news

Also in this section:

Arrests devastate Panama's Servicio Maritimo Nacional coast guard
Luciani, Jované and Villalaz charged in poisoned medicines case

OAS meeting gathers an audience for many causes

Pro Ciudad takes its first steps
Small dolphin demo for the international media

Reports from Venezuela on RCTV, TVes and all the commotion
Panama News Briefs

Chief of operations, top property custodian, head of logistics, former director jailed in case that involves a ton of cocaine

Drug bust rocks Panama’s National Maritime Service

by Eric Jackson, mainly from other media

 In January of 2006, the US Coast Guard came across the Panamanian-registry Perseus V in international waters off of Jamaica. The vessel, to outward appearances carrying a cargo of scrap metal, wasn’t particularly seaworthy. It was leaking fuel and leaving a slick in its wake.

The vessel was boarded and a secret compartment holding 1000 kilos of cocaine was found. The crew were arrested and, to outward appearances, the Persueus V was turned over to Panamanian authorities because of its registry here.

It seems, however, that this was a DEA sting. There was another compartment, with another metric ton of cocaine stashed inside, when the vessel was turned over to Panama’s coast guard, the National Maritime Service. The scrap metal was sold and the drugs disappeared, apparently to Mexico. Top people in the SMN appeared to get suddenly more wealthy.

Ricardo Traad Porras --- Rear Admiral Traad, as he like to style himself when he headed the SMN between September of 2004 and March of this year, and Ricky Traad, as he is known to his fellow Panama Canal pilots --- was part of President Torrijos’s inner circle. The two men reportedly had several business ventures in common, Traad was a PRD legislative candidate on Torrijos’s ticket in 1999 and by many accounts Traad raised money for the PRD.

Minister of the Presidency Ubaldino Real, who was the Torrijos campaign treasurer, has issued a less than categorical denial that Traad raised funds for the 2004 campaign. In his denials that Traad was “authorized” to raise money for Torrijos or even contributed to the president’s campaign, Real made reference to secret campaign finance records that President Torrijos and the PRD have withheld from public scrutiny.

On May 26, Traad’s place in the inner circle was definitively lost. He had already stepped down as SMN director a few weeks before, but on that Saturday afternoon he was arrested, along with the SMN’s chief of operations Edilberto Luna, its chief of logistics Roberto Fierro and five other officials of that agency. Later Eduardo Morales, the head property custodian for the SMN, and an attorney who organized corporations for Traad were taken into custody. Some $6 million in Traad’s assets were frozen. The various charges in the case include drug trafficking and money laundering, but Traad himself is only charged with money laundering.

Most of those arrested have proclaimed their absolute innocence, but La Prensa reported that Eduardo Morales’s testimony is that the SMN never found the other ton of drugs on the Perseus V and just illegally sold the scrap metal that the ship was carrying, with SMN officials sharing between $100,000 and $200,000 in profits among themselves.

The accused are all being held without bail, as in Panamanian drug cases there is no right to bail and there is no presumption of innocence.

And what about Panama’s laws providing that it’s a crime to amass wealth that can’t be legitimately explained while holding a public office? That’s a dead letter under the Torrijos regime, at least insofar as it applies to officials of the current administration, so despite the prosecutors’ allegations that the $6 million in assets they seized from Traad were the fruits of illegal activity, the former coast guard commander has not been charged with illicit enrichment while in public office.

Arrests devastate Panama's Servicio Maritimo Nacional coast guard
Luciani, Jované and Villalaz charged in poisoned medicines case

OAS meeting gathers an audience for many causes

Pro Ciudad takes its first steps
Small dolphin demo for the international media

Reports from Venezuela on RCTV, TVes and all the commotion
Panama News Briefs