Colombia captures top drug lord

[wahyinghung]

BOGOTA — Police on Wednesday captured Colombia's most wanted drug lord, a former paramilitary fighter accused of thousands of murders who once offered his gunmen a $1,000 reward for each policeman they killed.

Daniel Rendon Herrera, 43, alias "Don Mario", was found alone, eating rice out his hands, hiding under a palm tree in the jungles of northern Antioquia province, Defense Minster Juan Manuel Santos told reporters.

When he was surrounded, the once-feared cocaine baron was living "virtually like a dog, curled up and clinging to that palm tree, where he had been for two days," Santos said.

He is accused of shipping about 100 tonnes of the drug from Colombia's Caribbean coast toward the United States.

Santos said he is responsible for at least 3,000 murders.

The portly and bearded captive had his hands bound in front of him as he got off a plane in Bogota. In a blue and brown T-shirt and loose fitting grey pants, he looked sombre and dishevelled as he was driven off to jail in an armoured car.

Colombia had offered a $2 million reward for information leading to the capture of Rendon Herrera, who is wanted by the United States on drug trafficking charges.

Santos said informants were a key part of the nine-month operation in which police patiently penetrated the rings of security, consisting of scores of armed thugs, that once protected the fugitive.

As he started to feel the pressure earlier this year, he offered his gunmen $1,000 for every officer they killed.

His ruthless style recalled that of Colombia's best-known drug baron Pablo Escobar, who waged war against the state in the 1980s until he was gunned down by security forces on a Medellin rooftop in 1993.

The government hailed Rendon Herrera's capture as a victory for law and order. But experts say the country's thriving cocaine trade is unlikely to be disrupted for long.

"Don Mario was the most important drug trafficker out there, but someone will take his place very quickly and it will be business as usual," said security analyst Pablo Casas.

"His organization is as well structured as any company, where the CEO can be replaced at any time," Casas said.

The South American country, the world's largest cocaine producer, has become less violent under President Alvaro Uribe, who has used billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to battle the guerrillas and disarm the paramilitaries.

But Colombia continues to export about 600 tonnes of cocaine every year and law enforcement efforts have done little to reduce production, according to the United Nations.

Rendon Herrera has been charged by U.S. authorities, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in Washington. The spokesman did not say whether the United States would seek his extradition.

Rendon Herrera belonged to one of the paramilitary groups that began demobilizing after a 2003 peace deal with the government, but he refused to confess his crimes as required under the accord and went into hiding.

He is the brother of a jailed paramilitary warlord known as "El Aleman", or "The German", a nickname he earned for his reputation of enforcing strict discipline among his troops.

Rendon Herrera is accused of running cocaine trafficking in the area controlled by his brother in the 1990s, when right-wing paramilitaries battled leftist guerrillas for control of rural Colombia.

Much of the cocaine is smuggled to the United States through Mexico, where thousands of people have been killed by Mexican cartels that have taken over from Colombian gangs as the dominant drug traffickers in the Americas.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Col...379/story.html

[Supafly]

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[hotjoint]

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