Wanted drug suspect captured in Venezuela

Venezuelan authorities on Saturday said they have captured a prominent Colombian drug trafficker wanted by the United States. U.S. authorities had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest of Salomon Camacho Mora. Venezuelan intelligence and counter-drug agents captured the 65-year-old Colombian during the past week in the city of Valencia, the state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported. It was not immediately clear what steps led up to the arrest.

The U.S. State Department says on its Web site that Camacho began trafficking cocaine in the 1980s with Colombia's Medellin cartel, and later formed partnerships with other traffickers. U.S. authorities say that since 1998 he had worked with the trafficker Hermagoras Gonzalez Polanco in what has been called the Guajira cartel, and that the two men were responsible for sending as much as 10 tons (9 metric tons) of cocaine to the U.S. between 1999 and 2000 alone.

Venezuelan authorities previously captured Gonzalez in 2008, saying his name was Armando Gonzalez Apushana. The U.S. State Department says the two were thought to have ties to Dominican drug organizations that paid for drugs through a money laundering scheme. Camacho was indicted in Florida in 1991 for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and in New Jersey in 2002 for money laundering. A subsequent 2005 indictment against Camacho and other associates included those same charges.

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Mexico Captures Major Tijuana Drug Gang Leader

Mexican police captured a drug kingpin on Tuesday known for having the corpses of tortured rivals dissolved in acid and blamed for much of a surge in violence in the northern border city of Tijuana. In a fresh victory for Mexico's bloody war on drug gangs, Teodoro Garcia Simental was caught in southern Baja California early Tuesday, police said.

Garcia Simental, also known as "El Teo" or "Tres Letras" for the three letters in his nickname Teo, was apprehended when an elite force of some 50 federal police raided an upscale neighbourhood in the beach town of La Paz near the tip of the Baja California peninsula. They searched several houses before finding him.

"No shots were fired. It was a very fast operation. The investigation has been going on for a long time," a police officer who participated in the operation told Reuters. Garcia Simental was handcuffed and swiftly flown to Mexico City. The top smuggler split from the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel to help Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman -- head of the rival Sinaloa cartel and Mexico's most wanted man -- wrest control of key smuggling corridors in northern Mexico.

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Police helicopter downed in Brazil by drug gang

Two Brazilian policemen have been killed after their helicopter came under fire from gang members in a slum below them and crashed. The pilot struggled to put the helicopter down safely after being shot in the leg by suspected drug-traffickers while flying over a Rio slum on Saturday, a police official said.

"The helicopter was hit by criminals and the pilot made a forced landing on a football pitch," Major Oderlei Santos of the military police said. The aircraft exploded shortly after touching down, leaving two officers stuck inside the burning wreckage.

The helicopter had been carrying six police officers as part of an operation in Morro dos Macacos, one of Rio's hundreds of slums, which is dominated by heavily armed drug gangs, police said.

• "Brazil 2009 Crime and Safety Report: Rio de Janeiro", Overseas Security Advisory council, 8/21/09.
• "To Rid Slums of Drug Gangs, Police in Rio Try War Tactics", Washington Post, 1/6/09.
• "Brazil's Powerful Prison Gang", Council on Foreign Relations, 9/6/06.

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