AP News, December 29th, 2007
A suspected Colombian cocaine trafficker has been arrested in the kidnapping of an undercover U.S. agent, a Justice Department spokeswoman said Friday.
Bayron Jimenez Castaneda, 44, was in Florida on a tourist visa when he was arrested Thursday night in Orlando, spokeswoman Lymarie Llovet Ayala said.
Three other suspects in the kidnapping of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Dec. 14, 2005 remain at large.
The agent had infiltrated their organization, which was smuggling Colombian cocaine through Puerto Rico to the U.S. mainland, authorities said.
The traffickers blamed the undercover agent for the loss of a shipment seized in Puerto Rico and threatened to kill him, sticking a gun in his mouth at a ranch in Medellin, Colombia, authorities said.
They initially demanded a $2 million ransom, but released him after half a day when they realized he was a U.S. government agent. His identity has not been released.
U.S. authorities arrested 27 people linked to the drug ring in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Colombia, St. Maarten and the Dominican Republic in October 2006 as part of investigations they called "Operation Green Traketon" and "Operation Watusi."
"We not only cut into their profits with countless seizures of drugs and money, we demonstrated that there is a high price to pay, especially if that crime involves hurting one of our own," said Manuel Oyola Torres, director of ICE in Puerto Rico.
Jimenez will be taken to Puerto Rico where he faces a 15-count federal indictment including charges of conspiracy to import drugs into the United States.
