The paramilitary commander known only as 08 is lounging on the porch of a ranch house in the hamlet of Santa Fé de Ralito, in Colombia's northern Córdoba province. It's an area dotted with elaborate new mansions, and many of them, local ranchers say, belong to leaders of the bloodthirsty paramilitary groups known as the Colombian Self-Defense Forces (AUC). U.S. officials claim the mansions were built with the millions of dollars AUC members allegedly earn moonlighting as cocaine smugglers. But crew-cut 08, guzzling black coffee and smoking cigarettes, denies it all. "We've never been drug traffickers," he insists. And like other...
