2023-08-09 18:25:00
DISPATCH — Extradited by Colombia to the United States in May 2022, the leader of the “Clan del Golfo” gang Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias “Otoniel”, was sentenced today to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking.
As AFP reports, he pleaded guilty in January 2023 to international cocaine trafficking, admitting to having brought more than 96 tons of cocaine into the United States via Central America and Mexico. He also acknowledged that in the context of “military work, murders were committed” by his organization, made up of former members of paramilitary groups. In all, he was able to count 6,000 men in his service. He said that the clan “guaranteed the security of laboratories and drug traffickers and levied taxes” for cocaine transiting through the territories under their control.
The federal court judge in Brooklyn, New York, said it was “without a doubt one of the most serious drug trafficking cases” ever presented to this court.
Prosecutor Francisco Navarro considered that Otoniel was, without a doubt, “the most dangerous terrorist in Colombia of this century”, as much as Pablo Escobar, emblematic figure of drug trafficking.
For his part, the American Minister of Justice Merrick Garland welcomed the sentencing: “This sentence sends a clear message that the Department of Justice will find and bring to account the heads of murderous drug trafficking organizations who harm the American people, wherever they are and however long it takes.”
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