Neighbor's Ambassador Asks U.S. For More Anti-Drug Funds.

WASHINGTON -- Peru has seen a huge increase in crops of heroin-producing opium poppies as a result of U.S.-backed efforts to fight drugs in neighboring Colombia, Peru's ambassador said in a letter to U.S. lawmakers.

In the letter, Ambassador Carlos Alzamora said that "the situation is a clear indication of the first effects of the spillover of Plan Colombia: Intelligence information shows that Colombian criminal cartels are relocating their opium poppy operations in Peru."

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CIA Gave Millions To Peru's Anti-Drug Chief

The Central Intelligence Agency gave ex-Peruvian spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos at least $10 million in cash over the last decade and high-tech surveillance equipment that he used for personal gain.

Montesinos, who now faces trial on murder, arms and drug trafficking charges, as well as murder, among others, had founded and personally controlled a counter-drug unit within Peru's National Intelligence Service, known by its Spanish acronym SIN.

It was to that Narcotics Intelligence Division, known as DIN, that the CIA directed at least $10 million in cash payments from 1990 until September 2000, according to U.S. officials. Most of the money was to have financed intelligence activities in the drug war, though officials acknowledged a small part was for antiterrorist activities.

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LIMA, Peru, July 11 -- Vladimiro L. Montesinos, the former spy chief who dominated Peru from the shadows for a decade and lived a life gilded with beachside mansions and diamond-crusted watches, is now spending his nights on a skimpy foam mattress over a cold slab of concrete.

Food is delivered to him through a trapdoor in his tiny cell in the prison block inside the naval base in the port of Callao near Lima. There is a single spigot of cold water for washing up. He spends his time reading law books and a dogeared copy of the Peruvian Constitution under a single naked light bulb and a thin stream of light from a tiny skylight, according to senior law enforcement officials.

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Montesinos Returns Home To Face A List Of Criminal Charges

LIMA, Peru -- Vladimiro Montesinos, Latin America's most-wanted fugitive and the shadowy Peruvian spy chief, came home in handcuffs Monday to face a slew of charges ranging from drug and arms trafficking to leading death squads.

Montesinos, 56, who was captured in Venezuela on Saturday night reportedly with crucial help from the FBI, returned in a Peruvian police plane Monday morning. Hundreds of heavily armed security personnel shielded Montesinos from a crush of media photographers and prevented Peruvians from getting a view of the man many believed the real and unelected ruler of Peru from 1990 to 2000.

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BUENOS AIRES -- Vladimiro Montesinos, the former Peruvian spy chief who evaded an international manhunt for eight months before his arrest last weekend, was flown to Lima today in handcuffs and a bulletproof vest and began what promises to be months of questioning and legal processing.

Once a top aide to former President Alberto K. Fujimori who had cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Montesinos was evicted early this morning from Venezuela, where he had been hiding.

Peruvian prosecutors say he faces a possible life sentence on charges he was involved in arms trafficking, money laundering, death squad activities, torture, the purchasing of faulty armaments for kickbacks, and the bribing of officials to fix the election last year for Mr. Fujimori, who is now in exile in Japan.

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BUENOS AIRES, June 25 - Vladimiro Montesinos, the former Peruvian spy chief and longtime C.I.A. agent wanted on charges of gun running, money laundering and collaborating with drug traffickers, was returned to the Peruvian capital today after being captured in Venezuela on Saturday night with crucial help from the F.B.I.

A Peruvian National Police plane that left Caracas early this morning touched down in Lima after a brief refueling stop in a jungle border city, and Mr. Montesinos was whisked to a waiting helicopter.

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CARACAS, Venezuela - 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.

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RIO DE JANEIRO -- Peruvian spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, who allegedly amassed a fortune from drug trafficking, arms deals and money laundering while working as the right-hand-man of Peru's leader Alberto Fujimori, was captured in Caracas, officials said Sunday.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had been accused by some Peruvian officials of harboring the fugitive, reported the capture at a summit of Andean leaders in Valencia, Venezuela. He said the former spy chief was caught inside a Caracas safehouse late Saturday.

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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.

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.

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Latin America: Arrest in Venezuela ends eight months on the run for Vladimiro Montesinos. Officials say the FBI played a key role in the capture of Lima's longtime power broker.

CARACAS, Venezuela--Former Peruvian intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, the mysterious spymaster who was the power behind Peru's throne for a decade, was arrested here after a desperate eight months on the run, Venezuelan officials announced Sunday.

Venezuelan military intelligence agents captured Montesinos at 10:30 p.m. Saturday at a safe house in a Caracas slum, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said. The arrest took place as the fugitive prepared to move to another hide-out with the help of accomplices, authorities said.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States has widened its investigation with Peru into the downing of a U.S. missionary plane to include aerial narcotics interception programs in Peru and Colombia, a U.S. State Department official said Monday.

U.S. missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter were killed in April when a Peruvian air force plane shot down the single-engine Cessna in which they were flying. The aircraft was suspected of carrying drug traffickers; it wasn't.

A nearby CIA-contracted surveillance plane had been providing intelligence on the missionary plane to the Peruvians as part of a joint drug interception program. Drug interception flights in Peru and Colombia have been suspended pending the results of the investigation.

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Ex-Spy Chief Ran A `Narco State,' It Says

LIMA, Peru -- Fugitive former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos and more than 200 of his cronies turned Peru into a ``sort of narco state,'' a congressional commission has concluded.

In its final report, excerpts of which were released late Friday, the panel said ``networks of support for this illicit activity were set up, using the concentration of information that Montesinos had'' about local and international drug figures.

The report accused 222 people -- including military chiefs, business leaders and politicians -- with being implicated in Montesinos' network. The panel said Montesinos, who for more than a decade was the right-hand man of disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori, should face charges of treason.

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LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -- Fugitive former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos and his cronies turned Peru into a "narco state," a congressional commission investigating his alleged web of corruption said after completing seven months of work.

In its final report, excerpts of which were released late on Friday, the panel said the previous regime had "turned Peru into a sort of narco state, in which networks of support for this illicit activity were set up, using the concentration of information that Montesinos had in the SIN (intelligence services)" on local and international drugs figures.

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LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - President-elect Alejandro Toledo sees the fight against drugs as one of the lynchpins of Peru's relationship with the United States, and does not rule out appointing a drugs Czar to the cabinet.

``This is a central issue in relations with the United States. We have talked and we have set aside some more days to talk some more. I am going to Washington and we'll bring the subject up again,'' Toledo told reporters late on Wednesday.

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LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - President-elect Alejandro Toledo sees the fight against drugs as one of the lynchpins of Peru's relationship with the United States, and does not rule out appointing a drugs Czar to the cabinet.

``This is a central issue in relations with the United States. We have talked and we have set aside some more days to talk some more. I am going to Washington and we'll bring the subject up again,'' Toledo told reporters late on Wednesday.

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PUNO, Peru, May 28 -- As the former president Alan Garcia campaigned across the Andean highlands, there were flashes of his old populist allure.

Aymara and Quechua Indian women herders abandoned their llamas to run and touch him. People poured confetti into his hair and draped him with flowers as his caravan stopped in little towns. Defying the thin mountain air with a few gulps of coca tea, Mr. Garcia rode a bicycle through the streets of one town and danced a torrid huayno with a young Quechua woman in another.

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LIMA, Peru, May 25 - The two presidential candidates competing to succeed the ousted President Alberto K. Fujimori have begun a gentle assault on the traditional third force in Peruvian politics - the bloated and politically powerful armed forces - as the military has sunk in prestige after an array of scandals.

The military tied its fortunes to the 10-year Fujimori rule, and when that collapsed and the former president fled to Japan late last year, so the officers' fortunes sank too. During the last several months, 18 generals and admirals have been arrested on charges ranging from leading a paramilitary death squad to accepting bribes from drug traffickers and taking kickbacks from purchases of a squadron of overpriced and obsolete MIG-29 fighter jets.

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LIMA, Peru -- In the only scheduled debate before Peru's presidential runoff next month, front-runner Alejandro Toledo focused on former President Alan Garcia's disastrous term in office and Garcia accused Toledo of using cocaine.

The televised exchange Saturday night offered Peruvians a chance to see how Toledo, widely viewed as erratic and prone to contradict himself, measured up against Garcia, who is considered one of Latin America's great orators but whose 1985-90 term ended with the country in economic ruin.

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LIMA, Peru, May 20 - Facing an uphill battle to regain the presidency, former President Alan Garcia has tied his opponent, Alejandro Toledo, to the use of cocaine.

In a televised debate on Saturday night, Mr. Garcia said: "Nobody has ever charged me with consuming cocaine. A consumer of cocaine cannot be the leader of a country."

He a was referring to published reports that Mr. Toledo, a former business professor and World Bank official, had tested positive for cocaine during a hospital visit in 1998 on the same day he was reportedly consorting with three women.

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Perils Of Partnership: The Generals Reminisce

LIMA: Inside a dilapidated central prison, a gaggle of former President Alberto Fujimori's top generals sulked around a green concrete jail yard on a hot afternoon. The recently arrested generals whittled away their recreation time halfheartedly, playing soccer and reminiscing about the days when Mr. Fujimori's finest could count on at least one steadfast friend: Uncle Sam.

General Juan Miguel del Aguila, head of Peru's National Anti-terrorism Bureau until last year and, later, the security chief of the National Police, recalled frequent meetings with American intelligence agents right up to the moment when Mr. Fujimori abandoned the presidency and fled to Japan in November.

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