FLEEING COWBOY REINED IN WITH BOGUS-CHEQUE CLAIM AFTER 13 MONTHS ON THE RUN

A man who fled custody after being convicted in one of Canada's
largest and most spectacular drug busts featuring an air chase by
fighter jets has been arrested cashing a bogus cheque.

Raymond Boulanger, 56, had been on the run for 13 months before he
tried to make the transaction at a downtown business Wednesday and was
arrested by Montreal police.

Boulanger, who was nicknamed The Cowboy, was turned over to police in
Mirabel, and was arraigned on charges of fleeing custody.

The native of Rimouski fled from a town near Mirabel where he and two
other inmates from the minimum-security federal prison in
Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines were left at a church to do odd jobs as part
of a community-services program in July 2001.

It was his second escape from prison in three years.

In the summer of 1998, he fled a Montreal halfway house. Boulanger,
who had lived in South America for years, managed to return to
Colombia, where he was captured by members of the rebel Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and held for ransom. He was freed on
$100,000 U.S. ransom and was extradited to Canada in March 2000.

Boulanger was serving a 23-year sentence for piloting a twin-engine
plane loaded with 4,000 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to Canada
in 1992.