M. Nazaruddin. (ANTARA)
"After three months of search in Southeast Asia, Oceania and the United States, the Colombian National Police found on behalf of Interpol one of the most wanted criminals of the Republic of Indonesia," Muhammad Nazaruddin, police said in a statement.
Police "exhausted identification protocols using the Interpol red notice, fingerprints and photographs of Nazaruddin, who is currently awaiting an extradition request to be issued by the government in Jakarta," it added.
Nazaruddin was arrested Monday at the airport in Cartagena, some 900 kilometers (560 miles) north of Bogota, as he prepared to get on a place to the capital city.
Indonesian national police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam said the disgraced Democratic Party former treasurer had used a false name on his passport but kept his own photograph on the document.
The 32-year-old had come to Colombia on a charter flight from Washington, according to Colombian police, who did not indicate his date of arrival.
Nazaruddin has been on the run since May, when anti-graft investigators linked him to a bribery scandal involving contracts on a $23 million athletes` village for the Southeast Asian Games scheduled in November.
He allegedly demanded bribes worth around $3 million to approve the contracts, according to The Jakarta Post newspaper. Three other people have been arrested over the scandal.
Wearing a hat and speaking from an unknown location, he recently appeared on Indonesian television making graft allegations against several high-ranking officials from the Democratic Party.
Yudhoyono has won two elections on the back of promises to stamp out corruption in Indonesia, which according to independent watchdog Transparency International is one of the world`s most corrupt countries.
(Uu.H-AK)
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