WASHINGTON, D.C. - Records from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) show that Fabio Ochoa Vazquez, one of Colombia's legendary drug lords and a key operator of the Medellin cocaine cartel, was released from a U.S. prison on Tuesday, December 10th, after completing 25 years of a 30-year prison sentence.
According to CBS News, Ochoa, who is now 67-years-old, along with his other brothers, amassed a fortune when cocaine started flooding the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s. U.S. authorities said that they were making so much money that in 1987 they were included in the Forbes Magazine's list of billionaires.
Living at the time in Miami, Ochoa ran a distribution center for the cocaine cartel once headed by Pablo Escobar. Over the years, the center of the drug trade shifted from Colombia to Mexico, but Ochoa's story resurfaced in the hit Netflix series "Narcos," which showcased him as the youngest son of an elite Medellin family into ranching and horse breeding that cut a sharp contrast with Escobar, who came from more humble roots.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Ochoa, who also went by the nicknames "Julio" and "Pepe," was first indicted in the U.S. for his alleged role in the 1986 killing of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informant Barry Seal. He was initially arrested in 1990 in Colombia under a government program promising drug kingpins would not be extradited to the U.S.
At the time, he was on the U.S. list of the "Dozen Most Wanted" of Colombia drug lords. He was arrested again and this time extradited to the United States in 2001 in response to an indictment in Miami naming him and more than 40 people as part of a drug smuggling conspiracy.
Of those, Ochoa was the only one who opted to go to trial, resulting in his conviction and the 30-year sentence. The other defendants got much shorter prison sentences because most of them cooperated with the government and likely took plea deals. The BBC reported that after his arrest in 1999, Ochoa erected billboards in Medellin and Bogota declaring: "Yesterday, I made a mistake. Today I am innocent."
Richard Gregorie, a retired assistant U.S. attorney who was on the prosecution team that convicted Ochoa, said that authorities were never able to seize all of the Ochoa family's illicit drug proceeds and he expects that Ochoa will have a welcome return home. He said, "He won't be retiring a poor man, that's for sure."
Through years of litigation, Richard Klugh, a Miami-based attorney for Ochoa, argued unsuccessfully that his client deserved to be released early because his sentence far exceeded what was appropriate for the amount of seized cocaine that authorities could attribute to Ochoa.
As of today, Colombia remains the world's largest cocaine producer and exporter, mainly to the United States and Europe. In 2023, the South American country set a new record for cocaine production and cultivation of the coca leaf it is made from. Within the last few weeks, the Colombian Navy said authorities from dozens of countries seized over 225 metric tons of cocaine in a six-week mega-operation where they unearthed a new Pacific trafficking route.
According to CBS News, Ochoa, who is now 67-years-old, along with his other brothers, amassed a fortune when cocaine started flooding the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s. U.S. authorities said that they were making so much money that in 1987 they were included in the Forbes Magazine's list of billionaires.
Living at the time in Miami, Ochoa ran a distribution center for the cocaine cartel once headed by Pablo Escobar. Over the years, the center of the drug trade shifted from Colombia to Mexico, but Ochoa's story resurfaced in the hit Netflix series "Narcos," which showcased him as the youngest son of an elite Medellin family into ranching and horse breeding that cut a sharp contrast with Escobar, who came from more humble roots.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Ochoa, who also went by the nicknames "Julio" and "Pepe," was first indicted in the U.S. for his alleged role in the 1986 killing of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informant Barry Seal. He was initially arrested in 1990 in Colombia under a government program promising drug kingpins would not be extradited to the U.S.
At the time, he was on the U.S. list of the "Dozen Most Wanted" of Colombia drug lords. He was arrested again and this time extradited to the United States in 2001 in response to an indictment in Miami naming him and more than 40 people as part of a drug smuggling conspiracy.
Of those, Ochoa was the only one who opted to go to trial, resulting in his conviction and the 30-year sentence. The other defendants got much shorter prison sentences because most of them cooperated with the government and likely took plea deals. The BBC reported that after his arrest in 1999, Ochoa erected billboards in Medellin and Bogota declaring: "Yesterday, I made a mistake. Today I am innocent."
Richard Gregorie, a retired assistant U.S. attorney who was on the prosecution team that convicted Ochoa, said that authorities were never able to seize all of the Ochoa family's illicit drug proceeds and he expects that Ochoa will have a welcome return home. He said, "He won't be retiring a poor man, that's for sure."
Through years of litigation, Richard Klugh, a Miami-based attorney for Ochoa, argued unsuccessfully that his client deserved to be released early because his sentence far exceeded what was appropriate for the amount of seized cocaine that authorities could attribute to Ochoa.
As of today, Colombia remains the world's largest cocaine producer and exporter, mainly to the United States and Europe. In 2023, the South American country set a new record for cocaine production and cultivation of the coca leaf it is made from. Within the last few weeks, the Colombian Navy said authorities from dozens of countries seized over 225 metric tons of cocaine in a six-week mega-operation where they unearthed a new Pacific trafficking route.
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