Colombian heroin smuggling ring broken up

The authorities in Colombia say they have broken up a ring that smuggled a ton of heroin to the United States in the last year.

The police arrested twenty-eight people in several Colombian cities, while United States agents arrested two more in New York.

The authorities had been investigating the drugs ring since June last year, when the police arrested one of their couriers at Bogota's international airport. The arrests came on the eve of the Colombian president's meeting with George W Bush to discuss, among other issues, a US backed anti-drugs offensive.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service