Chavez captures Montesinos Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Sunday June 24 3:08 PM ET (via Yahoo) Peru Spymaster Captured in Venezuela By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - After a tense stakeout, Venezuelan secret police captured South America's most wanted man, Peru's ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, accused of amassing a fortune by dealing drugs and weapons. The capture, announced Sunday by Venezuela's president, ends an eight-month chase for the man many Peruvians say effectively ran their country for years with a network of corruption. His scandals led to the downfall in November of Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. Montesinos was seized inside a Caracas safehouse late Saturday, a beaming President Hugo Chavez announced during a summit of Andean leaders in the central Venezuelan city of Valencia. "Fortunately, we have captured Vladimiro Montesinos alive," Chavez said, adding that the spymaster would be deported to Peru "faster than a rooster crows." Montesinos, 55, was being held at the Military Intelligence Directorate headquarters in Caracas. As reporters crowded outside, soldiers with automatic rifles guarded the building, its windows blackened. At home, Montesinos faces charges ranging from money laundering to corruption to directing death squads. Peru had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Montesinos, alleged to have stashed away tens of millions of dollars in Swiss banks. "We knew as of yesterday at 11 in the morning that there was an operation to capture Montesinos and we are anxiously awaiting news," Peruvian President Valentin Paniagua said from the southern city of Arequipa, where he was surveying damage from an earthquake. Peruvian Foreign Minister Javier Perez de Cuellar thanked Chavez for the arrest of what he called "a delinquent drug trafficker" who will be tried "like any delinquent in our country." Interior Minister Antonio Ketin Vidal also praised intelligence agencies from other nations, including the FBI. He said details of the chase would be made public later. As head of Peru's powerful spy agency, Montesinos had been the power broker behind the government during Fujimori's 10-year rule. Peruvian investigators say Montesinos and his cronies in the military amassed a fortune from arms dealing and drug trafficking. Investigators have detailed what they say is a huge criminal network run by Montesinos by which he controlled politicians, courts, military officials and businessmen through bribery and blackmail. Among his achievements, investigators say, was paying off congressmen and judges to ensure Fujimori's 2000 re-election to a third term. But Montesinos' fall began in September when videos were broadcast on television appearing to show him bribing an opposition congressman to support the government. As the crisis grew, Montesinos fled to Panama. But when he was refused asylum there, he returned to Peru and went into hiding. Fujimori personally led a futile hunt for his former right-hand man, and Montesinos slipped out of the country. Fujimori lasted only a little longer: In November he fled to Japan and Peruvian lawmakers declared him "morally unfit" for office. During his time in hiding, Montesinos reportedly underwent plastic surgery in Caracas in December to alter his hawklike features. >From Peru, he fled to Costa Rica, then flew to Aruba, about 20 miles off northwestern Venezuela, according to statements by three Peruvian army officers and Costa Rican officials. He allegedly used a false Venezuelan passport bearing the name Manuel Antonio Rodriguez Perez. A man using the name Manuel Rodriguez was treated for an irregular heartbeat and had plastic surgery at a Caracas clinic in December, according to Carlos Mora, a cardiologist at the clinic. He said the patient came from Aruba. With rumors putting Montesinos in Colombia, in Ecuador and even in Cuba, Venezuelan Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel once described the manhunt as passing from the realm of "magical realism" to a popular "serial novel." Chavez said Sunday that military intelligence, tipped off to Montesinos' whereabouts by neighbors and some people charged with moving him, had been watching a suspected Caracas safehouse for several days. Montesinos - who moved frequently to avoid detection - was supposed to slip to another hiding place, Chavez said. "The people who knew his whereabouts were very desperate because the time had passed to take him to another location. This desperation led (Montesinos) to make some mistakes that were detected by our intelligence agencies," Chavez said. He provided no more details. Chavez recalled how he and his Interior Minister Luis Miquilena had come up with a codename for the Montesinos case: Coffee. "I called Luis last night and told him: 'Now we can drink coffee,'" Chavez said. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcov-06.24.01-15:40:50-24727