National Crime Agency operations manager Siobhan Micklethwaite said the seizure was “one of the largest flown into the UK by plane in many years”.
The Neil brothers are due to appear at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday morning, alongside Italian national Alessandro Iembo, 28, of Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, and Spanish nationals Victor Franco-Lorenzo, 40, and 45-year-old Jose Ramon Miguelez-Botas. (Sky News)
A newly declassified document from the CIA claims that Adolf Hitler apparently survived World War II and lived in Colombia for several months in 1954.
The intelligence memo, part of the just-released files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, provides details from an informant, who told CIA agent codenamed Cimelody-3 that Hitler was alive. The informant, who also happened to be the agent’s friend, added that Phillip Citroen, a former German SS agent, appeared to be in touch with the former Führer in the city of Tunja in Colombia’s Boyacá department.
According to the memo, Citroen said that the Germans residing in Tunja followed Hitler “with an idolatry of the Nazi past, addressing him as ‘der Führer’ and affording him the Nazi salute and storm-trooper adulation.” The memo also shows a picture of “Adolf Schrittelmayor,” signaling that Hitler could have changed his last name.
The picture above shows Citroen sitting next to the alleged Hitler, who committed suicide in a Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945, according to the Allies and virtually every historian. But the CIA document ignites a discussion on whether Hitler managed to escape to South America after the war.
“Citroen also stated Hitler left Colombia for Argentina around January, 1955,” the memo says.
The CIA memos make it clear that the agency was skeptical of the reports, but had to take them seriously. “Neither Chimelody-3 nor this station is in a position to give an intelligent evaluation of the information and it is being forwarded as of possible interest,” reads another page of the memo, dated October 3, 1955.
Argentine writer Abel Basti, author of “Tras Los Pasos de Hitler (After Hitler’s steps),” reconstructed Hitler’s alleged trip across South America, including a months-long stay in Colombia. But the book has been rejected by historians because it lacked evidence, according to Colombia Reports.
Hitler’s fate has been subject to widespread speculation. According to a report by CNN in 2009, Soviet KGB agents burned Hitler’s remains in 1970 and threw them into a river in Germany based on orders by then-chief Yuri Andropov. According to the report, the bodies of Hitler, his companion Eva Braun and the Goebbels family were discovered by the Soviet Army in May 1945.
But such account sparked more doubts. Nick Bellantoni of the University of Connecticut in 2009 analyzed a piece of a skull that Russia claimed it belonged to Hitler, but the scientist confirmed that it rather came from a 20 to-40-year-old woman.
Historians widely believe that Hitler committed suicide by gunshot and cyanide poisoning as the Soviet Army rushed into Berlin in the waning days of the war.
The president of Colombia says the death toll from a water avalanche has risen to 154.
EARLIER:
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — An avalanche of water from three overflowing rivers swept through a small city in Colombia while people slept, destroying homes and killing at least 127 unsuspecting residents, authorities said Saturday.
The incident triggered by intense rains happened around midnight in Mocoa, a city of about 40,000 tucked between mountains near Colombia’s southern border with Ecuador.
Muddy water and debris quickly surged through the city’s streets, toppling homes, ripping trees from their roots, lifting cars and trucks and carrying them downstream. Many of the residents did not have enough time to climb on top of their roofs or seek refuge on higher ground.
According to the Red Cross, 400 people are injured and 220 believed missing. President Juan Manuel Santos declared a state of emergency and warned the death toll could rise.
“We don’t know how many there are going to be,” he said of the fatalities when he arrived at the disaster zone. “We’re still looking.”
Witnesses described feeling buildings vibrate and though an alarm reportedly went off to alert residents it could not be heard throughout the city. Videos residents posted online showed vast areas filled with wood planks and debris. Some could be heard calling out the names of people missing.
“In the middle of the night and this morning people lost loved ones,” Minister of Interior Juan Fernando Cristo said. “They lost families, boys, girls, young people, the elderly,”
The Red Cross planned to set up a special unit in Mocoa Saturday afternoon to help relatives search for their loved ones.
“In this moment, it’s chaos,” said Oscar Forero, a spokesman with the Colombian Red Cross. “There are many people missing.”
Herman Granados, an anesthesiologist at the local hospital, said he arrived early Saturday morning and worked throughout the night on victims. He said the hospital doesn’t have a blood bank large enough to deal with the magnitude of the crisis and was quickly running out of supplies.
He said some of the hospital workers came to help even while there are own relatives remained missing.
“Under the mud,” he said, “I am sure there are many more.”
© PA A suitcase containing packages of cocaine that was detained at Farnborough Airport
