Bogota, Oct 2 (EFE).– Guerrilla and drug-trafficking kingpin Victor Ramon Navarro Serrano, alias “Megateo,” was killed in a military operation in northwestern Colombia, officials reported Friday.

The report was confirmed by the Colombian ambassador to Washington, former Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon, who posted his congratulations both to the police and the armed forces on his Twitter account.

Megateo, 39, leader of a small stronghold of the Popular Liberation Army, or EPL, in the Catatumbo wilderness on the Venezuelan border, was one of the men most wanted by Colombian authorities.

Because of his involvement in drug-trafficking, the U.S. Justice Department had offered a $5 million reward for his capture.

The governor of Norte de Santander province, Edgar Diaz, said on Caracol Radio that the operation was carried out Thursday night in a rural area of Hacari municipality in that region, where Navarro’s organization was based.

As part of the joint operation of police and the armed forces, the mountainous jungle region where Megateo was hiding out was bombarded and at least three members of his security unit were also killed, Diaz said.

The bodies were taken to Legal Medicine for identification, since they suffered disfiguring injuries in the bombing.

Nonetheless, Diaz said, the community has confirmed the drug lord’s death.

After the demobilization in 1991 of most of the EPL, a guerrilla group identified with Maoism, Navarro went on to lead the Libardo Mora Toro Front, an outpost of that armed group, and got it involved in drug trafficking in the Catatumbo region.

In an interview he gave more than a year ago to Semana magazine, Navarro denied any role in drug trafficking, while admitting that he collected “a tax on drugs” since it was his “way to finance the war.”

“But we’re not the ones who gather or process (the coca). As an organization we charge a war tax,” he said at the time.

In that interview he also said he intended to begin a peace process with the government similar to the one the FARC has carried out for more than three years. EFE