Drug trafficking suspect may be extradited

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- A top leader of Colombia's biggest cocaine cartel was captured Tuesday in South America's largest city after a two-year investigation into traffickers accused of sending tons of the drug to the United States and Europe.

Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, who faces three U.S. federal indictments on drug and racketeering charges, was arrested just after dawn at a house in a gated community on Sao Paulo's outskirts. U.S. officials said they would seek his extradition.

The raid was aimed at breaking up a ring that laundered drug profits in Brazil, the nation's federal police said.

Ramirez Abadia -- nicknamed "Chupeta," or "lollipop" in Colombian Spanish -- is accused of shipping cocaine since the 1990s and ordering the murders of police and informants in the United States and Colombia.

Fernando Francischini, the federal police agent in charge of the investigation, told a news conference that judicial officials are analyzing whether Ramirez Abadia should be extradited or face charges in Brazil.

Ramirez Abadia, who Francischini said underwent at least two plastic surgeries to alter his appearance, has been described by law enforcement officials as a crafty and ruthless survivor.

Police said they had known of his presence in Brazil for two years, and received a tip a week ago that led to the arrest. They did not provide further details.

"The news of his arrest is welcome," said Richard Mei, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Brazil. He said U.S. officials are deciding who might get a reward offered for information leading his capture.

Ramirez Abadia's Norte del Valle cartel emerged as Colombia's most powerful drug gang after the mid-1990s, and the U.S. State Department in September 2004 began offering up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest of its leaders.

Ramirez Abadia was sentenced to 13 years in Colombian prison in 1996 on drug trafficking, racketeering and other charges after turning himself to benefit from a Colombian law that allowed him to avoid extradition for admitting to his crimes.

According to Colombian police, he was released from prison in 2001 and then indicted along with other top members of the Norte del Valle cartel in 2004 in a racketeering case in Washington D.C. federal court.

DEA officials have said Colombian traffickers were forced to flee to countries including Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador and Argentina as a result.

The wealth of Ramirez Abadia, 44, once reached $1.8 billion, but he is believed to be indebted to other traffickers, the U.S. State Department said.

Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said in a radio interview Tuesday that Ramirez Abadia is the presumed owner of more than $80 million in cash and gold found in January under floorboards and in secret compartments in several houses in the Colombian city of Cali.

Francischini said police also arrested Ramirez Abadia's wife, another Colombian citizen and 10 Brazilians, and seized about $920,000 in various currencies from his house.

In all police served 22 search warrants in six states and confiscated drugs, guns, bulletproof cars, jet skis and yachts, including one said to be worth $1 million.

The gang allegedly laundered profits from Mexico and Spain by purchasing hotels, mansions, industrial property and cars in Brazil, Francischini said.

Cocaine is not produced in Brazil, but the country has become a major transshipment point and an increasingly big consumer of cocaine.

Drug lords also use Brazil to purchase chemicals essential to turning coca leaves into cocaine, said Walter Maierovitch, an expert in organized crime who once headed Brazil's anti-drug efforts.

The arrest of Ramirez Abadia is "clear evidence" of Brazil's key role in the cocaine networks rooted in neighboring nations, Maierovitch said.

The Treasury Department listed him as a "specially designated narcotics trafficker" in 2000, freezing his U.S. assets and forbidding commercial transactions with him by Americans.

Adam J. Szubin, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, last year called Ramirez Abadia "one of the most powerful and elusive drug traffickers in Colombia."

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Associated Press writers Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Darcy Crowe and Frank Bajak in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.