COLOMBIA NABS BRAZILIAN FUGITIVE

Manhunt: Drug Lord 'Fernandinho' Is Captured After A Brief Standoff With
Troops. His Plane Was Forced Down 2 Days Earlier.

BOGOTA, Colombia--Brazil's biggest drug trafficker was captured deep
in the Amazon jungle Saturday after a two-month manhunt, a Colombian
military spokesman said.

Luiz Fernando da Costa was caught following a brief standoff two days
after he attempted to flee the region in a private Cessna 206 that was
forced down in the middle of the jungle by the Colombian air force.

Da Costa is important not only as a drug dealer but also as one of the
largest suppliers of weapons to the FARC, Colombia's leftists
guerrillas, authorities said. Da Costa is believed to have smuggled
guns for the guerrillas, who in turn supplied him cocaine for sale in
the U.S. and Europe.

His operations were an indication of how intertwined Colombia's
leftist insurgency and its drug trade have become, military officials
said.

"It's a tremendous blow, both to narcotics trafficking and to the
FARC," an army spokesman said of the arrest.

A vicious and canny entrepreneur, Da Costa rose to power in the
coastal slums surrounding Rio de Janeiro, resulting in his nickname,
Fernandinho Beira Mar, or Freddy Seashore.

Legendary for his brutality, Da Costa reportedly once supervised by
telephone the torture-slaying of a man he suspected of having an
affair with his girlfriend.

He was arrested in 1996 in Brazil but bribed his way out of prison and
fled to Paraguay, where he allegedly began to make contacts with arms
dealers seeking to sell weapons to the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia.

He spent at least the past year in the jungles of southeastern
Colombia, allegedly swapping one rifle for 4.4 pounds of cocaine, then
smuggling the drugs out through Brazil, Suriname and Paraguay.

He is also alleged to have been involved in a case in which about
10,000 rifles were airdropped into the jungle, a deal brokered by
Vladimiro Montesinos, a former Peruvian spymaster turned international
fugitive.

Da Costa's downfall began in February, when the Colombian army
deployed 3,500 troops to the remote provinces of Vichada and Guainia
to strike at FARC bases and cocaine facilities.

During that operation, the army stumbled across Da Costa at a country
home in the company of the local FARC commander, Tomas Medina, alias
Negro Acacio.

A firefight ensued that left Da Costa wounded in the chest and right
arm. Nevertheless, he and Medina fled into the jungle and escaped.
Medina remains at large.

For the next two months, Colombian officials pursued Da Costa
relentlessly through the remote and inaccessible region.

It proved a difficult task because many local people protected Da
Costa, who was seen as an economic savior.

Da Costa and Medina allegedly set up a system in which workers at
cocaine plantations received long holidays. They also built soccer
fields and flew in luxury goods and supplies for the populace,
according to military officials.

"The population protected them totally," Brig. Gen. Arcesio Barrero
said in an interview earlier this month.

Soon after the shootout, Colombian military officials arrested a
doctor flying from Brazil to Colombia apparently to treat Da Costa.

They also arrested at least two of Da Costa's wives (he is suspected
of having at least five), one in Bogota and another in Barrancominas,
a tiny town in southeastern Colombia.

Still, Da Costa's whereabouts remained unknown until Thursday, when
the Colombian air force detected two small airplanes flying out of
Colombia. One plane was shot down. The second was forced to land next
to a small stream in the middle of the jungle.

At least four men were seen fleeing from the plane, which was reached
by about 300 ground troops an hour later, a military source said.

The pilot told military officials he was transporting Da Costa, who
had one arm in a cast and was missing two fingers. Authorities also
discovered Da Costa's identity documents in the plane, according to
military sources.

Da Costa's injuries and the quick arrival of troops led top military
officers to predict his quick capture.

"He is in the middle of the jungle without food and without weapons,"
said Gen. Jorge Enrique Mora, head of the army. "Within 72 hours, he
will be captured dead or alive."

It took less than 48.