WARLORD TIES TO DRUG LAB CALLED LIKELY

BOGOTA, Colombia - Barely 10 days ago, Colombia's top paramilitary
warlord challenged authorities to prove allegations that he is a drug
trafficker.

"All my life I have been a downright enemy of drug-related activities
and of their corruptive power," Carlos Castano said in a statement.

Castano, head of the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia, declared
that if authorities have any evidence against him, "I request that
they say so publicly."

Police still aren't ready to accuse the fugitive militia chief of drug
trafficking directly, but Wednesday's seizure of a massive
cocaine-processing complex in the paramilitary-controlled Magdalena
River Valley weakens the denials of involvement in the drug trade.

National Police Chief Rosso Jose Serrano, in an interview with The
Herald, said that "this zone of the Middle Magdalena is theirs. . . .
Intuition leads one to believe that it belonged to them."

The drug complex, near the hamlet of Matacocos, was capable of
producing eight tons of pure cocaine a month, he said.

Police are combing through seized documents with coded names and
numbers that may help crack "the structure of the organization," he
added.

Unlike most clandestine cocaine complexes, this one had no mine fields
nearby, no booby traps and no significant protection to prevent approach.

"I got the impression that it had been there for years," Serrano said.
"These people must have been very confident. . . . They felt safe
because they left no traps."

The Middle Magdalena Valley around the complex has long hosted drug
lords and paramilitary groups, often working together.

One of the Medellin Cartel's founders, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha,
created and bank-rolled private armies in the area in the 1980s to
protect his vast ranches and discourage authorities from arresting
him. Gunmen killed Rodriguez Gacha in 1989.

Carlos Castano's older brother, Fidel, was a right-hand man to Pablo
Escobar, the Medellin Cartel chief and huge landowner in the region.
Escobar was tracked down by antinarcotics police and killed in 1993.

Papers found at the Matacocos complex included some with the name
"Carranza," leading some authorities to wonder about involvement by
Victor Carranza, Colombia's wealthy emerald czar. Carranza has been in
jail for 15 months, accused of forming paramilitary groups that have
sown terror in the Middle Magdalena River Valley and in eastern Meta
state.

At his peak, Carranza controlled half the nation's emerald
industry.

Serrano said he believes all of the cocaine leaving the complex was
bound for the United States. Police discovered rubber packaging that
smugglers use to seal processed cocaine into waterproof bricks that
can be dropped from airplanes to speedboats near U.S. shores.

Police also found more than 1,000 adhesive stickers in the image of a
U.S. $1 bill. The stickers apparently were the trademark of the
trafficking group, he said.