[119070] in Cypherpunks
broken crypto brings down drug lords?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anonymous)
Thu Oct 14 04:02:27 1999
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 09:45:33 +0200 (CEST)
Message-Id: <199910140745.JAA03657@mail.replay.com>
From: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
"I'm innocent. I swear it before my children," a pale, tired-looking Ochoa
shouted to reporters as some 60 officers escorted the suspect from a
helicopter that flew him to police headquarters in Bogota.
"After what happened to me, I wouldn't be so stupid as to continue in this,"
added Ochoa, who was released from prison in 1996 after serving
two-thirds of an 8 1/2-year sentence for drug trafficking.
Ochoa is accused of having continued his operations over the Internet after
he was released from prison. But his father claims Ochoa is innocent. He
said Wednesday his son was operating a legitimate livestock business in
Medellin and blamed the arrest on a "stool pigeon" in the United States
trying to win a reduced sentence.
U.S. federal prosecutor Tom Scott said the organization led by Bernal
Madrigal used the Internet as part of a highly sophisticated operation which
included encryption devices, cloned phones and other state-of-the-art
communications equipment to prevent their activities from being detected.
However, Scott said enforcement agents were able to penetrate the
organization's defenses and intercept their messages.
