MONTESINOS FLOWN TO PERU TO FACE CHARGES

BUENOS AIRES -- Vladimiro Montesinos, the former Peruvian spy chief who
evaded an international manhunt for eight months before his arrest last
weekend, was flown to Lima today in handcuffs and a bulletproof vest and
began what promises to be months of questioning and legal processing.

Once a top aide to former President Alberto K. Fujimori who had cooperated
with the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Montesinos was evicted early this
morning from Venezuela, where he had been hiding.

Peruvian prosecutors say he faces a possible life sentence on charges he
was involved in arms trafficking, money laundering, death squad activities,
torture, the purchasing of faulty armaments for kickbacks, and the bribing
of officials to fix the election last year for Mr. Fujimori, who is now in
exile in Japan.

Mr. Montesinos, 56, was briefly seen on Peruvian television, wearing jeans,
a tan jacket and a thin smile, as he was taken off an aircraft by heavily
armed security officers. After hours of questioning, he was expected to be
placed in a high security prison in the port of Callao -- the same facility
where the top leader of the Shining Path terrorist group has been imprisoned.

Six investigative judges began interrogating Mr. Montesinos today in an
underground cell in a courthouse in downtown Lima. Already, 140 criminal
investigations are under way involving the former spy chief, with more than
500 people implicated in his crimes.

The first details of how his arrest was made on Saturday night in Caracas
were made public today by Peruvian and American officials who emphasized
that the role of the Venezuelan security forces was secondary.

What has emerged is a story of some good detective work by one American law
enforcement agency to catch an official who for years had done favors for
the C.I.A. Mr. Montesinos, who first began trading information with the
C.I.A. in the 1970's, managed a large Peruvian antidrug operation set up by
the agency in the early 1990's -- a period when narcotics traffickers said
he was taking bribes from them.

Even though Mr. Montesinos was long a controversial figure in the eyes of
the Clinton administration, American officials still went to him to lobby
for the interests of American businesses in Peru and to lobby for human
rights votes against Cuba in The Hague.

The first major breaks that led to Mr. Montesinos's arrest came about two
months ago as the F.B.I. and Peruvian law enforcement agents scoured the
world to find and freeze Mr. Montesinos's numerous bank accounts. As the
operation progressed, the F.B.I. located a $38 million account in the
Pacific Industrial Bank, an offshore financial institution headquartered in
Grand Cayman with offices in Miami, which was then frozen at the request of
the Peruvian authorities.

A month ago, said an American Embassy official in Lima, a former Venezuelan
intelligence officer who served as an aide to Mr. Montesinos tried to
extort the bank to release the frozen money. The Venezuelan, who remains
unidentified, threatened that Mr. Montesinos would reveal the bank's
involvement in an assortment of money laundering schemes. But bank
officials contacted the F.B.I., the American official said, to report the
threat.

The F.B.I. then identified the Venezuelan and managed to intercept his
e-mail communications with Mr. Montesinos, officials said. F.B.I. agents
set up a sting operation, posing as bank officials, to meet with the
Venezuelan.

The F.B.I. arrested the Venezuelan on Thursday in Miami on charges of
extortion. During his interrogation, the Venezuelan told them Mr.
Montesinos's whereabouts -- a hideaway in Caracas not far from President
Hugo Chavez's presidential palace.

Peruvian and American law enforcement agencies and diplomats worked closely
to bypass the Venezuelan government, which officials said they believed had
been protecting Mr. Montesinos all along.

Officials said Mr. Montesinos's Venezuelan bodyguards somehow learned that
the American and Peruvian governments were closing in on the arrest.
Peruvian law enforcement officials tried to make an agreement with the
Venezuelans, in which they would hand Mr. Montesinos over to Peruvian
diplomats in Caracas. But the guards changed their minds at the last minute
and handed Mr. Montesinos over to Venezuelan intelligence agents instead.

"The end result was the same," the American official said.

Peruvian law enforcement officials and Congressional investigators say they
are hoping that Mr. Montesinos will lead them to many corrupt officials who
remain in Peru's bureaucracy. Hundreds of videotapes captured from Mr.
Montesinos after he fled Peru late last year have already shown
congressmen, top military officials, owners of television stations and
businessmen taking bribes and conspiring.