Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
COLOMBIA DRUG CARTEL’S £350M BRITISH ’KINGPIN’
Cops capture ‘leader of ring which trafficked cocaine to the UK as dog food’
A BRIT is facing 14 years in jail after a £350million cocaine bust in Colombia.
Officials say Andrew Deamer, 52, disguised the drug as DOG FOOD and shipped huge amounts to the UK, mainland Europe and the US.
He was arrested with his wife Marcela at their remote farmhouse in the Medellin heartlands where infamous Pablo Escobar ruled.
COWERING British suspect druglord Andrew Deamer climbs down from his attic bolthole after being busted in a dramatic 6am raid by Colombian forces.
Wearing shorts and T-shirt, he had darted into the secret hideaway after realising anti-narcotics agents and army and navy troops were closing in on his remote farmhouse.
Deamer, 52, was held along with his glamorous second wife Marcela Zapata, 37, in a swoop which smashed a £354million drugs ring.
The raid was in Rionegro, 20 miles from Medellin and in the heartlands where cocaine king Pablo Escobar once ruled.
Deamer had worked his way into the confidence of the vicious cartels and one former US drugs enforcer – who estimated the Brit could be involved in drugs worth £1.2billion – said: “He put his head into the lion’s mouth.”
Colombia’s Attorney General’s office allege Deamer is behind tons of cocaine sent to the UK, Europe and the US.
He is suspected of having a string of Breaking Bad-style labs where the cocaine could be chemically disguised – some of it as dog food, cat food and fertiliser.
It was cooked with essences and dyes, then the cocaine was extracted once delivered.
Deamer is now locked up in Bogota’s notorious La Picota jail after local authorities said he had signed a “preliminary agreement” to assist them in return for a lighter sentence – 14 years and eight months.
Video footage of the raid shows Deamer, in Adidas shorts and green T-shirt, with his legs dangling from a hole in the ceiling.
Bizarrely, his barking golden retrievers had alerted agents to the spot where he was hiding.
They then looked at the house’s CCTV, which revealed him climbing into the attic cranny.
Deamer was among 18 people held in simultaneous raids in five cities. All the suspects were pictured in a police line-up – with Deamer in a white cap, his head bowed, and Colombian wife Zapata hiding her face under a hoodie.
Other suspects were nicknamed El Doc,
Mosquito, The Skinny One and The Fat One. Deamer is suspected of using his farmhouse as a base for a network of financial backers and chemists, with a spider’s web of maritime supply routes into Europe and the US.
POP-UP
He had two nicknames – El Mono, Spanish for The Monkey, and Marcos, an apparent nod to the TV series Narcos.
Authorities believe he ran pop-up cocaine labs all around Medellin, had a base in the port city of Barranquilla on the Caribbean coast and another processing facility in Panama.
He also had a company in the Brazilian port city of Fortaleza, used by gangs to ship cocaine to Europe. Deamer was held over 2.5 tons of the drug disguised as pet food and fertiliser. Colombia’s Office of the Attorney General, known as The Fiscalia, told the Sunday Mirror the haul was seized in raids going back three years.
It said Deamer was accused of trafficking six tons of cocaine from Barranquilla for another syndicate – linking coke with a street value of £354million directly to him.
The Fiscalia said chemists used a unique method to make cocaine look like pet food, adding: “Our seizures revealed the use of multiple controlled substances, essences and dyes to ensure the cocaine had a similar shape, smell, texture and appearance to legal products.
“When it was received at the destination, chemists had to travel there to reverse the process for the drug to be sold.”
And a source in the Fiscalia claimed: “Deamer made use of his connections in Europe and his knowledge of drug trafficking according to paperwork and physical evidence we obtained.”
Deamer had already appeared on the radar of
America’s Drug Enforcement Administration. But the agency closed a file on him in 2011, it said. Originally from Barrow upon Soar, Leics, Deamer is believed to have married Zapata in 2012.
His first wife, who we are not naming and is in her 50s, returned to the UK after a spell in the US. Deamer was captured last November but full details have only just emerged. Video of the raid was supplied to the Mirror by the Fiscalia.
The Brit lowered himself from the attic and held his arms aloft. An agent went into the hiding place and found a sleeping bag and supplies. Agents also discovered £36,000 in cash.
Deamer and his wife were seen being led from their villa, carrying a bulky bag of clothing – their faithful dogs still in tow.
A Fiscalia source said: “It was a long operation to smash this network. Deamer will go before a judge who must be satisfied he has kept his end of the bargain in order to get that sentence.
“He has agreed to help us with important information, including names.
“We are very pleased to have busted what we feel was a significant syndicate.”
La Picota jail holds assassins, drug gangsters and revolutionaries from guerrilla group FARC.
Former US agent Mike Vigil, who was DEA Chief of International Operations, said: “A year in a Colombian jail is like 10 in one in the US or UK.
“They are murderous, corrupt, terrifying places. And being foreign, Deamer will be picked on. Prisoners will try to extort him. By signing the preliminary agreement, Deamer has agreed to work with the authorities and reveal all he knows. And that puts him in a very dangerous position as well.
KILLED
“Right now he is probably trying to negotiate a better deal. Or he is scared out of his wits that if he gives names that he is going to be killed. And the chances of that are very high.”
The former DEA boss calculated the likely amount of cocaine Deamer could have trafficked in the time he has been in Colombia as easily more than 30 tons – a street value of £1.2billion.
Last night the Foreign Office said: “We are providing consular assistance to a British man detained in Colombia.”
He put his head in the lion’s mouth and could be a prison death target MIKE VIGIL EX-DRUGS ENFORCEMENT CHIEF