DESOLATE FARM WITH DIRT AIRSTRIP HID MASSIVE COCAINE OPERATION IN JUNGLE

(08-25) 14:40 PDT UPATA, Venezuela (AP) -- For nearly two years, a
nondescript abandoned farm house in the remote eastern jungles of Venezuela
served as a sanctuary for an international drug gang smuggling Colombian
cocaine to Europe and the United States.

This week, Venezuelan and international anti-drug agents finally outwitted
the cartel, seizing a record 10 tons of cocaine and arresting at least 16
people in an operation that has been a source of pride for a country at
odds with the United States over anti-narcotics flights.

Venezuelan officials have lauded the bust, the largest in the South
American nation's history, as proof President Hugo Chavez is serious about
fighting drugs despite refusing to allow U.S. anti-drug planes to fly over
Venezuelan territory -- a decision that has hurt U.S. anti-narcotics
activities in the Caribbean.

Venezuela is a major trafficking route for Colombian cocaine bound for Europe.

Authorities are still hunting the bosses of the Los Mellizos drug gang and
trying to determine who owned the businesses and ranches that sheltered the
smugglers in Venezuela for nearly two years.

"The most difficult part of this investigation is still to come," Col. Jose
Antonio Paez, second-in-command of the National Guard's anti drug unit,
told reporters on the desolate farm.

"We still don't know who was behind all of this," Paez said, gesturing
toward the 5,000-acre farm that has its own airstrip, presumably to receive
cocaine from Colombia.

It took an eight-month international investigation, using sophisticated
telephone bugging equipment and a network of informers, to find the Doble
Uno ranch, nine miles from the nearest city, Puerto Ordaz.

The operation, dubbed Orinoco 2000, resulted in arrests in Venezuela,
France and Italy.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration helped finance the raids, and
Colombia, France, Britain, Italy, Greece and Panama also collaborated.

The grounds surrounding the rundown farm house show not a trace of the
millions of dollars of cocaine that passed through the premises for months.
Even the mile-long airstrip looks like a dirt road.

The National Guard combed the premises for two weeks before discovering 2.5
tons of cocaine Wednesday night buried in two six-foot pits deep inside
thickets of trees -- the latest of three seizures netting the 10 tons of
cocaine.

Paez said the National Guard would have never found the latest haul --
stored in 2.2-pound paper bags -- if not for the confessions of two freshly
nabbed suspected smugglers.

The National Guard captured the two suspects on a remote river island about
22 miles from the ranch. On that island -- in the middle of the Orinoco
River -- authorities first discovered 5 tons of cocaine last Friday.

Paez led 70 soldiers in pursuit of the fugitives for five days. Seven motor
boats surrounded the island and soldiers combed the swampy land until the
suspects were caught trying to hitch a ride with passing fishing boats.

"They couldn't hold out. They had no food and they told us that every time
they poked their heads out they saw soldiers patrolling the grounds," Paez
said.

The two initially pretended to be tourists but soon confessed and revealed
the location of the pits with cocaine after being promised lighter
sentences, Paez said.

Paez says most of those detained carry Venezuelan identity cards which he
suspects are false. Soldiers insisted most of the detainees are Colombian.
There is strong evidence to show that the cocaine packets were airdropped
from Colombia, Paez said.

"The packets had fluorescent hooks which tells me that they were dropped by
air at night," Paez said.

He said he suspects the farm was a holding spot for the cocaine which was
then taken by land or through the Orinoco River en route to the Caribbean
for shipment to Europe.

Paez insisted the presence of a major drug cartel operating in the country
does not mean Venezuela has become a refuge for traffickers.

"When you find these things people say, 'so does that mean that drug
trafficking is growing in Venezuela?' Why don't they say I'm doing my job
better?" Paez said.