Legendary cartel drug lord Fabio Ochoa Vasquez released from U.S. prison, deported to Colombia, freed
One of the legendary Colombian drug lords Medellín drug cartel’s main operator deported back home After serving 30 years in prison in the United States and 25 years in prison, he came to the South American country.
Soon after, Fabio Ochoa was free again.
Ochoa arrived at Bogota’s Eldorado airport on a deportation flight on Monday, wearing a gray sweatshirt and carrying his personal belongings in plastic bags. After stepping off the plane, the former drug cartel boss was greeted by immigration officials wearing bulletproof vests. No police officers were at the scene to detain him.
Fernando Vergara/AP
Colombia’s National Immigration Service immediately posted a brief statement on social media platform Family reunion”.
According to U.S. authorities, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when cocaine began to flood the United States, Ochoa, 67, and his brothers amassed such wealth that in 1987 they were listed in Forbes magazine List of billionaires.
Ochoa lives in Miami and runs a distribution center for a cocaine cartel that was once run by Pablo Escobar. Escobar was killed in a shootout with authorities in Medellín in 1993.
Colombian Immigration (AP)
Ochoa was first indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1986 killing of Barry Seal. Barry Seale was an American pilot who flew cocaine flights for the Medellin cartel but later became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In the early 1990s, Ochoa surrendered to Colombian authorities along with his two older brothers, Juan David and Jorge Luis, under an agreement that prevented them from being extradited to the United States.
The three brothers were released from prison in 1996, but Ochoa was rearrested for drug trafficking three years later and extradited to the United States in 2001 on a Miami indictment that charged him and more than 40 people with participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy. .
He was the only suspect in the group to go to trial, and was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Other defendants received much lighter sentences because most cooperated with the government.
As Mexican drug traffickers take center stage in the global drug trade, Ochoa’s name has faded from popular memory.
Fernando Vergara/AP
But the former member of the Medellin cartel, who most recently appeared in the Netflix series “Griselda,” first battles brave businesswoman Griselda Blanco for control of Miami’s cocaine market, Then forms an alliance with a drug dealer played by Sofia Vergara.
Ochoa also appears in Netflix series NarcosThe youngest son of an elite Medellin family, he engaged in ranching and horse breeding, in stark contrast to Escobar, who came from humble beginnings.
Retired Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Gregorie, who was part of the prosecution team that convicted Ochoa, said authorities were never able to seize all of the Ochoa family’s illegal drug proceeds and he expects the former The mafia boss will be welcomed back home.
“He’s not going to retire a poor man, that’s for sure,” Gregory told The Associated Press earlier this month.
