DEA: Saudi Prince Smuggled Drugs

AP Online via COMTEX ^ | Jul 17, 2002 | CATHERINE WILSON

[grimalkin]

MIAMI, Jul 17, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A Saudi prince smuggled a 4,400-pound load of cocaine from Venezuela to Paris on his personal aircraft under diplomatic immunity, U.S. drug investigators charged Wednesday.

Nayef bin Sultan bin Fawwaz Al-Shaalan, a prince who prosecutors said is not in the line of succession to the Saudi throne, was indicted along with three others on two drug conspiracy counts.

Officials said they don't know the prince's whereabouts and it is unclear, because of his diplomatic immunity, whether the prince could be prosecuted if he were located.

A woman at the Saudi embassy's information office in Washington after business hours Wednesday said diplomats were gone for the day and no one was available for comment.

Agents seized a Goya painting, three paintings by Colombia's Fernando Botero and a sculpture by Japan's Tsuguharu Foujita as part of the investigation. The DEA estimates the Goya and the Foujita works are worth at least $1 million each.

DEA agents found the alleged broker of the deal, Doris Mangeri Salazar, 44, hiding in a bedroom closet at her home Wednesday, a DEA report said.

A six-page DEA report written to obtain a search warrant for her house briefly outlined the alleged drug deal based primarily on reports from Colombian drug smugglers who have been DEA informants.

Mangeri allegedly introduced the prince to the smugglers in 1998, and he agreed to fly the cocaine from Venezuela to Paris on May 16, 1999, investigators said. Some of the cocaine was distributed and more than 2,000 pounds were seized by French and Spanish authorities, the DEA said.

Another co-defendant, Jose Maria Clemente, arranged to repay a debt to one of the Colombian informants by giving him a Goya painting titled "Bandits Attacking a Coach" and a Foujita bust sculpted in 1924, officials said. The Boteros were found Wednesday at Mangeri's house.

During a court appearance Wednesday, Mangeri gave her name and age but said nothing else. She was jailed pending a bond hearing Friday.

A fourth person, Ivan Lopez Vanegas, was named in an indictment as a conspirator but no details were given.

[Catspaw]

Hmmm, I wonder if cocaine smuggling is covered in the Koran?

[chachacha]

These people have to be the most corrupt, morally bankrupt, thieving, liars, child molesters, terrorist, killers, homosexual race on the face of this earth. I now understand why the lord will set on the thrown of David and direct the last war. The blood will run deep and wide.

I feel much better now!

[SpinyNorman]

Now we finally know the answer to the age old question "What do Saudis do when they aren't blowing up buildings full of innocent people with planeloads of innocent people?" Answer: smuggling drugs to poison innocent people.

Just sounds like another act of terrorism perpetrated on the "infidel!"

[razorback-bert]

If the drugs were in Europe, why did we arrest paintings Miami?

[dighton]

Agents seized a Goya painting, three paintings by Colombia's Fernando Botero and a sculpture by Japan's Tsuguharu Foujita as part of the investigation.

Goya might have had fun with the House of Saud.

[Thinkin' Gal]

[general_re]

Goya might have had fun with the House of Saud.

Botero might have been even more fun...

[zarf]

Finally, royalty joins the drug pushing community. Along, with the US Government and associated corporations.....not even mentioning other nations....

The War On Drugs is a joke.

[Orual]

The DEA estimates the Goya and the Foujita works are worth at least $1 million each.

You don't say!

[truenospinzone]

Agents seized a Goya painting, three paintings by Colombia's Fernando Botero and a sculpture by Japan's Tsuguharu Foujita as part of the investigation. The DEA estimates the Goya and the Foujita works are worth at least $1 million each.

What a shocker. But our federal WoD is about saving people from themselves, right? The 2 million+ dollars we just made off of this bust has nothing to do with it, I'm sure...