Chiquita Banana has agreed to pay $25 million for paying Colombian terrorists to protect its workers in the field. It will also plead guilty to a criminal Information.

The settlement resolves a lengthy Justice Department investigation into the company's financial dealings with terrorist organizations in Colombia.

In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said the Cincinnati-based company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials. The AUC has been responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country's cocaine exports. The right-wing group was designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization in September 2001.

Chiquita also paid money to FARC. How did the Justice Department find out?