Colombia seizes island
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia said Monday it has seized a private Caribbean island and hundreds of other properties allegedly used by powerful cocaine trafficker to launder millions of dollars in drug profits.
Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia was arrested in a luxury condominium on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Aug. 7. He faces three U.S. federal indictments on drug and racketeering charges, and U.S. officials have said they plan to seek his extradition.
Colombian authorities said they seized 300 properties across the country -- including farms, apartments, empty lots, a hotel and gymnasium -- worth about $400 million.
They also seized a private island near the Caribbean tourist city of Cartagena, four cars and 18 private businesses, among them a travel agency and real estate company. They gave no details on the island.
Ramirez Abadia, 44, said in an interview Sunday night with TV Globo's Fantastico news and entertainment program -- Brazil's most popular -- that his arrest will not affect drug trafficking.
"From all the people who started with me in this business several years ago, there are only two or three left. The rest either died or were extradited," he said. "I'm in prison but there are people replacing me, then there will be others. It will never end."
Even while acknowledging his involvement in Colombia's lucrative cocaine trade, Ramirez Abadia vowed not to testify against his former partners if he is extradited to the United States .
"I'm not going to make any deals," he said. "I'll assume responsibility for my problems alone."
Ramirez Abadia -- nicknamed "Chupeta," or lollipop in Colombian Spanish -- is considered one of the ringleaders of the Norte del Valle drug cartel, Colombia's most powerful. The United States had offered a $5 million reward for his capture.
In 1996 he was sentenced to 13 years in prison in Colombia on a drug conviction, but was released in 2001.
In January, authorities confiscated $90 million in various currencies that Ramirez Abadia had allegedly stashed in safe houses in the southern city of Cali, near the cartel's base.