Colombian drug lord captured

Colombia's most-wanted drug trafficker has been captured during a massive raid.

Known as Otoniel, 50-year-old Dairo Antonio Usuga, who headed the cocaine-trafficking gang known as the Gulf Clan, was captured near the border with Panama.

President Ivan Duque said the arrest was "only comparable to the fall of Pablo Escobar," the Colombian trafficking kingpin.

Some 500 soldiers backed by police and 22 helicopters were deployed in the Necocli municipality for the operation, which left one police officer dead.

It was "the biggest penetration of the jungle ever seen in our country," Duque added.

Colombia police chief Jorge Vargas said authorities carried out the operation with backing from American and British agencies.

Otoniel, who was hiding in his native Uraba region, never used a phone or went near inhabited areas.

The United States had offered a US$5 million (HK$38.9 million) reward for information leading to his arrest.

He was indicted in the United States in 2009 and faces extradition.

The Colombian government says the group - financed through drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion - is a driver of the worst bout of violence since the signing of a peace pact with guerillas in 2016.

Otoniel became leader of the Gulf Clan after brother Juan de Dios was killed by police in 2012.