Gustavo Gaviria

A judge froze three bank accounts containing more than $1 million deposited by a Colombian drug trafficker, a Madrid newspaper reported. El Pais reported the accounts, at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya and Banco de Santander, had been opened under a false name by the late Gustavo Gaviria, former No. 2 man in Colombia's Medellin cartel. The Justice Ministry said it could not comment on the report. Spanish banks recently took steps to crack down on the laundering of drug money.

A judge froze three bank accounts containing more than $1 million deposited by a Colombian drug trafficker, a Madrid newspaper reported. El Pais reported the accounts, at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya and Banco de Santander, had been opened under a false name by the late Gustavo Gaviria, former No. 2 man in Colombia's Medellin cartel. The Justice Ministry said it could not comment on the report. Spanish banks recently took steps to crack down on the laundering of drug money.

Police fatally shot the chief of the Medellin cocaine cartel's terrorist squads Wednesday, crushing one of the last, most formidable shields protecting Pablo Escobar, the drug ring's fugitive leader. Brance Munoz Mosquera--who was 33 and was nicknamed Tyson because of his resemblance to American boxer Mike Tyson--was Escobar's closest associate still at large.

Colombian cocaine boss Pablo Escobar is believed to have put his brother in charge of cartel operations after police killed Escobar's second-in-command. Colombia's El Tiempo newspaper, quoting intelligence sources, said Escobar's brother, Roberto, is believed to have "received direct orders from his brother to take control of drug shipments and the management of the cartel's terrorist wing."

Some of the Medellin cartel's most notorious and ruthless cocaine bandits have fallen in battle. Its top trafficker, Pablo Escobar, is a man on the run, reportedly no longer managing his billion-dollar business. American and Colombian officials say this country's cocaine production is down by about one-fourth from mid-1989. Drug hauls by Colombian security forces so far this year exceed the record total for 1989. And a new president is vowing to battle violent drug lords "without concession."

A Colombian drug pilot testified Thursday that he attended a clandestine meeting between former Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega and leaders of the Medellin cocaine cartel in Colombia in mid-1983. The convicted pilot, Roberto Striedinger, is the first witness to place Noriega in the same room with cartel officials, and his testimony significantly strengthens the government's drug-trafficking and racketeering case against the ousted dictator.

The Justice Department moved Tuesday to obtain records from 173 banks on hundreds of accounts in which Colombian drug kingpins allegedly deposited nearly $400 million from selling cocaine in the United States. Department attorneys, seeking clues to complex money-laundering operations of the Medellin cartel, obtained federal court orders requiring the banks and other financial institutions to turn over information from 754 suspect accounts.

IN JANUARY, 1988, an employee of Loomis Armored Transport Co. was checking a nightly shipment from a United Parcel Service aircraft when he noticed a tear in one box. The shipping manifest said the box contained "gold scrap" being sent from a New York jewelry store to a firm called Ropex, a Los Angeles gold dealer.