Top Colombian drug lord with $5 million US bounty killed in combat

BOGOTA, Colombia – One of Colombia's most-hunted drug traffickers has been killed in combat.

President Juan Manuel Santos on Friday congratulated his armed forces for killing cocaine warlord Victor Navarro, for whom the U.S. had been offering a $5 million bounty.

The 39-year-old man better known by his alias of Megateo died during a military raid in the historically lawless Catatumbo region near Venezuela.

Megateo had claimed to lead a holdout faction of a leftist rebel band that disbanded in 1991, but he was believed to have been one of the country's biggest cocaine traffickers. His fondness for garish, weapons-themed jewelry and the branding of underage lovers with a tattoo of his face had drawn comparisons to an earlier generation of drug traffickers in Colombia.