The World - News from Jan. 7, 1988

Colombia ordered the arrest of five alleged drug barons who form the so-called Medellin Cartel that the United States claims is responsible for 80% of the cocaine sold here. Justice Minister Enrique Low Murtra said the government will attempt to extradite them to the United States for prosecution. U.S. officials were furious last week when a Bogota prison warden freed one of the alleged cartel leaders, Jorge Luis Ochoa, a Colombian billionaire charged in the United States with drug trafficking, following a Colombian Supreme Court ruling that a 1979 extradition treaty with the United States was invalid. The other reputed cartel members are Ochoa’s brothers, Juan David and Fabio, and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha and Pablo Escobar Gaviria.