COLOMBIA ARRESTS AT LEAST 30 IN MAJOR DRUG STING

BOGOTA, Colombia -- In the biggest blow to Colombian drug trafficking
since 1995, authorities arrested 30 people including Fabio Ochoa, a
principal in the once-powerful Medellin cartel, the national police
director announced today.

The suspects were all seized Tuesday night and those captured in
Colombia will be extradited to the United States for trial, Gen. Rosso
Jose Serrano told reporters. Most of the suspects were arrested in
Colombia, with others captured in Ecuador, Mexico and the United
States, he said.

"This was an immense operation, an operation you could call perfect,"
Serrano told reporters after informing President Andres Pastrana.

He said Colombian police worked "shoulder-to-shoulder" with the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration and CIA in the yearlong investigation
that began in Houston and Ecuador and tracked the ring's operations
all the way to Europe.

"These people made gigantic shipments of drugs and flooded the U.S.
markets," he told RCN radio, adding that the evidence against the
suspects was gathered "almost completely in the United States."

Colombia is the world's leading exporter of cocaine and a growing
source of heroin.

The sting was dubbed Operation Millennium and Serrano called it the
most important blow to drug traffickers in Colombia since the Cali
cocaine cartel's leaders were captured in 1995, ending the era of
Colombia's huge vertically organized cartels.

Ochoa, 42, was arrested at his home in Medellin, the country's
second-largest city, authorities said. Three years ago, he had been
released from prison after serving two-thirds of an 8 1/2-year
sentence for drug trafficking.

>From a well-known ranching and horse-breeding family, Ochoa was among
leaders of the Medellin cartel, whose fall was consummated by the
December 1993 killing by police of cartel boss Pablo Escobar.

"You would have thought that the Ochoas would be careful, attending to
their fortune," Serrano said. Ochoa's two older brothers, Jorge Luis
and Juan David, also served jail time for drug trafficking and were
released in 1996.

It was not clear whether U.S. authorities would seek to prosecute
Fabio Ochoa under 1980s indictments in that country for drug
trafficking and other crimes.

Colombia has not extradited anyone for trial in the United States
since 1990, although extradition was restored with a December 1997
law.

That law applies only to crimes committed after its enactment and its
lack of retroactivity protected the jailed former heads of the
now-defunct Cali and Medellin cocaine cartels.

To pressure Colombian leaders into preventing the extradition of its
leaders to the United States, the Medellin cartel waged a bloody
campaign of bombings and assassinations in the last 1980s and early
1990s that claimed hundreds of lives.

Serrano said U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and Colombia's
ambassador to Washington, Luis Alberto Moreno, would announce more
details at a news conference in the U.S. capital later today.