Crackdown on Colombian cocaine smuggling nets 45 arrests

Police escort some of a group of alleged drug traffickers into a press conference at police headquaters in Bogota

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- Colombia arrested 45 reputed drug traffickers Wednesday, in a U.S.-backed crackdown on a powerful smuggling ring accused of shipping more than $100 million worth of cocaine onto the U.S. and European market every month, authorities said.

The arrests capped a two-year operation dubbed "New Generation," and resulted in the biggest raid targeting alleged traffickers in Colombia since October last year, local police and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials said.

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They were carried out in conjunction with the DEA, and all those captured were likely to be extradited to face trial in U.S. courts, National Police commander Gen. Luis Ernesto Gilibert told a news conference.

At least five traffickers accused of belonging to the same drug smuggling ring were also arrested in New York, New Jersey and Miami, police said.

Most of the Colombian gang members were rounded up in predawn raids in the northwest city of Medellin, where one alleged trafficker, identified as Tiberio Hoyos, jumped to his death from a fourth-story terrace to avoid arrest, police spokesmen said.

Gilibert said anti-drug agents had established that the gang, headed by reputed Medellin-based drug lord Carlos Mario Castro Arias, was responsible for shipping about 10 tons a month of cocaine into the United States as well as Europe.

Ten tons of the white powder drug -- roughly 25 percent of Colombia's total monthly production -- would be worth between $105 million and $360 million wholesale on the U.S. market, according to DEA estimates.

Colombia supplies roughly 80 percent of the world's cocaine and is a leading source of the high-grade heroin sold on U.S. streets.

Julio Mercado, a deputy of Washington-based DEA chief Donnie Marshall, heralded Wednesday's sweep as a major success for people on the front line of Colombia's violent drug war, helping to make the world a safer place to live in.

"A major blow has been dealt today to the new generation of cocaine traffickers," Mercado told reporters. "Tonight many parents in America, Europe and the United States will rest easier because these drug traffickers can no longer harm their children."

As in the raid in October last year, police said the traffickers nabbed Wednesday were part of an insidious, new breed of drug lord, business-like and extremely efficient, who took over lucrative smuggling routes following the break up of the infamous Medellin and Cali drug cartels over the last decade.

In a statement issued from Washington, the DEA's Marshall said the upstart generation of Colombian traffickers was well-educated, used sophisticated technology, and kept a much lower profile than the opulent cocaine merchants who came before them.

He added that the investigation leading to Wednesday's crushing of Castro Arias' criminal enterprise began after it was linked to a consignment of seven tons of cocaine seized in the Caribbean port of Cartagena in 1998, in Colombia's biggest-ever drug seizure.

The U.S. Congress passed a two-year, $1.3 billion emergency aid package for Colombia in July to step up its fight against narco-trafficking and production and Marxist rebels alleged to protect it and profit from it.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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