MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Colombia captures “Don Mario, most wanted drug lord

Colombian National Police escort drug lord Daniel Rendon Herrera, alias “Don Mario”

Colombia announced Wednesday the capture of the man listed as the country's most wanted drug lord, Daniel Rendon. The government had offered a reward of up to 2 million US dollars for the capture of Rendon, an alleged paramilitary drug trafficker also known as “Don Mario.”

Rendon, 43, is alleged to have offered 1,000 USD for each police officer his gunmen killed. He was found alone, eating rice out his hands, hiding under a palm tree in the jungles of northern Antioquia province, Defence Minster Juan Manuel Santos said.

When he was surrounded, the once-feared cocaine baron was living “virtually like a dog, curled up and clinging to that palm tree, where he had been for two days,” Santos told reporters.

Rendon Herrera is accused of shipping about 100 tons of drugs from Colombia's Caribbean coast to the United States. Santos said he is also responsible for at least 3.000 murders.

Santos said informants were a key part of the nine-month operation in which police patiently penetrated the rings of security, consisting of scores of armed thugs, that once protected the fugitive.

His ruthless style recalled that of Colombia's best-known drug baron Pablo Escobar, who waged war against the state until he was gunned down by security forces on a rooftop in the city of Medellin in 1993.

The government hailed Rendon Herrera's capture as a victory for law and order, but experts said Colombia's thriving cocaine trade is unlikely to be disrupted for long.

“Don Mario was the most important drug trafficker out there, but someone will take his place very quickly and it will be business as usual,” said security analyst Pablo Casas. “His organisation is as well structured as any company, where the CEO can be replaced at any time,” Casas said.

Rendon Herrera has also been charged by US authorities, a spokesman for the US Drug Enforcement Administration said in Washington.

Rendon Herrera belonged to one of the paramilitary groups that began demobilizing after a 2003 peace deal with the government, but he refused to confess his crimes as required under the accord and he went into hiding. He is the brother of a jailed paramilitary warlord known as “El Aleman,” or “The German,” a nickname he earned for his reputation of enforcing strict discipline among his troops.

Rendon Herrera is accused of running cocaine trafficking in the area controlled by his brother in the 1990s, when right-wing paramilitaries battled leftist guerrillas for control of rural Colombia.