BOGOTA, Colombia -- Veronica Rivera de Vargas, the 'Queen of Cocaine,' eluded police in Peru, Mexico and the United States, leaving a trail of murders and kidnappings.
Until she was arrested Feb. 11, she easily could have been mistaken for a middle-aged, upper middle-class housewife. She dressed in the latest fashions, adorning herself with diamonds and a gold chain given her by her late husband -- the victim of a gang war.
'She outsmarted us too many times in the past,' said a Colombian detective whose unit tracked and arrested Ms. Rivera.
Colombian authorities said the cocaine queen organized a campaign of murder, kidnapping and extortion against her drug-running rivals. Her husband was gunned down by competitors.
'Her activities have had no end,' said the detective, who refused to be identified. 'She has been uncooperative with the interrogations. You could say she is a very arrogant woman.'
Police say her three daughters -- two teenagers and an 11-year-old - live with their maternal grandmother and attended school in Bogota, largely oblivious to the exploits of their mother, who always packed a .38-caliber revolver.
Twice in 1977 Ms. Rivera, who did not use drugs herself, eluded jail sentences. She and an accomplice were arrested in northern Peru that year for smuggling 290 pounds of cocaine, but she quickly escaped and returned to Colombia.
A few months later she was detained in her native country, but her lawyers secured her release and she fled to Mexico, where in 1978 she was arrested in the state of Chiapas for carrying 310 pounds of cocaine. Again she escaped and returned to Colombia.
How did she manage the escapes?
A Colombian investigator said he suspected bribery, adding, 'The real reason she is so good and can escape so easily is that she is very calm under pressure and always in control of the situation.'
In 1980, she was arrested in Bogota under the name of Marleny Drejuela Sanchez, but her lawyers' expert manuevers freed her before authorities realized her true identity.
Disguised by plastic surgery, she secured a Florida driver's license and two credit cards under the name of Beatriz Gutierrez. U.S. drug agents say she smuggled 825 pounds of cocaine into Miami in 1981.
Her whereabouts were unknown until Feb. 11, when Colombian authorities captured her and 10 accomplices as they boarded a twin-engine aircraft in Acacias, 60 miles southeast of Bogota. Police seized 200 pounds of cocaine valued at $150 million.
Following her jail escapes in Peru and Colombia, the cocaine queen began a vendetta against the rival gang of Mario Gil. Her gang kidnapped Gil's wife, Bersey, holding the woman until an estimated $500,000 ransom was paid.
Gil retaliated by kidnapping Ms. Rivera's three daughters, set free on payment of an equally large ransom.
In 1979, Mario Gil was murdered outside a Bogota restaurant while waiting for his wife. Last year, Ms. Rivera's husband was gunned down by several members of the Gil gang at a hideout on the northern outskirts of Bogota, police say.
Colombian authorities are keeping Ms. Rivera under heavy security and will not divulge where in Bogota she is held.
