COLOMBIA ARRESTS 49 IN HEROIN SWEEP

BOGOTA, Colombia, April 12 - Colombian authorities arrested 49 suspected
members of the country's largest heroin ring today, including the cousin of
slain drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Police officials said the suspects had
been using a network of human "mules" to transport 110 pounds of the
narcotic a month to the United States and Europe.

"This is the biggest, most important and most effective operation we've
had," the Colombian police chief, Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, told reporters.
"The country should be at ease, because we have put a huge crime syndicate
behind bars."

The arrests, dubbed "Operation Millennium II," began before dawn and
involved 1,300 officers and 65 investigators who simultaneously rounded up
suspects in Cali, Medellin and several other major Colombian cities. Those
arrested included Nicolas Urquijo Gaviria, a cousin of Escobar, the
notorious Medellin drug cartel chief who was fatally shot by police in 1993.

Serrano charged that the ring used people, commonly called "mules," to
carry heroin in their luggage or parts of their bodies - including their
stomachs - to the United States, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. "They
used the unemployed and economic coercion to get these people to carry the
heroin," Serrano said.

According to U.S. figures, Colombian drug traffickers export six tons of
heroin to the United States a year and supply the majority of the substance
to such cities as New York, Boston, Newark, Baltimore and Philadelphia. The
CIA says the area devoted to cultivation of poppy - the raw material for
heroin - increased from 16,350 acres to 18,750 in Colombia between 1995 and
1999.

Millennium II came six months after "Operation Millennium," during which
Colombian police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency arrested 31 people
suspected of exporting 20 tons to 30 tons of cocaine a month to the United
States. One of those suspects, Fabio Ochoa, was identified as a co-founder
of Escobar's Medellin cartel. Ochoa and 29 others are awaiting extradition
to the United States, where they will face trial on drug-trafficking
charges. Authorities say Colombia supplies 80 percent of the cocaine
consumed in the United States.

The Senate is considering a $1.6 billion emergency-aid package to help
Colombia fight the illegal drug industry. Almost half that money would go
toward the purchase of helicopters and intelligence equipment and for
training Colombian troops to fight left-wing rebels. The government says
the insurgents protect drug producers for a fee and impose taxes on growers
of poppy and coca, the raw material of cocaine, to finance their war
against the state.