PERU'S MOST WANTED FUGITIVE APPREHENDED

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - After a tense stakeout, Venezuelan secret police
captured South America's most wanted man, Peru's ex-spy chief Vladimiro
Montesinos, accused of amassing a fortune by dealing drugs and weapons.

The capture, announced Sunday by Venezuela's president, ends an eight-month
chase for the man many Peruvians say effectively ran their country for
years with a network of corruption.

Montesinos was seized inside a Caracas safehouse late Saturday, a beaming
President Hugo Chavez announced during a summit of Andean leaders in the
central Venezuelan city of Valencia.

"Fortunately, we have captured Vladimiro Montesinos alive," Chavez said,
adding that the spymaster would be deported to Peru "faster than a rooster
crows."

Montesinos, 55, was being held at the Military Intelligence Directorate
headquarters in Caracas. As reporters crowded outside, soldiers with
automatic rifles guarded the building.

At home, Montesinos faces charges ranging from money laundering to
corruption to directing death squads. Peru had offered a $5 million reward
for information leading to the arrest of Montesinos, alleged to have
stashed away tens of millions of dollars in Swiss banks.

"We knew as of yesterday at 11 in the morning that there was an operation
to capture Montesinos and we are anxiously awaiting news," Peruvian
President Valentin Paniagua said from the southern city of Arequipa, where
he was surveying damage from an earthquake.

Peruvian Foreign Minister Javier Perez de Cuellar thanked Chavez for the
arrest of what he called "a delinquent drug trafficker" who will be tried
"like any delinquent in our country." Interior Minister Antonio Ketin Vidal
also praised intelligence agencies from other nations, including the FBI.
He said details of the chase would be made public later.

As head of Peru's powerful spy agency, Montesinos had been the power broker
behind the government during Fujimori's 10-year rule.

Investigators have detailed a huge criminal network run by Montesinos by
which he controlled politicians, courts, military officials and businessmen
through bribery and blackmail.

But Montesinos' fall began in September when videos were broadcast on
television appearing to show him bribing an opposition congressman to
support the government.

As the crisis grew, Montesinos fled to Panama. But when he was refused
asylum there, he returned to Peru and went into hiding. During his time in
hiding, Montesinos reportedly underwent plastic surgery in Caracas in
December to alter his hawklike features.

Venezuelan Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel once described the manhunt
as passing from "magical realism" to a "serial novel."

Chavez and presidential secretary Diosdado Caballo said that secret police
had been watching a suspected safehouse in one of Caracas' poorest
neighborhoods for several days. Montesinos - who moved frequently - was
arrested at 10:30 p.m. before he could slip to another hiding place.