NEW YORK (AP) – A Colombian man who was once one of the world’s most-wanted drug lords pleaded guilty on Wednesday to United States (US) smuggling charges, admitting that he led a cartel and paramilitary group that trafficked in cocaine and deadly violence.
“Tonnes of cocaine were moved with my permission or at my direction,” Dairo Antonio Úsuga, better known as Otoniel, told a Brooklyn federal court.
“There was a lot of violence with the guerillas and the criminal gangs,” he added, and acknowledged that “in military work, homicides were committed”.
Úsuga, 51, will face at least 20 years in prison when sentenced, prosecutors said. But the US government agreed not to seek a life sentence in order to secure his extradition from Colombia last year, according to US District Judge Dora Irizarry.
As part of his plea deal, he agreed to forfeit USD216 million.
Úsuga presided over the Gulf Clan, which terrorised much of northern Colombia to control major cocaine-smuggling routes. US authorities have called him one of the most dangerous drug traffickers on the planet, and he was Colombia’s most-wanted kingpin.
“With today’s guilty plea, the bloody reign of the most violent and significant Colombian narcotics trafficker since Pablo Escobar is over,” Brooklyn US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
Defence lawyer Paul Nalven said Úsuga was “very remorseful” and portrayed him as “a child of the cycle of violence” that has wracked Colombia throughout his life. Úsuga, who has a fourth-grade education, was dragooned into guerrilla warfare at age 16, the attorney said.
After his arrest, Úsuga asked his cartel to stop attacking police, and he’s hoping something fruitful comes of the six-month cease-fire that recently took effect between President Gustavo Petro’s administration and five armed groups, including the Gulf Clan, in hopes of fostering a lasting peace.
“He’d like to see a better Colombia,” Nalven said.
The Gulf Clan, also known as the Gaitanist Self Defence Forces of Colombia, has thousands of military-garbed members who battle rival gangs, paramilitary groups, and Colombian authorities in order to keep a bloody hold on its turf near the Panama border, prosecutors said. Cocaine smuggling pays for it all – including, Úsuga admitted, through “taxes” that the group has charged on any cocaine produced, stored or transported through its territory.
Úsuga ordered the killing and torture of perceived enemies, offered bounties for slaying police and soldiers, and directed campaigns to go after them with military-grade weapons, according to prosecutors.
