Colombian official msays Cubans deporting top Colombian drug suspect

(AP) Cuba will deport reputed drug kingpin Luis Hernando Gomez Bustamante to Colombia, which plans to extradite him to the United States, a government official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The Colombian official said Gomez was expected to arrive in Bogota on Thursday and would be held at its heavily fortified chief prosecutor's office compound before being extradited to the United States.

An extradition order has been signed, the official said. He spoke on condition he not be further identified because he was not authorized to di

vulge the information.

Gomez Bustamante, an alleged top boss of Colombia's Norte del Valle cartel known by his alias "Rasguno," is wanted on a U.S. indictment in New York on drug trafficking, racketeering and money-laundering charges.

He has been held in Cuba since his 2004 arrest at a Havana airport on charges of carrying a false passport. He had fled Colombia after Washington offered rewards of $5 million each for the South American country's top drug traffickers.

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota had no immediate comment on the case. Cuban press officials and officials at the Colombian Embassy in Havana also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Shortly after Gomez's arrest, Cuban officials said he had been "in transit" and didn't intend to develop a local drug market in Cuba.

The Norte del Valle cartel, the most powerful traditional drug organization in Colombia, is believed to account for as much as 60 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. However, many of its top bosses have been captured in recent years and a campaign by the U.S. Treasury Department has frozen many of their assets, including front companies.

In 2004, Colombian authorities seized $100 million worth of Gomez's assets including 68 farms, 24 offices and 17 parking lots. According to prosecutors, he went from pumping gas in 1991 to declaring property worth more than $500,000 a year later.

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AP writer Toby Muse in Bogota contributed to this report.