Peru's Ex-Spy Vladirmiro Montesinos Captured

June 24 -- Venezuelans love soap operas but few are as colorful and convoluted as the murky passage through their nation of Peru's ex-spy chief VladimiroMontesinos, whose capture in Caracas was announced today.

Over the last few months, this oil-rich but poverty-plaguedcountry has been tormented and tantalized by contradictoryreports about the whereabouts of the shadowy ex-aide todisgraced former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori.

Since he fled Peru in October, Montesinos was thought tohave passed through a series of exotic bolt holes, includingthe Galapagos islands, Costa Rica and Aruba. He was alsoreported to be in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

Plastic Surgery and 'Magic Realism'

At the start of the year, the government of VenezuelanPresident Hugo Chavez bluntly ruled out his presence in thecountry, with then Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangeldismissing the possibility as "magic realism."

But then a doctor came forward in early April to say he hadperformed plastic surgery in Caracas last December onMontesinos, who is accused in Peru of crimes ranging fromcorruption to drug trafficking and running death squads.

This triggered a frenzied hunt by Venezuelan and Peruvianinvestigators trailed by hordes of local journalists.

Local newspapers published a photo allegedly showing theex-spy chief after the surgery, his face gaunt and bearded.

Faced with the outcry, senior government officials changedtheir story and admitted there was "evidence" he might havebeen, or might still be, in Venezuela.

Sightings Across Venezuela

Besieged by the press, Rangel, by then defense minister,stopped talking about "magic realism" and irritably describedthe Montesinos saga as "a soap opera in chapters."

Sightings of the fugitive were reported across the country,from sprawling urban Caracas to Venezuela's wild interior.

Tourists at one resort deep in the Venezuelan bush weresurprised one day in April by the sudden arrival by helicopterof a gun-toting posse of masked police commandos.