HEROIN RING BROKEN UP IN COLOMBIA - 49 ARRESTS

(Cali, Colombia---AP) --- Police dismantled what they called Colombia's
leading
heroin-trafficking ring yesterday, making 49 arrests in predawn raids
in four cities backed by U.S. drug agents.

Dubbed "Operation Millennium H," the sweep coincided with a Washington
visit by President Andres Pastrana to lobby U.S. lawmakers for
approval of a $1.6 billion aid package for fighting narcotics in this
turbulent Andean nation.

With the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration attache in Colombia
seated at his side, national police director Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano
paraded most of the suspects, including four women, before reporters
in this western city.

The arrests show that "the mafiosos can't hide," said the DEA
official, Leo Arrequin.

Arreguin said there were no plans to seek extradition for any of the
suspects, including the purported ringleader, Nicolas Urquijo Gaviria,
a cousin of the late cocaine lord Pablo Escobar Gaviria.

"He's the big cheese here," Arreguin added of the stocky and slightly
balding 45-year-old Urquijo, who told reporters he was innocent. "The
rest are middle and lower-level as far as we know."

The arrests in Cab, Medellin, Popayan and Cucuta highlight the
expansion of Colombia's heroin industry alongside the country's
long-standing dominance in the world cocaine market.

Colombia supplies most of the heroin sold on the East Coast of the
United States and now ranks fourth in the world in overall production,
U.S. officials say.