'World's most dangerous' drug lord responsible for 400 murders caught on Costa Blanca
'World's most dangerous' drug lord responsible for 400 murders caught on Costa Blanca
A DRUG baron behind over 400 murders has been arrested in Elche (Alicante province) after fleeing his native Colombia.
Hernán Alonso Villa, 40, known as 'El Ratón' ('the mouse') was caught on the AP-7 motorway near Alicante-Elche airport with 40,000 euros in cash on his person.
He was the military leader of the bloodthirsty, 200-strong Medellín Cartel and is described as one of the world's most dangerous drug traffickers.
Villa headed up the 'Envigado Payment and Hitmen Office', which has executed over 400 non-paying addicts and secondary dealers since the Cartel was founded in 1980, and is responsible for smuggling cocaine from Colombia to Spain, Holland and the USA.
Originally led by the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar, the racket has expanded considerably in the past 30 or so years and now has close links with the well-known and exceptionally violent Sinaloa Cartel, based in the city of the same name in northern México.
Police in the Alicante province had been on Villa's trail for a month before they caught him this weekend, and followed him to one of the many properties he owns in the Elche area, bought with the proceeds of drug-trafficking.
He drove to the estate and was letting himself in his house when he was surrounded by armed police and several patrol cars, but did not put up any resistance.
Considered one of the most dangerous and violent criminals ever to have been caught in Spain, Villa is due to be extradited to Colombia this week in keeping with the international arrest warrant issued by the court in Medellín.
He is charged with multiple counts of murder, armed robbery, kidnap, extortion, money-laundering, drug-trafficking, and manufacture and possession of firearms.
