Leonidas Vargas Convicted Colombian drug baron with links to two major smuggling cartels was shot dead in a Madrid hospital

Convicted Colombian drug baron with links to two major smuggling cartels was shot dead in a Madrid hospital where he was being treated for a lung disease, officials said.Leonidas Vargas was arrested in Madrid in July 2006 and convicted of possessing more than 1,000 pounds of cocaine, a police spokesman said.The Colombian Embassy said he had worked with drug lords linked to the Medellin and Cali cartels.Vargas had been sentenced to 19 years in prison and was transferred to the Doce de Octubre hospital for treatment on Jan. 2.Police and hospital chiefs said at least one person entered the 60-year-old’s room at Doce de Octubre Hospital and fired four shots.
Vargas was arrested in Madrid in July 2006 and convicted of possessing 500kg of cocaine.When he was arrested near a Madrid hotel he also had a fake Venezuelan passport and the Colombian Embassy said he had worked with such drug lords as the late Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha and Pablo Escobar, the Medellin cartel leader who was killed in shootout with Colombian police in 1993.After Escobar’s death, his cartel’s role as a major drug smuggling ring was taken by the Cali cartel which the Rodriguez family controlled.Witnesses say two people entered Vargas' room on the fifth floor of the hospital. One man took out a pistol with a silencer and fired four shots at Vargas, who was asleep. His killing is believed to be part of a settling of accounts between rival drug-trafficking organisations, Vargas assumed a low profile after being released in Colombia, but in the 1980s he was allied with the powerful Medellin drug cartel of Pablo Escobar. An idea of the scale of his wealth at the time was revealed after the Colombian state seized $29m worth of properties from him.