COLOMBIA SAYS IT CLOSES IN ON TOP BRAZIL DRUG LORD

BARRANCOMINAS, Colombia (Reuters) - Troops deep in the Colombian jungle
have located and are closing in on Brazil's top drug lord, accused of
selling arms to leftist rebels in exchange for cocaine, the army said on
Friday.

Luis Fernando da Costa, known by his Brazilian nickname Fernandinho
Beira-Mar, is believed to be on the run in a thick, jungle region near
Colombia's border with Venezuela and Brazil.

More than 300 troops fanned out across the area on Friday, while Air Force
planes and helicopters circled overhead, in an operation Colombia's army
chief Jorge Enrique Mora said will finally capture the fugitive.

"I have absolute confidence that with troops of the Rapid Deployment Force,
we will capture Fernandinho," Mora told reporters from the Barrancominas
military base in southern Colombia, from where he was coordinating the hunt.

On Thursday, a military jet forced down and destroyed a small, propeller
aircraft near Barrancominas. The army captured on Friday one of five
passengers who escaped from the plane shortly before its destruction, who
told the army that Fernandinho had been aboard and now was in the jungle on
foot.

"They are stuck in the middle of the jungle. They don't have food, they
don't have equipment, and lack the basics to help them survive," Mora said.

Fernandinho, the former kingpin of Rio de Janeiro's shantytown drug trade,
escaped from Brazilian prison in 1996. Authorities suspect he has run his
business from Colombia for up to a year, trading guns and ammunition for
cocaine.

In February, Colombian troops captured eight Brazilians, including
Fernandinho's girlfriend, who according to local media reports carried an
agenda detailing the trade of 560 rifles, 2,252 light arms, explosives and
ammunition.

Army Accuses Fernandinho

The Army accuses Fernandinho of helping to arm Colombia's largest guerrilla
force, the 17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the
FARC -- which control the region where the Brazilian allegedly operates.

In a recent interview in Brazilian newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo with FARC
commander Ivan Rios, the rebel lead said he believed the rebels may have
collected "taxes" from Fernandinho's drug business -- but denied selling
him cocaine in exchange for arms. The FARC have long admitted to imposing
such taxes on industry and drug barons to finance their 37-year-old war to
impose a communist state.

Mora, who has been searching for Fernandinho since he launched the army
"Operation Black Cat" in February, said the drug trafficker's capture would
be crucial to prove FARC complicity in the drug trade, and nab one of the
top dealers.

"This is the most important objective in operation Black Cat, capturing
Fernandinho, who is one of the most powerful drug traffickers and most
important in Brazil and who is coordinating trafficking with the FARC," he
said.

But Mora warned that he would forgo the key witness in the army fight to
prove FARC involvement in the drug trade. He said if Fernandinho resists
arrest, his troops will shoot him down.

"If things do not go the way we had hoped, if we go to capture Fernandinho
and he resists, then the troops will have to act," he said.