INTERNATIONAL RAID NETS 2,876 ARRESTS

MEDELLIN, Colombia - U.S.-led agents have arrested thousands of people and
seized tons of drugs in the world's biggest anti-narcotics operation - a
venture that involved hide-outs in snake-infested bunkers and powerboat
chases worthy of James Bond.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) coordinated the drug bust,
named Operation Liberator, which took place across the Caribbean this
month. Officials from Britain and 30 other countries were involved.

Powerboats, modified helicopters, highly trained sniffer dogs, trackers and
spy aircraft were used to trap suspects. Cocaine laboratories were smashed
and heroin-poppy fields were burned.

Some agents had tracked their quarry for months along mountain goat trails
in Venezuela and Colombia and on tracks across the desert near the
U.S.-Mexican border.

Other agents hid in caves where tons of cocaine had been bagged and made
ready for loading onto ships. Some posed as buyers, setting up meetings in
restaurants with suspected dealers or parachuted into jungle encampments
located with the help of satellites.

One trail ended in a speedboat chase complete with volleys of bullets
similar to the opening sequence of the latest Bond film, this time with the
Orinoco delta as a backdrop rather than London's Docklands. The agents
finally forced the two boats laden with cocaine onto an island, although
the crews escaped.

More than 39,000 searches were carried out in three weeks of raids
unprecedented both in scale and the extent of cooperation among countries.

Michael Vigil, the Caribbean director of the DEA, said 2,876 persons were
arrested, more than 20 tons of cocaine seized and $42 million in other
assets confiscated.

Agents also dismantled 94 drug factories, seized 82,170 Ecstasy tablets and
burned 9 square miles of poppy, coca and marijuana fields.

Some of those arrested were kingpins of the drug world, such as Martires
Paulino Castro, who is accused of running a network from St. Martin in the
West Indies to New York, and shipping two tons of Colombian cocaine to New
York every month.

Named after Simon Bolivar, the champion of Latin American freedom,
Operation Liberator was the fourth and most extensive in a two-year program
of raids. A raid two months ago led to the capture of Ivan De La Vega,
thought to be the leader of the biggest cocaine-trafficking operation in
Colombia, along with $910 million worth of cocaine, much of which was
destined for Scotland.

Among the goods seized in the operation were a selection of speedboats used
by smugglers, known as "go-fasts," painted blue to make them difficult to
spot at sea.

At the naval base of the historic Colombian city of Cartagena, Capt. Jose
Gabriel Escobar, the commander of the Atlantic coast guard, which took part
in the operation, pointed out an impounded go-fast moored alongside the
naval workshop.

"This baby would not stop," he said. "We have no boats fast enough to catch
her. It took four Special Forces men abseiling from a helicopter to capture
her. She was carrying half a ton of coke."

Capt. Escobar said it is almost impossible to catch the go-fasts.

"The drug traffickers usually scuttle the boats once the load has been
delivered," he said.

"What's a boat worth less than $70,000 when you are making more than $20
million pure profit for even a small load?"

Although a senior British Customs official said Operation Liberator had
landed "a crippling blow" on the narcotics industry, the business is so
large and decentralized that the raids may have had only limited effect:
The street price of drugs in New York remains unchanged.

The seizure of 20 tons of cocaine is not even a dent in supply compared
with the estimated 700 tons of cocaine leaving Colombia every year.

Even so, the operation has been heralded as beginning a new era in
international cooperation.

"This operation succeeded because of the relaxation of sovereignty issues
that many times in the past had acted as a barrier to law-enforcement
operations," said Mr. Vigil.