( Spanish) – Fabio Ochoa Vásquez was one of the leaders of the Medellín Cartel in the 1980s and one of the most notorious drug lords to be extradited to the United States after the restitution of this mechanism in the late 1990s. He was handed over to US justice in September 2001, and in 2003 a Miami jury found him guilty of drug trafficking. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the crimes of human trafficking, conspiracy and distribution of cocaine.
The Ochoas had joined the Medellín Cartel, founded by Pablo Escobar Gaviria. Ochoa was accused of sending around 30 tons of cocaine to the United States, the Colombian National Police said at the time.
In the early 1990s, the Medellín Cartel used violence and corruption to pressure the Government of Colombia against the extradition of Escobar and other drug trafficking leaders known as “The Extraditables,” explains the Drug Enforcement Administration. of the United States (DEA) in its annals of the early 1990s. Despite the approval of the 1991 Constitution in which extradition was prohibited of Colombian citizens, the actions of law enforcement forces led to the decline of that cartel. In December 1990, Fabio Ochoa turned himself in to the authorities near Medellín shortly after a presidential decree that guaranteed non-extradition for those who surrendered, reports the Center of Historical Memory of Colombia. Shortly after his delivery, his brothers Jorge Luis and Juan David did the same.
The arrest of the Ochoa brothers marked the decline of the Medellín Cartel, which was sealed with the death of Escobar, in December 1993, at the hands of the authorities. With the disappearance of Escobar, one of the most violent times in the history of Colombia ended.
At that time, the Cali Cartel, founded in the 1970s, gained prominence by presenting themselves as legitimate businessmen and expanding into cocaine trafficking, the DEA says.
In 1996, Fabio Ochoa was released after a reduction in the sentence and in compliance with the conditions of his sentence when he surrendered to the authorities and acknowledged his participation in the drug trafficking business.
In October 1999, the so-called Operation Milenio – a joint investigation by the DEA and the Colombian National Police – ended with the arrest of Ochoa along with fellow drug trafficker Alejandro Bernal-Madrigal, alias Juvenal. According to the DEAOchoa “continued his trafficking operations with Bernal-Madrigal and others after his release.” Operation Millennium conducted electronic interceptions that showed “the inner workings of the cocaine industry and focused on the most important drug traffickers and their respective organizations in both Colombia and Mexico,” says the US anti-drug organization.
According to the Colombian Police, Operation Millennium It was one of the largest public order actions undertaken until then by the Government of Colombia against drug trafficking.
In 2001, when he was sent to the United States, Ochoa was the 30th Colombian to be extradited to that country since the reintroduction of the measure in 1997, says the DEA. He has since been imprisoned in the United States, where he was tried and convicted of drug trafficking.
In 2013, the Colombian National Police carried out an operation extinction of ownership of 116 assets by Fabio Ochoa, valued at around US$6 million at the time. The Police said at that time that Ochoa had inserted the “vast fortune” accumulated into the financial system, and had done so through the purchase, sale and administration of real estate and personal property acquired through front men.
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