DRUG TRIAL SECURITY IN MIAMI EXTRA TIGHT

Former Kingpin Faces New Case

Shortly after Fabio Ochoa-Vasquez's drug-smuggling indictment in South
Florida in 1999, his family erected billboards across Colombia proclaiming
that the one-time leader of the Medellin cartel had been falsely accused.

The road signs acknowledged his well-publicized past, but repudiated the
new charges: "Yesterday I made a mistake. Today I am innocent."

Now Ochoa and his all-star defense team, led by Miami attorney Roy Black,
have to convince a Miami federal jury that Ochoa stayed out of the drug
business after his release from a Colombian prison in 1996. Jury selection
is scheduled to start today.

Ochoa is the biggest Colombian drug lord to face American justice since the
two nations reestablished extradition in 1997. He faces life in prison for
his alleged role in Operation Millennium, a U.S.-Colombian assault on the
new generation of cocaine barons who emerged in the late 1990s to take the
place of the infamous Medellin and Cali cartels.

Security for the trial will be tight. U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore
is keeping jurors' identities secret from prosecutors and defense attorneys
- -- a highly unusual tactic that was employed in last year's jury-tampering
trial of notorious Miami drug trafficker Sal Magluta.

The U.S. Marshals Service -- which Moore headed before becoming a judge --
will escort the jurors to and from court each day in two rented vans with
tinted windows.

Ochoa was clearly the prize catch for Drug Enforcement Administration
agents and federal prosecutors. They have been pursuing Fabio Ochoa and his
older brothers, Jorge Luis and Juan David, since the late 1970s.

Ruthless Group

The Ochoas, along with the late Pablo Escobar, Jose Rodriguez Gacha and
Carlos Lehder, ran the Medellin cartel, a ruthless entrepreneurial outfit
that revolutionized the drug trade and terrorized the Colombian justice
system from the late 1970s until the early 1990s.

The Ochoa brothers have been indicted several times in the United States
for cocaine trafficking, money laundering and the murder of a key DEA
witness, but the Miami trial marks the first time an Ochoa has been hauled
into an American court.

The 43-defendant indictment, built by Colombian police with the aid of U.S.
drug agents, detailed a loosely knit consortium of traffickers from
Medellin, Cali, Cartagena and the North Valley who shared the risks -- and
mammoth profits -- of exporting 30 tons of cocaine a month to the United
States between December 1997 and November 1999.

Seven Millennium defendants remain at large. Of the 36 defendants who were
extradited to the United States, all except Ochoa and one minor figure have
pleaded guilty.

The case was built on wiretaps of 140 home, office and cellular phones and
a bug planted in the Bogota office of Alejandro Bernal Madrigal, who
developed a network of Mexican trafficking pals while working for the
Ochoas in the early 1980s.

1st To Surrender

But federal prosecutors Edward Ryan, Richard Gregorie and Glenn Alexander
say they will be relying largely on the testimonies of cooperating
narco-traffickers, including Bernal.

In late 1990, Fabio Ochoa became the first Colombian drug kingpin to
surrender under a controversial program that angered U.S. drug fighters.
The deal: Any cartel member who pleaded to minor counts in Colombia would
not be extradited to the United States.

After 5 1/2 years in prison, Ochoa was released in September 1996. U.S.
prosecutors say he couldn't stay away from the drug trade.

They will portray him as an experienced consultant to Bernal, who paid his
mentor "commissions" on some of the drug loads.

Black and co-counsel Howard Srebnick say Ochoa's name cropped up in a mere
handful of the thousands of wiretapped calls. In fact, they say, his voice
was on only one tape -- a June 16, 1999, meeting at Bernal's office.

Government translators struggled for two years to decipher the conversation
among 11 different speakers during a 3 1/2-hour meeting. Ochoa spoke no
more than six times, according to initial transcripts.

But after Bernal pleaded guilty last month in Miami and reviewed the tapes
for the government, Ochoa appeared to have a much larger role. Bernal
identified his voice 93 times, according to the latest transcript.

"I don't think that's an accident," said Black, who tried unsuccessfully to
have that translation stricken from the trial.

Prosecutors are expected to call Bernal and other Millennium traffickers
who have also cut plea deals to testify against Ochoa.

Black says those cooperating would say anything to help themselves. Their
testimony, he said, was "purchased" under a controversial government
program overseen by longtime DEA and FBI informant Baruch Vega.

Vega had grown cozy with Colombia's top drug traffickers over the years.
The brazen Miami Beach fashion photographer allegedly assured them that he
could persuade his DEA contacts to go easy on them -- in return for a hefty
fee. He said some of the money would be used to pay off U.S. officials.

'Gross Misconduct'

As the Millennium case gathered steam, Vega also enlisted Carlos Castano, a
right-wing paramilitary leader in Colombia, to pressure the traffickers to
surrender for extradition or face violent consequences from his soldiers.

Earlier this year, Black tried to have the entire Millennium case
dismissed, citing the "gross misconduct" of prosecutors and DEA agents.
Black argued they turned their heads while Vega allegedly pocketed millions
from traffickers who will now be testifying against Ochoa.

Ryan acknowledged that DEA should have kept a tighter leash on Vega. But he
added that no witnesses received special treatment from prosecutors based
on Vega's ruses.

The Vega episode embarrassed U.S. officials. At one point, the FBI arrested
him and an associate on obstruction of justice charges, which were later
dropped. Two Miami-based DEA agents, David Tinsley and Larry Castillo, were
suspended for more than two years while the Justice Department probed
Vega's operation.

Joe Kilmer, spokesman for the DEA's Miami field office, declined comment.