Video: Notorious Brazilian drug lord who used plastic surgery to change looks arrested after 30 years on the run...

A notorious Brazilian drug lord who used plastic surgery to change his face and avoid capture has been arrested after 30 years on the lam. (Watch the video below)

Federal police arrested Luiz Carlos da Rocha, nicknamed “White Head,” at his home in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso Saturday after a three-decade hunt.

To evade capture, the cocaine kingpin underwent plastic surgery and changed his name to Vitor Luiz de Moraes.

But investigators were able to use new photographic technology to determine that the “two men” are one and the same.

After 24 raids using 150 agents, Brazilian authorities seized $10 million in assets — including planes, properties and luxury cars — from the drug lord.

The operation was dubbed “Spectrum” in Portuguese — a reference to Rocha’s ability to change his appearance and live “discreetly and in the shadows . . . evading police attempts for almost 30 years,” according to a police statement obtained by Agence France-Presse.

The plastic surgeries made him look 20 years younger than his actual age of 60, federal police official Elvis Secco told Brazilian outlet Universo Online.

“He was the number one trafficker on our wanted list,” Secco said.

Police Superintendent Rosalvo Ferreira Franco called Rocha “a legend of drug trafficking.”

Rocha was picked up at his home in Sorriso, along with his wife and son, according to the report, which added that he had a 9mm handgun but did not use it when the feds came to arrest him.

Rocha, who is reportedly worth nearly $100 million, used armored cars and guards with military-grade weapons during his time on the run, police said.

brazilian drug lord luiz carlos da rocha arrested 2Photo: Some of Luiz Carlos da Rocha's money found upon his arrest

His henchmen trafficked cocaine from the jungles of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia into remote farms in Brazil and Paraguay — just west of Rocha’s Mato Grosso base of operations — by flying the contraband through Venezuelan air space in small planes, investigators said.

The drugs were reportedly loaded into special trucks with hidden compartments for further distribution.
Rocha moved more than five tons of cocaine a month through Brazil alone, and is believed to have supplied violent drug traffickers in Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, officials said.

Some of the drugs also went on to the United States and Europe.

The Operation Spectrum investigation took more than a year, in part because Rocha used sophisticated counterintelligence to mislead investigators, Universo Online reported.

Officials also arrested Rocha’s alleged right-hand man during one of the raids at a separate location.

Rocha had already been sentenced by Brazilian courts to more than 50 years in prison for international drug trafficking and money laundering.

Next, officials plan to go after the rest of Rocha’s $100 million in assets, which include property and money stashed in offshore bank accounts.

With Wire Services/NewYorkPost