Title: History of Drug Trafficking - Colombia, U.S. & Mexico - HISTORY
Headings: History of Drug Trafficking
History of Drug Trafficking
Contents
Early Opium Trade in the United States
Mafia Drug Smuggling
The Vietnam War and Drug Trafficking
Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel
Manuel Noriega and the Panamanian Drug Trade
The Cali Cartel
El Chapo, Los Zetas and Mexican Drug Cartels
Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel
CIA and Drug Trafficking
Drug Trafficking in Recent Years

Content: This treaty became a significant concern for Columbian traffickers. Manuel Noriega and the Panamanian Drug Trade
In 1982, Panamanian General Manuel Noriega allowed Medellin drug lord Pablo Escobar to ship cocaine through Panama. Around this time, Vice President George H.W. Bush created the South Florida Drug Task Force to combat cocaine trade through Miami, where violence involving traffickers was steadily increasing. After learning of the Medellin cartel’s undertakings in Panama, a Miami federal grand jury indicted the group’s top leaders in 1984. A year later, U.S. officials found out that the Medellin cartel had a hit list that included American embassy members, their families, journalists and businessmen. In 1987, the Colombian National Police captured Carlos Lehder and extradited him to the United States, where he was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 135 years. General Noriega surrendered to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1989 when the United States invaded Panama. He was eventually convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison on eight counts of drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering. Also in 1989, Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez was killed by Colombian police during a raid. The Ochoa brothers surrendered in 1990 but were released from jail in 1996.