U.S. Seeks 9 Drug Kingpins Who Are Facing Charges in California

Federal authorities in Washington and California said Thursday that they would like to extradite at least nine Colombians, including reputed Medellin cartel drug baron Pablo Escobar, to the United States to face drug charges if the suspects are captured.

All are wanted for prosecution in Los Angeles, San Francisco or Sacramento on previous drug indictments or because they escaped from federal prisons in this area after being convicted on drug charges elsewhere, the officials said. All have lived in Colombia, but federal authorities said they could not determine their current whereabouts.

In Los Angeles, U.S. Atty. Gary A. Feess said a federal grand jury here indicted Escobar and Hugo Obando Ochoa, also a suspected member of the cartel, on Sept. 14, 1987. Along with numerous other defendants, they were charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine; conspiracy to defraud the United States; unlawful use of communication facilities for narcotics trafficking activities, and money laundering.

The indictments were issued after an undercover “sting” called Operation Pisces, a money laundering investigation conducted in Los Angeles and other cities. Jesus Anibal Zapata, a leader of the Medellin drug cartel, was convicted last April in federal court here on 14 charges stemming from the Pisces investigation and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Other defendants also have been convicted in the case.

Feess said his office also would like to prosecute Reinaldo Mafla Rios, a suspected member of the Cali drug cartel, who was indicted here in 1987, and charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine, money laundering and other offenses.

In Washington, Justice Department sources said they would like to extradite to Los Angeles Juan Luis Mangas, who escaped from the federal prison camp at Lompoc in 1982, just after beginning a five-year sentence for possessing and distributing cocaine.

In addition, the Justice Department would like to extradite four Colombians to San Francisco: Hernando Arana, Enrique Otoya Tobon, Carlos Ignacio Escallon Villa and Lenin Francisco Molano.

Arana and Otoya Tobon have been fugitives for seven years after they were indicted in a major cocaine case that also involved a plot to assassinate U.S. District Judge Robert Aguilar of San Jose. The lead defendant in the case, Roberto Gomez Soto, a Cuban national, is serving a life sentence for drug trafficking and conspiring to murder Aguilar.

Also wanted in California is Irma Jaramillo, convicted of drug trafficking in 1981. He fled the country in 1984 after an alleged parole violation, according to drug agents.

Times staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow, in Washington, and Daniel Weintraub, in Sacramento, contributed to this story.