UK helps Colombian commandos fight cocaine trade

British agents, we discovered, are running networks of informants in the country through vetted units of Colombians and setting up communications intercepts to try to stem the flood of South American cocaine coming into Britain.

In a lush green valley west of Bogota the police commandos line up for their turn.

One by one they grip the rope that dangles alarmingly down to the ground far below, then step off the metal platform and shin down at speed, breaking their fall at the last minute.

It's called "fast roping" and it's how the men of the Jungla, Colombia's elite police counter-narcotics commandos, train to descend from Black Hawk helicopters to seize remote cocaine laboratories deep in the jungle.

Set up by Britain's SAS in 1989, and trained by them, then the Americans, the Jungla have become largely self-sufficient.
 
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