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| Colombia captures top drug lord | Colombia captures top drug lord |
| (30 minutes later) | |
| Colombian authorities have arrested the country's most wanted drug lord, the government has said. | Colombian authorities have arrested the country's most wanted drug lord, the government has said. |
| Daniel Rendon Herrera, known as "Don Mario", was captured on Wednesday near Necocli in north-western Colombia, officials told Efe news agency. | Daniel Rendon Herrera, known as "Don Mario", was captured on Wednesday near Necocli in north-western Colombia, officials told Efe news agency. |
| The government had offered a bounty of up to $2m (£1.3m) for information leading to his arrest, police said. | |
| Colombia is a major global supplier of cocaine. Drug trafficking has fuelled the country's decades-long conflict. | Colombia is a major global supplier of cocaine. Drug trafficking has fuelled the country's decades-long conflict. |
| Earlier this year Daniel Rendon Herrera offered his gunmen almost $1,000 for each police officer they murdered, as security forces closed in on his network. | |
| Once a paramilitary in a now-demobilised group, he had refused to surrender as part of a peace deal. | |
| Instead he used paramilitary networks to build up a personal army of up to 1,000 people, also striking a deal with left-wing Farc rebels, the BBC's Jeremy McDermott reports from the capital, Bogota. | |
| Authorities had been tracking him for months, but he had always managed to stay one step ahead of them until now, he says. | |
| More than 500 anti-narcotics police commandos were involved in the operation to arrest him, Efe reported. | |
| He is accused of exporting cocaine from an area the Caribbean coast controlled by his brother - a paramilitary leader who is now in prison - in the 1990s. | |
| When authorities have cut off the head of drugs cartels in the past, several more heads have grown, and there could now be a period of bloodletting as others try to take over, our correspondent adds. | |
| Much of the cocaine produced in Colombia is smuggled into the US through Mexico, where there has been a sharp rise in drug-related violence. |