Colombia Extradites Drug Suspect

Colombia extradited one of South America’s top suspected cocaine kingpins to Miami on Tuesday, a U.S. drug official said.

Alejandro Bernal is accused of leading a smuggling ring believed to have shipped as much as 30 tons of cocaine a month to the United States in the late 1990s.

U.S. prosecutors say Bernal, a former Medellin cartel member, was even more important in the smuggling ring than Fabio Ochoa, whose September extradition to the United States drew wide attention.

Bernal arrived in Florida in the late afternoon and was taken to a federal detention center near Miami. An initial appearance before a U.S. magistrate was scheduled for today, Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Joe Kilmer said.

Bernal and Ochoa are among 31 Colombians arrested in October 1999 with DEA support in a dragnet dubbed Operation Millennium. At the time, U.S. and Colombian officials said they had dismantled one of the most important drug-trafficking organizations in the world.

Bernal, allegedly known in the drug world by the nickname Juvenal, is believed to have been the key intermediary between Colombian traffickers and a Mexican cartel that moved the cocaine into the U.S.

His extradition “is a victory for the Colombian government and the U.S. government,” said Leo Arreguin, chief of the DEA’s office in Colombia.

President Andres Pastrana signed Bernal’s extradition papers last week after Colombia’s Supreme Court approved the hand-over. His trial could begin by February, Arreguin said.

U.S. officials favor extradition because traffickers typically receive much stiffer sentences in the United States than in Colombia, where corruption and intimidation plague the justice system.