Fombah Teh Sirleaf (National Security Agency)
Yesterday, the U.S. Attorney for Southern District of New York and the DEA announced a striking anti-drug trafficking operation in Liberia–one that Sirleaf, the President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s stepson played a direct role in. Defendants in an existing narco-trafficking case I wrote about last year, apparently, helped make this happen.
In a world where narco-traffickers can easily buy governments in weak sovereign states, this investigation seems to show another way forward–cooperating with the U.S.. And, what better way to make your mom’s visit to Washington run smoothly, than to have a walk-on part in a ground-breaking international drug trafficking investigation. It certainly can’t hurt those arguing for a more than 25% jump in U.S. aid to Liberia for 2010–including doubling our support for Liberian law enforcement.
So about that bust: In May 2009, Colombian and Ghanaian traffickers agreed to provide a bribe of $400,000 to Fembeh Tah Sirleaf, director of Liberia’s National Security Agency, and another informant to allow 700 kilos of cocaine to land safely in Liberia. In conversations that were apparently recorded, the traffickers allowed that they had previously shipped cocaine into Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry and Liberia.
Later that year, in October, the traffickers wanted to ship 2,000 kilos—this time offering a $1.4 million payment in exchange for «security services»; $100,000 of that money changed hands in Lagos later that month.
Apparently, the chief trafficker Peter Umeh believed he struck gold. He pitched a variety of trafficking schemes involving flying and shipping cocaine from Venezuala into Liberia, Ghana and onto New York. He enlisted the help of a pilot, Konstantin Yaroshenko, to coordinate the air transit. One shipment, according to Umeh, crashed somewhere between Curucao and the Dominican Republic. But cocaine wasn’t the only interest. Umeh even offered to import ten Mexican chemists to manufacture methamphetamine in Liberia, provided the Government of Liberia could facilitate the import of ephedrine, the stimulant needed for meth. Perhaps least helpful for the trafficker’s case, is the allegation that several tons of cocaine had been provided by FARC, the Colombian armed group that is designated as a terrorist organization.
This isn’t the first time the DEA and Preet Bharara have hit traffickers in West Africa. If you’ll recall the case of Jesus Eduardo Valencia-Arbelaez, the trafficker who was busted in Budapest last year, working for a Colombian-Venezualan cartel called “The Organization.” The government accused of Valencia-Arbelaez and several others of trying to open up a narco-trafficking corridor through West Africa.
In the weeks leading up to the arrest in the Liberia case, several of the defendants in the Valencia-Arbelaez case changed their pleas. (U.S. Attorney Preet Bahara, acknowledged that Valencia-Arbelaez was in plea discussions with the U.S. Attorney’s office as of March 30, 2010).
One of the co-conspirators in that case, Javier Caro AKA William Zabieh, has already acknowledged his cooperation. Caro was more or less liberated from Togolese custody by DEA agents in June of 2009, at which point, according to a sentencing memorandum prepared by his defense:

Caro was indicted by Southern District of New York as part of the Valencia-Arbeleaz trafficking scheme, plead not guilty, but later changed his plea to guilty on one count of conspiracy to import cocaine. He was sentenced to 3 1/2 years on April 30.
Two others, Manuel Silva-Jaramillo and Valencia-Arbelaez, also changed their pleas in March and April. It appears that they have not been sentenced. The other party to that case, Geraldo Quintana-Perez, apparently has not changed his plea–but all recent filings in his case, like many of those in the other cases, are sealed.
Why would one think these two cases are connected? Well, West Africa is a small place. In the course of the DEA’s investigation, Valencia-Arbelaez expressed interest in trans-shipping drugs and laundering money in a country that wasn’t Sierra Leone or Guinea, but in the neighborhood–that the government saw necessary to redact from court filings. I think it’s reasonable to speculate that this country was: Liberia.
Then the timelines of the two cases begin to mesh:


Is it reasonable to speculate that the defendants in the Valencia-Arbelaez case cooperated with the DEA to help secure the Liberia indictments: I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
The U.S. Attorney’s office declined comment. As did counsel for Perez. (I’m waiting to hear from attorneys representing the other defendants.)
UPDATE: Javier Caro’s counsel also declined comment.