Suspected Colombian drug trafficker arrested ... was also a paramilitary group member

EFE News Service: The Disip state-security police agency captured suspected Colombian drug trafficker and paramilitary group member Herma-goras González Polanco, for whom the United States is offering a reward of $5 million, Venezuelan media reported on Sunday.

Globovisión and Cadena Global confirmed the arrest of González Polanco, whom the U.S. State Department also links with the paramilitaries of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, and the Guajira drug cartel.

The cartel operates along the northern portion of Venezuela's border with Colombia and au-thorities attribute to it weapons trafficking activities and the annual sending of several tons of cocaine to the United States, noting that it has become known for using violence, intimidation, extortion and murder, according to the State Department's Web page.

The 45-year-old González Polanco is also linked to Salomon Camacho Mora, whom U.S. au-thorities blame for introducing several tons of cocaine into that country, including nine tons that were seized in 1999 and 2000, as well as for "narco-laundering" activities in the Dominican Republic.

González Polanco has been a fugitive from his country since 2002 and is facing charges there linking him with a murder, and in U.S. courts in New York and New Jersey he has been accused of "drug money laundering and drug trafficking." Spokesmen for the Interior and Justice Minister told EFE that probably minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín will refer to the matter at a press conference he had called for Sunday.

The Colombian is the brother of Eudo González Polanco, who died in a rural part of central Venezuela on February 10, 2004, in a violent operation conducted by the Disip and the Cicpc – that is, the scientific, prison and criminal investigations corps – in which he was killed in a hail of bullets along with seven other people.

According to the press version, the González Polanco brothers counted among their strategic partners former Colombian Sen. Samuel Santander Lopesierra, alias "The Marlboro Man," who was extradited to the United States.

Globovisión said that the arrest came in the past few hours in the town of Caja Seca, on the border between the northern Venezuelan states of Mérida and Zulia, and it noted on its Web page that Venezuelan police identity documents were found by police during the operation in which Eudo died four years ago.