REBEL LEADER ARRESTED, SENT TO U.S.

Colombian Held On Drug Charges

Washington --- A Colombian rebel leader wanted by U.S. law enforcement
authorities on drug trafficking charges was arrested in Suriname and flown
to the United States, the Drug Enforcement Administration said Wednesday.

A leader of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, or FARC, identified
by U.S. authorities as Carlos Bolas will be arraigned in U.S. District
Court, the DEA said.

''For the first time, we have not only indicted a member of a terrorist
organization involved in drug trafficking, but we have also arrested him,''
said DEA Director Asa Hutchinson.

The agency took Bolas into custody Tuesday. Surinamese authorities arrested
him for immigration violations after determining he was using a false
Peruvian passport.

Surinamese officials, aware that Bolas was wanted in the United States,
ordered him expelled and turned him over to the DEA. In Suriname, officials
said Bolas was arrested in a house north of the capital of Paramaribo,
along with five Surinamese and one Brazilian.

Carlos Bolas is a nickname. Officials in Suriname said his real name is
Rojas. Colombian military officials, however, identified him as Eugenio
Vargas Perdomo, 32, second in command of a FARC combat unit.

Last March, a federal grand jury in Washington indicted Bolas on charges of
conspiring to manufacture and import cocaine into the United States, the
DEA said. The indictment alleges that, starting in 1994, Bolas and his FARC
associates were leaders of a cocaine trafficking ring centered in Barranco
Minas, Colombia, that manufactured and sold cocaine to international drug
traffickers.