WORLD
Britain is the second biggest market for cocaine in Europe, consuming about 1 billion pounds worth of the drug every year. Curbing this trade has been a priority for MI6, which works closely with Colombia's government.
The global cocaine trade suffered the biggest blow "of recent times" yesterday (Wednesday) when the world's most wanted drug baron was captured in Venezuela with the help of MI6.
After three decades as a smuggler and one successful prison break, Daniel "Crazy" Barrera was the last survivor of Latin America's "great capos", cast in the mould of Pablo Escobar.
The US government put a $5 million bounty on Barrera, the same as on the head of Osama bin Laden.
Barrera's time at the pinnacle of a cartel that specialised in running cocaine to the US and Europe, ended in a telephone box in the Venezuelan town of San Cristobal, where he was arrested.
He had been tracked for four months with the aid of US and British intelligence and his cartel was in the throes of being taken apart by a series of arrests and seizures.
"The last of the great capos has fallen," said President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, announcing the capture of Barrera, a Colombian citizen, on national television. He acknowledged the help given by the CIA and MI6 in achieving the "most important capture of recent times". For decades, raw coca grown in the rainforests of Colombia has been refined into cocaine and smuggled into Venezuela, before being sent to Europe and the US via the Caribbean or West Africa. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist rebel group, controls many of the growers and President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela once allowed the Colombian cartels refuge on his territory.
Barrera, 50, was distinguished by his ability to play all sides with guile. "The fact that he had survived for so long and was famous for being able to deal with everyone - whether it was paramilitaries, the FARC or other cartels, let alone Colombian politicians - is, in a way, a tribute to him," said Prof Victor Bulmer-Thomas, a Latin America specialist at the Chatham House think tank.
"You wouldn't have wanted to cross Barrera, but this is not a world where you can survive by brutality alone. If you try, someone else will come along who is even more brutal than you."
But the politics of the region have changed, and Barrera appears to have become the most prominent victim. Colombia's armed forces have successfully struck back against the drugs trade, securing more and more of the country's territory from FARC and the coca growers.
Since Mr Santos took over the presidency in 2010, he has rebuilt Colombia's once poisonous relations with neighbouring Venezuela and secured action by Chavez against the drug lords on his territory.
Venezuela, which once disdained any security co-operation with its neighbour, claimed the credit for Barrera's arrest, attributing this "coup" to "an intelligence operation" by its own agencies.
Barrera was picked up once before, in 1990, only to escape from prison after a few months. This time, his detention came after the arrest of 36 other members of his cartel and the seizure of five tons of his cocaine along with 21 aircraft.
Britain is the second biggest market for cocaine in Europe, consuming about 1 billion pounds worth of the drug every year. Curbing this trade has been a priority for MI6, which works closely with Colombia's government.
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