PRISON BREAK FOILED

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Fourteen people were arrested Friday for trying to
tunnel their way into Bogota's Picota prison, in an apparent bid to
free some of Colombia's most notorious criminals over the Christmas or
New Year holidays.

Pablo Elias Gonzalez, chief investigator in the prosecutor-general's
office, said the tunnel was apparently intended as an escape route for
inmates in the maximum-security wing of the penitentiary, which is on
the southern outskirts of the capital. He said the tunnel, which began
in a garage near the prison, was 33 feet below ground and 130 feet
long.

The maximum security section of the Picota is home to, among others,
the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers, the reputed billionaires who headed
the Cali drug cartel and controlled up to 80 percent of the world's
cocaine until their arrests in 1995.