A man said to have killed at least 40 people as a Colombian drug cartel's "most trusted assassin" was seized on a New York street days after coming to this country on what authorities say was a murder mission.
Paul Daniel Munoz Mosquera was seized late Wednesday as he used a pay telephone in the city's Queens borough, said Robert Bryden, head of the New York office of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.Bryden said Munoz was the mastermind behind the Aug. 18, 1989, assassination of Colombian Sen. Luis Carlos Galan, who was then the leading candidate in his country's presidential campaign.
"We believe we have captured the single most trusted assassin of the Medellin cartel," Bryden said Thursday.
"The Colombian national police credit him with the murder of at least 40 Colombia national police officers, judges, public officials and innocent bystanders," he said.
Bryden said Munoz had been in this country a little more than a week before his arrest and had arrived in New York Saturday from Los Angeles.
He said authorities learned from confidential sources in Colombia that Munoz had come to the United States to carry out an assassination, but he said they didn't know who the target was.
He noted that Munoz came to New York just before the opening of the U.N. General Assembly and the arrival of President Bush earlier this week. "This man is of such stature in the cartel's activities . . . that he would not have been sent to this country for anything less than what the Medellin cartel would consider a very important assignment," Bryden said.
The DEA said Munoz gave his age as 24 and his first name as Dandeny when he was taken into custody, but Colombian records, including fingerprints, confirmed his true identity and his age as 39.
Munoz wasn't armed and didn't resist when drug agents arrested him, Bryden said. He was being held without bail on charges of making false statements to a federal agent. He will likely be extradited to Colombia, the DEA said.
U.S. Magistrate John Caden ordered Munoz held pending a hearing next week in federal court.
Bryden said Colombia's national police were "ecstatic over the arrest," and Colombian Justice Minister Fernando Carrillo, reached in Bogota, said his government was pleased.
However, The New York Times, in Friday's editions, quoted an aide to Colombian President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo as saying Colombian officals did not want Munoz returned because he was a dangerous man who twice had escaped from Colombian prisons.