US Treasury names associates to Colombian drug lord

WASHINGTON, Aug 15 (Reuters) The US Treasury today named 23 Colombian individuals and 23 Colombian companies as narcotics traffickers tied to alleged drug kingpin Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia.

The action freezes any assets they may have under US jurisdiction and prohibits all American individuals and firms from conducting any financial or commercial transactions with them.

Ramirez Abadia, 44, was arrested in a dawn raid on Aug 7 at a mansion in a gated community outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where authorities say he oversaw a multibillion dollar drug ring that stretched to Europe and the United States.

Since his arrest, Ramirez Abadia has made it clear that he wants to be extradited to the United States, where he is wanted on drug trafficking charges and in connection with the murder of 15 people, including some police officers.

His lawyer said yesterday he is trying to avoid extradition to Colombia, where Ramirez Abadia fears for his life.

The Treasury added several of Ramirez Abadia's top deputies to its list of ''specially designated narcotics traffickers'' subject to the sanctions, including Herman Felipe Ramirez Garcia and Jon Jairo Ramirez Lenis.

The firms designated include a real estate company located in Cali, Colombia, a firm that operates an amusement park in Yumbo, and a horse breeding farm in Jamundi. Also named was an automotive firm, Ensambladora Colombiana Automotriz SA, in Barranquilla.

Ramirez Abadia -- nicknamed Chupeta, or Lollipop in Colombian Spanish -- gained notoriety in the 1990s as a leader of the Cali-based North Valle drug cartel. A March 2004 indictment issued by a federal grand jury in Washington accused him of shipping about 500 tons of cocaine worth in excess of 10 billion dollars from Colombia to the United States between 1990 and 2004.

''At the peak of his career, Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia was one of the wealthiest and most elusive drug traffickers in Colombia,'' Adam Szubin, director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement. ''Today he is under arrest and his assets are under attack. OFAC will continue its assault on Chupeta's ill gotten gains until his empire collapses.'' REUTERS PD BST2235