Police who had stalked him for months killed Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, one of the most powerful cocaine barons, in a shootout Friday near Covenas, a port on the Caribbean.
Gen. Carlos Arturo Casadiego, assistant director of the national police, said Rodriguez Gacha, 42; his 17-year-old son, Fredy; and 15 other people were killed in the gunbattle 360 miles north of Bogota.Rodriguez Gacha was the No. 2 man in the Medellin cartel and on the list of a dozen Colombian drug traffickers most wanted by the U.S. Justice Department.
His superior, former pickpocket Pablo Escobar, leads the Medellin operation and remains at large.
Escobar and Rodriguez Gacha, nicknamed "El Mexicano" because of his fondness for anything Mexican, have been the objects of manhunts by U.S. and Colombian authorities since President Virgilio Barco ordered a crackdown on drug traffickers after an opposition presidential candidate was slain Aug. 18.
Eleven bodyguards were among those reported killed, police said. There was no immediate word on police casualties.
"The operation to locate Rodriguez Gacha was an intelligence operation of great care," Casadiego said in an interview with the Caracol radio network.
Authorities say Rodriguez Gacha and Escobar planned the Dec. 8 bombing of the federal investigative police headquarters in downtown Bogota. The blast, which left a huge crater, killed 63 people and injured an estimated 1,000 people.
The bombing was the most brazen by the traffickers, who have mounted dozens of attacks to retaliate for the extradition of 10 drug suspects to the United States.
A total of 209 people have been killed in bombings and assassinations. Among those killed in the bombings have been 50 judges, two newspaper publishers and the chief of the narcotics police.
The two men also were accused in the Nov. 27 bombing of a Colombian domestic jetliner just outside Bogota that killed all 107 people aboard.