Whiskey Giants Face Smuggling Hangover in Colombia

[seemslikeadream]

By Jason Webb

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It pointed the finger right at Diageo and Pernod Ricard, respected companies whose brands including Johnny Walker, Guinness, Chivas Regal and Wild Turkey have a hand in a significant proportion of the world's hangovers.

"The defendants have, at the highest corporate level, determined that it will be part of their operating business plan to sell their liquor products to and through criminal organizations and to accept criminal proceeds in payment by secret and surreptitious means," read the case filed in U.S. federal court in the eastern district of New York late last year.

But the allegations didn't stop at mere smuggling.

The government accused the companies of effectively helping illegal armed groups launder money from cocaine sales, thereby funding a war that has drained the country of both money and blood for 40 years. That San Andresito whiskey cheerfully imbibed by otherwise law-abiding Colombians was bought with "proceeds of narcotics trafficking, terrorism and other crimes," the case stated.

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The government has still to reveal evidence for its accusations. But newspaper El Espectador reported that one of the country's most notorious smugglers, Samuel Lopesierra, who figures prominently in the case against Diageo and Pernod Ricard, has snitched on former associates in return for a reduced sentence on drug trafficking charges in the United States .

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A former national senator whose admitted smuggling of cigarettes earned him the nickname "Marlboro Man," he publicly reveled in the prospect of dragging former associates down with him. On the day of his extradition, he even dressed for the occasion in a jacket emblazoned with the Marlboro logo and was led chuckling and waving onto a plane by agents from U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=7499545