Colombian police capture 21 drug traffickers

Bogota, Feb 8 (EFE).- Colombian police captured 21 alleged drug traffickers and the United States has requested the extradition of most of them.

"Operation Frontiers" was conducted mainly in the northwestern city of Medellin, the head of the National Police, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, said at a press conference.

"This structure of 21 drug traffickers captured with the aim of extradition are criminals linked very closely ... to the drug trafficking kingpins in Colombia today," he said.

"We're dealing a blow that we deem to be well-aimed and it impacts the operation in a real way insofar as a significant number of these criminals are basically (the owners) of firms that move large quantities of drugs," Naranjo said.

He also said that the arrests were made possible after two years of coordinated and continuous work between the Colombian Attorney General's Office and U.S. federal prosecutors.

Naranjo also said that this operation is the first phase of a multi-stage plan and could lead to more arrests and the seizure of property in the hands of the drug traffickers.

"Among those items are aircraft, real estate in rural areas, also apartments in urban zones and a series of front companies to launder assets," the general said.

"We're (carrying out) an operation of the highest level," he said, making clear that the police operation is the broadest one of its kind conducted in Colombia since "Operation Millennium" in 1999, in which 43 traffickers who sent large drug shipments to different countries were captured.