ANTI-DRUG OFFICIAL'S SON SENTENCED TO PRISON

MIAMI - The teen-age son of a top Colombian anti-drug official has been
sentenced to nearly six years in a U.S. prison for trying to smuggle heroin
into Miami.

Andres Felipe Lafaurie Restrepo, 19, and Juan Pablo Mejia Acevedo, 18,
pleaded guilty and were sentenced Jan. 24. The process between plea and
sentencing normally takes at least three months but was compressed to a
single day by agreement of all sides.

Lafaurie's mother, Maria Restrepo, heads the Colombian agency known by its
Spanish acronym PLANTE, which helps create new livelihoods for farmers who
agree to stop growing coca and poppy plants used to make cocaine and heroin.

Lafaurie arrived at the Miami airport on a flight from his hometown of
Barranquilla, Colombia, with 7.3 pounds of heroin taped to his legs Nov. 22.

Mejia, who said his father was with the Colombian government, also was
carrying heroin and was stopped after a customs agent saw bulges on the
backs of his legs under his baggy pants. The two young men said they had
been promised $20,000 each to carry the drugs.