COLOMBIA RISKS NEW DRUG WAR IN COCAINE MOB BUST

Colombia's deadly drug mobs could unleash a new reign of terror after police
smashed a cartel accused of shipping up to $1bn of cocaine a month to the
United States, two former anti-drug officials warned last night.

Over the last two days, Colombian and US forces arrested 31 people,
including billionaire drug baron Fabio Ochoa. He was a former lieutenant of
the late kingpin Pablo Escobar, whose once powerful Medellin cartel brought
the state to its knees with a campaign of bombings, assassinations and
kidnappings in the 1980s.

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Police also seized Alejandro Bernal, described as "one of the most
significant international drug traffickers presently operating" and alleged
to have close ties to Mexico's notoriously violent Juarez and Tijuana mobs.

Authorities have threatened to send all those captured to face trail in the
US, where penalties for drug trafficking are much stiffer than in Colombia.

"If corruption doesn't work, these narco-traffickers are ready to use
terrorism or violence either openly or more covertly," warned former Justice
Minister Enrique Parejo, who took four bullets in a botched assassination
attempt by a Medellin Cartel hit man in the late 1980s.

Announcing the destruction of what he called an "elite cartel" responsible
for smuggling up to 30 tons of cocaine into the United States per month,
police chief Gen Rosso Jose Serrano said all those arrested would be
extradited to the United States.