The accused Colombian drug trafficker is predicted to make his first US court docket look after being extradited from Bogota.
One in every of Colombia’s maximum infamous drug traffickers shipped “outrageous amounts of cocaine” into the US, a best US prosecutor has mentioned, hours after Dairo Antonio Usuga was once extradited to stand fees in New York.
Usuga, higher referred to as Otoniel, is predicted to be arraigned in US federal court docket in Brooklyn on Thursday on 3 fees, together with conspiring to fabricate and distribute cocaine, mentioned Breon Peace, america legal professional for the Jap District of New York.
Otoniel is “one of the vital bad, maximum needed drug kingpins on this planet” who as soon as had as many as 6,000 “henchmen” beneath his command, Peace informed journalists.
“He earned monumental income, measured in billions, no longer tens of millions,” Peace mentioned. “These days he’ll after all face justice.”
A legal professional for Otoniel declined to remark to the Reuters information company.
Colombian government captured Otoniel in October closing yr after an enormous army operation.
President Ivan Duque mentioned on the time that his arrest marked “the largest blow towards drug trafficking in our nation this century”, best related to the autumn of notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Duque additionally welcomed Otoniel’s extradition to america as a second of triumph for “legality, the guideline of legislation, the safety forces and justice”.
On Wednesday afternoon, a convoy of 5 bulletproof police cars transported Otoniel from a jail within the capital, Bogota, to an army airport, the place he was once passed over to US Drug Enforcement Management (DEA) officers.
The Gulf Extended family operates in 12 of Colombia’s 32 provinces, and counts some 3,800 contributors, in step with knowledge equipped via the rustic’s nationwide police.
Additionally it is concerned with unlawful mining, and the federal government accuses the crowd of threatening and killing neighborhood leaders around the nation.
Otoniel has lengthy been a fixture at the DEA’s most-wanted checklist.
He was once first indicted in 2009 in New york federal court docket on narcotics fees and for allegedly offering help to a far-right paramilitary workforce designated a terrorist organisation via Washington.
Later indictments in Brooklyn and Miami federal courts accused him of uploading into america no less than 73 metric tonnes of cocaine between 2003 and 2014 via international locations together with Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and Honduras.
The United States made a formal request for his extradition in past due November, simply weeks after he was once captured within the northern Uraba area, a key drug course.
Colombia’s prime court docket pushed aside a petition from a gaggle of Otoniel’s sufferers who argued that his extradition would violate their rights to justice and reparation and demanded he first face the greater than 128 complaints towards him in Colombia.
Duque mentioned that from america, Otoniel would proceed taking part with the Colombian government within the investigations towards him and as soon as he completes his sentences for drug trafficking, he’ll go back to “Colombia to pay for the crimes he dedicated”.
The extradition comes simply weeks after former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was once extradited to america to stand drug trafficking and guns fees of his personal.
