CARACAS: Venezuela has captured a major Colombian drug lord known as "El Valenciano," Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said here Monday during a visit with President Hugo Chavez.
Santos thanked Chavez for the arrest in Venezuela Sunday of Maximiliano Bonilla Orozco, saying it showed the benefits of security cooperation between the two countries.
Venezuela and Colombia had tense relations under Santos's predecessor, but the Colombian president and Chavez have moved to improve ties between the South American neighbors despite their ideological differences.
Santos said the 39-year-old Bonilla Orozco controlled "a series of structures dedicated to crime and drug trafficking and so for us he had become an extremely high value target."
He was also highly sought by the United States, which put a $5 million reward on his head.
The US State Department alleges that Bonilla Orozco had been linked to the trafficking of several tons of cocaine from Colombia to the United States and the transport of more than $25 million from the United States to Mexico, and had extensive dealings with Mexico's brutal Zetas drug cartel.
It said his organization used a network of warehouses and front companies to buy legitimate goods that were stored and shipped with drugs, some of it supplied by the National Liberation Army, a Colombian guerrilla group.
Chavez, who called the drug lord's capture a "happy coincidence," said Bonilla Orozco was being transferred to Caracas on Monday.
"Colombia should know, the president should know, I reaffirm it, that we will do everything in our power to prevent Venezuelan territory from being used to conspire... or to launch attacks" on Colombia, Chavez said.
Former Colombia president Alvaro Uribe in July 2010 accused Venezuela of harboring Colombian guerrillas, prompting Caracas to break off relations with Bogota in a crisis that put the two countries on a war footing.
"It's been nearly 16 months since we restored relations and everything is sailing along," said Santos with Chavez at his side, while acknowledging that "some things are advancing faster than others."
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