Baruch Vega's cellphone hardly rings these days.

It's not like 10 years ago, when the Colombian photographer of models was an intermediary between the Drug Enforcement Administration and powerful drug traffickers, and his phone rang off the hook with calls from federal prosecutors and attorneys in South Florida while he discussed poses with European models at his Miami Beach penthouse.

Now Vega, 61, seems to be tired of living on the razor's edge. He wants to put behind him the world that in 2000 took him to jail in the United States on charges of obstruction of justice and money laundering. The charges were later dropped.

``I don't want to pick more fights,'' he said. ``I just want to find old friends on Facebook."

But most important in this new stage of his life, he says, is his decision to find a way to patch up things with his four daughters. Three of them are Hollywood actresses who opted to forget him and for 10 years have not wanted anything to do with him.

Vega has seen them grow up in their movies.

``I go to the movies and I cry when I see them,'' said Vega, publicly talking on this topic for the first time. ``Every time a movie of Alexa opens, I see it 10 times.''

SPY KIDS ACTRESS

Alexa Vega, 21, is his oldest daughter with former Miami model Gina Rue. With about 40 films in her career, Alexa is mostly known for her role in the Spy Kids series, in which her character's parents are two semi-retired spies, an ironic coincidence with what her real-life dad once was -- a spy for the CIA in the Cold War and for the DEA in the anti-drug war.

As if the ironies were not enough, Alexa is currently the star of Ruby and the Rockits, the new ABC family series. She describes her role as ``a sweet girl who really wants to reconnect with her dad'' after many years of separation.

Yet Alexa herself does not seem to wish to reconnect with her real-life dad. In a message sent to Vega by Alexa's manager, Alexa notified her father that she didn't want to have anything to do with him. She didn't specify any reason.

El Nuevo Herald called the office of Ro Diamond, Alexa's agent at SDB Partners in Los Angeles, on Thursday and Friday, but was informed that Diamond had left for the long weekend and would not be back until Tuesday. An e-mail sent to the agency last Monday never received a response.

`INCONCEIVABLE'

Vega knows and understands the reason for his daughters' indifference: fear.

``They fear that someone who may want to harm me, would pick on them,'' Vega said.

Vega's head has had a price in the drug-trafficking world. On the other hand, he asks himself if his situation is not similar to that of other parents whose work is equally risky but manage to keep their family's affection.

``It's inconceivable. I have not committed any crime, and what I did I did to help the U.S. government,'' Vega said in an interview last week at a Miami apartment he shares with a model. ``All I ask is to be allowed to write and e-mail them someday or call them on the phone to tell them, `I love you' and that they will respond.''

Meanwhile, he has sent Margaux, his daughter from a previous marriage, a manuscript titled Dangerous Glamour, being prepared by him, and a book about his life written in Spanish by this reporter (Our Man in the DEA).

Alexa's sisters, Krizia Vega, 19, and Makenzie Vega, 17, are also actresses. Makenzie had a role in the movie The Family Man.

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