MAIQUETIA, Venezuela, July 13 (Reuters) - Venezuela handed over to U.S. officials on Tuesday Carlos "Beto" Renteria, one of the world's most wanted alleged cocaine smugglers, after its soldiers arrested him with help from British agents.
The United States had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of Renteria, the last free leader of Colombia’s top drug gang, the Norte del Valle cartel.
The U.S. government called the extradition "valuable and positive."
A 2004 U.S. indictment accused the cartel of exporting 500 tonnes of cocaine to the United States in the 1990s but it has been weakened with the arrest or death of all its top "capos".
A scruffily dressed and weak-looking Renteria, who may have undergone plastic surgery to change his appearance, was escorted by heavily armed police in body armor and delivered to a waiting U.S. plane at Venezuela’s main airport near Caracas.
Apparently to hide his face, he kept his head down, showing wispy gray hair, as he shuffled to the U.S. plane. Also extradited were fellow drug suspects, Carlos Alberto Ojeda and Luis Frank Tello, who yelled in protest as they were led away.
"Like never before, we have hit mafias and criminal organizations dedicated to illegal drug trafficking," said Venezuelan Interior Minister Tarek al Aissami. "We are next to the main producer of drugs in the world (Colombia), and next to the world’s top consumer — the United States."
In the last decade, Mexican cartels have taken over much of the business of transporting cocaine with smaller Colombian gangs emerging as intermediaries alongside guerrilla groups involved in the trade. Traffickers use Colombia’s neighbors, especially Venezuela, as trans-shipment points.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2005 tore up a cooperation agreement with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after accusing its agents of spying.
Despite the tension with Washington, Venezuela continues joint anti-drugs efforts with other countries. It frequently extradites foreign suspects to the United States and Colombia.
In an unusually warmly-worded statement, the U.S. State Department, which has accused Chavez’s government of being lenient towards the drugs trade, praised the capture of the three men.
"The Venezuelan police officers who made these arrests demonstrated excellent police work in bringing these three drug traffickers to justice," it said. "The United States reaffirms its interest in deepening its cooperation with the Venezuelan government in the fight against narco-trafficking."
Renteria was detained on July 5 in a joint operation between National Guard soldiers and British anti-drugs agents in an upscale neighborhood in Caracas, local detectives said.
"We congratulate the Venezuelan authorities on the arrest of another senior figure involved in drug-trafficking," a British government spokesman said.
In 2008, Colombian magazine Cambio said the 65-year-old drug lord, who had been on the run since a U.S. indictment in 2004, was living in Venezuela and had undergone plastic surgery to alter his appearance.
Another top Norte del Valle cartel leader, Wilber "Soap" Varela, was killed in Venezuela two years ago. Authorities say he was murdered in a bloody vendetta between two factions of the cartel.
Venezuela says it has deported 12 suspected drug traffickers this year and 49 since 2006, mainly to Colombia and the United States.
The government has invested millions of dollars to replace radars and other drug-fighting capacity lost when relations soured with Washington early in Chavez’s presidency.
The United Nations World Drug Report for 2010 says about half of sea-born shipments of Colombian cocaine to Europe have left from Venezuela in recent years.
Many clandestine flights to Europe via Africa also leave from Venezuela, but only about 10 percent of U.S.-bound cocaine transits Venezuela and the Caribbean, the report says.
