A young Four Corners man and seven other oil workers taken hostage in the Amazon jungle two months ago may be released soon, Ecuadorian newspapers are reporting.

Ecuador’s minister of defense, Jose Gallardo, confirmed yesterday that a ransom of $3 million in U.S. dollars had been paid for the release of the hostages, newspapers in Quito reported. According to the papers, the ransom was paid by City Investing, a Canadian company that had contracted with the workers’ employer.

Leonard Carter, 23, of Hatch, Utah, and seven oil workers from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, were captured by a band of armed guerrillas Sept. 11 in the region of Sucumbios along the trouble-plagued border between Ecuador and Colombia.

The oil workers are employees of United Pipelines Systems of Edmonton. City Investing, a Canadian energy company, had contracted with UPS on a pipeline project. The workers, who had been on the project for several weeks, were roughly 30 miles from the border in the densely forested province of Sucumbios when two dozen terrorists captured them at gunpoint. An Ecuadorian guard hired to protect the oil workers was killed in the attack.

The workers have not been heard from since, but four European tourists taken hostage at the same time were released unharmed, one in late September and the others in early October.

One of the released hostages told the press the others were alive and in good health and were being treated well. He said their captors, who hid their faces and did not identify themselves, seemed very familiar with the jungle and kept the hostages moving through the foliage, subsisting on roots, insects and a sugar-salt formula to combat dehydration.

No group ever claimed responsibility for the act, but the Ecuadorian newspaper El Comercio reported that a recent article in a Colombian magazine said security officers in Colombia had intercepted a communication from members of a rebel group called El Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional that sounded as though they might have been responsible.

ELN is one of three leftist groups in Colombia that reportedly seize hostages frequently in order to draw attention to their cause and seek ransom. The groups control large territories along the border and move freely through the jungle.

ELN, the second-largest of the groups, has an estimated 5,000 members, according to an article in the Miami Herald, and was responsible for forcing down an airliner that took off from Bucaramanga, a regional capital, on April 12. The group seized 41 passengers and crew members and still holds 15 of them.

The largest group, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionaries de Colombia, was responsible for seizing a dam on Aug. 31 and holding 191 people hostage for a week until the government agreed to alter electricity rates.

Ecuadorian government officials said they had no knowledge of ELN’s alleged responsibility and had not been involved in negotiations for the release, according to the Quito press.

A City Investing official in Quito denied knowledge of a ransom being paid, according to a Reuters report.