PANAMA CITY (AP) – Colombian authorities have arrested a prominent Panama businessman sought by the United States and dismantled an empire of businesses that the U.S. says were part of a top worldwide money-laundering organization for drug traffickers.
The coordinated operation was announced Thursday as the U.S. Treasury Department froze U.S. assets owned by 68 companies in this Central American nation and in Colombia under a drug kingpin designation.
As part of the effort, Colombian police arrested Nidal Waked the previous day at an airport in Colombia’s capital, Bogota.
The Colombian police on Friday showed reporters several videos of Waked taken after his arrest. In one, he is reading the charges against him and a list of rights for prisoners held in Colombia.
Waked and his father, Abdul Waked, are accused of being the co-leaders of an organization that laundered drug profits through a web of companies including a luxury mall, a bank and the duty-free zone at Panama City’s international airport, which had attracted U.S. law enforcement’s scrutiny before. The family also owns Panama’s oldest newspaper, the Estrella de Panama.