Posted on 04/15/2009 9:11:13 PM PDT by wardaddy
BOGOTA — Colombia's most wanted drug lord was cowering like a dog under a palm tree when he was captured Wednesday in a jungle raid involving hundreds of police officers, the defense minister said.
Daniel Rendon Herrera, a far-right warlord known as "Don Mario," was taken in shackles to the capital to await possible extradition to the United States.
Operating in a banana-growing region bordering Panama, he commanded a private army of hundreds and shipped some 100 tons of cocaine to the United States, authorities said.
President Alvaro Uribe described Rendon, 43, as "one of the most feared drug traffickers in the world." National police director Gen. Oscar Naranjo said his organization is believed to have committed 3,000 murders in the last 18 months.
The bulk of those killings occurred in turf battles with other drug lords, police said, including former lieutenants of 14 paramilitary leaders Colombia extradited to the United States last year to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.
As has always occurred in Colombia's drug underworld, Rendon ascended in power as other kingpins were captured or extradited.
Naranjo said that when a police dragnet tightened on Rendon earlier this year, he offered his assassins $1,000 for each police officer they killed, in hopes of evading arrest.
Colombian officials had offered a reward of up to $2 million for information leading to the capture of the man whose organization, controlling key smuggling routes to Central America, is believed to have been working closely with Mexican traffickers.
"This guy put bounties on the heads of government officials, so he was Public Enemy No. 1 in Colombia," said Thomas Harrigan, operations chief for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
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(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Colombia is a rough neighborhood...far worse than in my day which was bad enuff..
Mexico is kindergarten compared to Colombian unrest...but it's not on our border
Uribe is one of the good guys. Cool to see that he caught Don Mario, friend of Chavez.
Ping!
Chop off this head, another will pop up to take his place as long as there is big money to be made.
My excitement here was short lived. . . Daniel Rendon Herrera, a far-right warlord known as "Don Mario," was taken in shackles to the capital to await possible extradition to the United States.
Colombia is one of our staunchest allies, even contributing troops to our efforts in Afghanistan, which is why it’s shameful that we’re giving him and his country the cold shoulder on trade at the same time that we’re giving concessions to Castro.
Should it now, of all times, be our policy to punish our allies while rewarding our sworn enemies? When it’s becoming more profitable to oppose us than support us, it should come as no surprise that we’re being taken less and less seriously as a power around the world.
And the big bucks will continue to flow for as long as we pretend we can overcome human nature by passing more stupid laws and continue shredding our Constitution. All in the name of “protecting people from themselves...”
Bring’em to the US. I’m sure that there will be lots of ACLU types just salivating to defend him (on the gov’t dime, of course)
Just curious but if this dope warlord who operated btw on the other side of the country in the Choco far away from Venezuela and Chavez was a pal of Hugo?
He was a rightist paramilitary doper who was at odds with Chavez’s buddies in the FARC and ELN.
It seems incongruent that he was allied with Chavez except they both obviously were at odds with Uribe.
I personally knew one of the original paras of this stripe a long time ago, Victor Caranza....he was-is no pal of Chavez’s.
I couldn’t find anything on the net about Don Mario an Chavez.
"Instead he used paramilitary networks to build up a personal army of up to 1,000 heavily-armed fighters, also striking a deal with left-wing Farc rebels, the BBC's Jeremy McDermott reports from the capital, Bogota."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8000528.stm
In other words, he's allied with LEFT-WING FARC terrorists as the news media breathlessly lies about him being a "far Right" wing para-military.
Can you forward the above to newsbusters, please?
Isn't this a "U.N." legal issue?
What the heck is a "a far-right warlord"?
agree. the only ones who will cry will be him and his relatives. everyone else will be jockeying to take over his business.
” I’m sure that there will be lots of ACLU types just salivating to defend him”
and celebutards like Ed Asner, Martin Sheen, Danny Glover, et al bawling for his freedom.
interesting, thanks for the heads up
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