Drug lord is nabbed after long manhunt

Security forces have captured the country’s most wanted drug trafficker, a rural warlord who had evaded a decade-long manhunt.

President Ivan Duque likened Saturday’s arrest of Dairo Antonio Usuga to the capture three decades ago of Pablo Escobar. Images circulating on social media show Usuga handcuffed and with his face planted to the ground.

Usuga, better known by his alias Otoniel, is the reputed head of the feared Gulf Clan, whose army of assassins has terrorized much of northern Colombia to gain control of major cocaine smuggling routes through thick jungles north to Central America and on to the U.S.

He long has been a fixture on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s most-wanted fugitives list, with a $5 million reward for his capture.

Usuga faces criminal charges in federal courts in Tampa, Fla., Miami, Manhattan and Brooklyn.