Colombia: Colombian troops and police have captured a suspect the US claims has sold massive amounts of cocaine to buy guns for one of the country's Marxist guerrilla groups.
Farouk Shaikh Reyes, a clandestine member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, was arrested at Bogota's El Dorado airport as he arrived on a flight from his home in Mexico on Saturday night, an army spokesman said.
Shaikh Reyes was Farc's main cocaine salesman for US markets, the army said in a news release. He also swapped cocaine for weapons for Farc and was part of a network supplying $150 million (€127 million) worth of cocaine a month to the US and Europe.
"Farouk Shaikh Reyes is considered one of the most important men trafficking cocaine abroad," the statement claimed. His arrest followed the capture in July of another alleged senior Farc trafficker to the US, Ferney Torres.
Colombia and the US hope by strangling Farc's cocaine exports they can choke its four-decade-old war. - (Reuters)