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CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan soldiers captured an alleged Colombian drug traffickerSunday who authorities say ruthlessly ran the neighboring country'sbiggest right-wing criminal gang and conspired to export tons ofcocaine to the United States through Mexico and Central America. Diego Perez Henao, 41, is one of Colombia's "most sinister drugtraffickers and murderers," Colombia's national policedirector-designate, Gen. Jose Roberto Leon, told reporters inBogota. Colombian officials called him the leader of the "Rastrojos," orLeftovers, a violent offshoot of the Norte del Valle cartel thatengages in drug trafficking, extortion and murder as it competeswith other criminal bands that grew out of the far-right militiasknown as paramilitaries. The gang, which is thought to have hundreds of members, operates onColombia's Pacific coast and along the border with Venezuela,Colombian police say. Better known by his alias "Diego Rastrojo," Perez was indicted in2001 in Florida on charges of conspiracy to traffic cocaine. TheU.S. State Department had a $5 million reward out for his capture. Henao was pretending to be foreman of a rice farm in Venezuela'sborder state of Barinas, living with 10 bodyguards who posed as hisworkers, and was arrested just before dawn Sunday, Leon said. Venezuela's justice minister, Tareck El Aissami, said at a newsconference that Perez was "one of the most wanted criminals inLatin America" and that the government of President Hugo Chavezplanned to turn him over the Colombian authorities. Colombian and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents ledVenezuelan authorities to Perez, said a U.S. government official,who spoke on condition he not be further identified because of thepolitical sensitivity. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos praised the cooperation ofVenezuela's counter-narcotics police, and Leon said two informantswould receive cash rewards from the United States. The U.S. State Department said Perez has "been linked tokidnappings, tortures and assassinations in Colombia, Venezuela,and Panama." Perez was a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,Latin America's largest leftist rebel band, when the Norte delValle cartel recruited him in the 1990s. Such shifts in ideologicalallegiance occur periodically in Colombia's drug-fueled conflict,often propelled by lucre. Perez became a lieutenant of Wilber Varela, a former Colombianpolice officer and one of that cartel's last remaining bosses. Heand the other top leader of Los Rastrojos, Javier Antonio CalleSerna, are believed responsible for the 2008 killing of Varela inVenezuela's western city of Merida, said Leon, the Colombian policedirector. Calle Serna turned himself in to U.S. authorities last month.Another of his brothers, Juan Carlos Calle Serna, was arrested inEcuador in March and sent to the United States and a third brother,Luis Enrique Calle Serna, remains a fugitive and is believed to bethe titular head of Los Rastrojos, Leon added. DEA regional director Jay Bergman said the Rastrojos have dominatedColombia's Pacific maritime cocaine-smuggling routes as well asproduction in the country's southwest. He said Perez was among Colombia's most violent criminals. "Violence is what got him there and violence was what was going tokeep him in power," Bergman said. "His pedigree from his earlytrafficking days is that he came out of the sicarios (cartelhitmen), so violence is in his DNA." Bergman noted that major Colombian traffickers are increasinglyhiding outside their homeland -- and being caught there. Perez's capture was the latest in a series of arrests of reputedColombian drug traffickers in Venezeula that began after Santostook office in August 2010. Venezuela has been a major cocaine transit country in recent years,responsible for the majority of smuggling flights bound for Mexicoand Central America, according the Colombian and U.S. officials. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Led Flashlight Keychains Manufacturer , China Led Pen Lights for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Flashing Keychain.
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