Five Suspects Arrested in Plot to Kill DEA Agent in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Caracas,
Sunday
June 14,2009

Five Suspects Arrested in Plot to Kill DEA Agent in Colombia

NEW YORK – Five members of a Colombian drug-trafficking organization were arrested in Panama and taken to New York to face charges of plotting to kill a Drug Enforcement Administration agent in Colombia, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.

The suspects, who also face drug-trafficking charges, were identified as Javier Mauricio Vasquez Saldarriaga, Edgar Abdon Luna Diaz, Pablo Cesar Ruiz Calderon, Carlos Alexander Silva Baltan and Liliana Esperanza Resfa Velez Muñoz.

They were arrested Thursday by Panamanian authorities and sent to the United States for trial by a federal court in Manhattan, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Lev L. Dassin said.

During discussions in recent weeks surrounding the purchase of 240 barrels of ephedrine, a precursor to methamphetamine, the suspects “hatched a plot to murder a suspected DEA informant and the DEA agent assigned to supervise the informant,” the U.S. Justice Department statement said, without identifying the drug-trafficking gang.

In those discussions, Silva Baltan described the vehicle used by the DEA agent and said he and his co-conspirators were going to “erase (the agent and informant) from the map.”

More:
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=337139&CategoryId=12393