Colombian police find $ 18 million in drug cash

BOGOTA, Feb 4 (Reuters) Colombian police found more than 18 million dollar under the floor of a Cali apartment, bringing to nearly 80 million dollar a record sum of cash and gold seized this month from a top drug lord, authorities said.

The 100 dollar bills were found on Friday in hermetically sealed plastic packets to avoid mold. The discovery was part of an operation aimed at the Andean country's biggest and most violent cocaine cartel based near Cali in western Colombia.

''There is no doubt the money belonged to Juan Carlos Ramirez, alias Lollipop. We continue to hit his finances,'' police Gen Oscar Naranjo told local television yesterday. Ramirez is one of Colombia's 12 most-wanted drug traffickers.

This month's confiscation of wealth hidden in Cali apartments marked the biggest haul of drug money in the history of Colombia, the world's top cocaine exporter.

In one operation earlier this month, police used hydraulic drills to dig out 19 million dollars packed into a concrete-covered pit in a house belonging to Ramirez's Norte del Valle gang.

''The size of these discoveries shows that narcotrafficking in Colombia is stronger and more lucrative than ever,'' said Ramiro Bejarano, a political commentator and former head of Colombia's DAS state security agency.

The United States, which has given Colombia billions of dollars in anti-drug aid, is offering a 5 million dollars reward for information leading to the capture of Ramirez.

He served more than four years in prison in the 1990s after confessing to shipping 30 tonnes of cocaine to the United States and smuggling drugs to Mexico with the Tijuana drug cartel.

Experts estimate Colombia, in the grip of a four-decade-old guerrilla war that kills and displaces thousands every year, makes about 600 tonnes of cocaine annually.

The Norte del Valle cartel alone is accused of exporting about 500 tonnes of the white powder since 1999, worth about 10 billion dollars.

Last year, 140 Colombian soldiers were sentenced to prison for pocketing 16 million dollars in cash they found in a secret jungle camp of left-wing rebels linked to the drug trade.

REUTERS AKJ KP0916