Drug Suspects Lured to Yacht, Arrested by FBI : Narcotics: The alleged Medellin cartel money launderers were tricked into international waters to shortcut extradition. The ruse worked in the 1987 capture of a terrorist.

Two suspected money launderers for Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel have been arrested in an FBI sting that lured them onto a yacht in international waters off Venezuela, federal law enforcement officials confirmed Tuesday.

The two men, captured late last week, reportedly were arraigned before a U.S. magistrate in Puerto Rico before being transported to Los Angeles, where the FBI investigation is centered.

A spokesman for the magistrate in San Juan said records of the proceedings have been ordered sealed and would not disclose the identities of the suspects.

The FBI was expected to release today details of the operation, which is reminiscent of the celebrated 1987 arrest of Lebanese terrorist Fawaz Younis, lured onto a yacht in the Mediterranean with promises of a drug deal.

Such arrests in international waters mean that U.S. authorities do not have to go through potentially lengthy--and politically sensitive--extradition proceedings.

The Medellin cocaine cartel in recent months has kidnaped and killed several prominent Colombians in an effort to pressure the government into concessions, including lenient judicial treatment for surrendering drug traffickers.

Two cartel bosses, Jorge Luis Ochoa and his brother, Fabio, have surrendered under a government plan that included a guarantee that they would not be extradited. The cartel’s leader, Pablo Escobar, remains at large and is seeking from the national Assembly a constitutional clause prohibiting all extraditions.

Officials in Los Angeles had been prepared to announce the arrests off Venezuela soon after they were made. The disclosure apparently was put off when the two men, described by law enforcement officials as mid-level money launderers, unexpectedly began cooperating with investigators.

The capture of criminal suspects by U.S. agents overseas has provoked considerable controversy in recent years, particularly during the Drug Enforcement Administration’s aggressive pursuit of Mexican nationals wanted in the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena.

Arrests in international waters have been upheld by U.S. courts and the tactic “decomplicates rather than complicates the (political) situation,” said Robert Friedlander, an attorney for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“Grabbing that person in international waters exempts the United States from charges of violating the sovereignty” of the nation involved, Friedlander said.

“The legal grounds are still valid,” he said. “Other than that, I’m surprised the trick worked again.”

Younis, captured in 1987, was lured by a former associate onto an FBI-operated yacht with an offer of sex and a lucrative drug deal. He was being sought as the alleged ringleader of the 1985 hijacking of a Royal Jordanian jetliner from Beirut International Airport.

The only U.S. link to the crime was the presence of several U.S. citizens on the plane, which was blown up after the passengers and crew were taken off.

Younis was transferred to a Navy utility vessel and flown from a U.S. aircraft carrier to Washington. Then-Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III called it “the first overseas arrest by U.S. law enforcement officials of a suspected terrorist being sought under U.S. laws.”

Younis’ attorneys complained that he was improperly questioned and that he suffered broken wrists when agents shoved him to the deck of the yacht during his arrest. Younis was found guilty of hijacking in 1989 and the conviction was upheld by a federal appeals court.