INDICTMENTS A BLOW TO CARTEL

U.S. Officials Said They Struck a Crippling Blow Against Colombia's Largest
Drug Cartel, Indicting and Searching for Nine Leaders As Colombia Seized
More of the Group's Property

WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft Thursday announced the
indictment of nine top leaders of Colombia's largest drug cartel,
responsible for up to half of all the cocaine smuggled into the United
States, according to top officials.

The racketeering and smuggling indictments and the continuing manhunt for
top drug traffickers will cripple the Norte del Valle cartel, Ashcroft and
drug enforcement officials said.

"We are disabling the single largest source of cocaine to the United
States," Ashcroft said, after the indictments were unsealed in Washington.
He also conceded that some of the ringleaders "will be difficult to apprehend."

The cartel exported more than 1.2 million pounds of cocaine since 1990
through Mexico into the United States, worth more than $10 billion, the
indictments say.

That total is "roughly equivalent to the combined [annual] budgets of the
FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Prisons," said Karen
Tandy, DEA chief.

A key target of the U.S. and Colombian manhunt is Diego Leon Montoya
Sanchez, alias "Don Diego," an alleged cartel kingpin who was placed on the
FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. Last month, Colombian police raided Montoya's
ranches and homes and seized an estimated $76.3 million in property.

Cementing Power

Since the 1990s, when the Cali and Medellin cartels were broken up, the
Norte del Valle has used brutality, bribery and an alliance with the
outlawed United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia to consolidate its power,
the indictments say.

The cartel used the paramilitary group, known by the Spanish acronym AUC,
to protect drug routes from western Colombia, tried to bribe legislators to
block the extradition of drug suspects to the United States, and even
wiretapped U.S. and Colombian law enforcement and rival cartels, the
indictments say.

The State Department is offering a $5 million reward for the capture of
each of the leaders, said Assistant Secretary Bobby Charles.

Combined with the threat of death or extradition, the multiple rewards
should disrupt the organization, several officials said. Charles also said
the indictments would help President Alvaro Uribe in his efforts to disband
paramilitary groups.

"Today we have ripped out the foundation of the largest and most powerful
drug cartel in Colombia," Tandy said.

So far, Colombian law enforcement has confiscated $200 million of cartel
property, and that has "really impaired them financially," Tandy said.

Indicted along with Montoya were Wilbur Varela, Luis Hernando Gomez
Bustamante, Arcangel Henao Montoya, Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia and Carlos
Alberto Renteria Mantilla. Henao Montoya was captured in Panama in January.
The rest are at large.

Also indicted were Jorge Orlando Rodriguez Acero, a former Colombian
National Police lieutenant; Gabriel Puerta Parra, an attorney, and Jairo
Aparacio Lenis, accused of money-laundering.

Followed the Money

The case against cartel leaders developed from a money-laundering
investigation in New York and Miami. After a 1997 raid of Queens, N.Y.,
wire-transfer storefronts, the FBI, Customs and IRS began to track huge
sums of money sent to Colombia.

The cartel's massive money transfer "ranged from the unsophisticated -
money stuffed into duffel bags - to more elaborate mechanisms, including
the black market peso exchange," IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said.

Charles said that Colombia last year extradited 67 nationals who face drug
charges, and that putting Montoya on the FBI 10 Most Wanted list will turn
up the pressure on the cartel.