Suspected Drug Lord Extradited to the U.S.

Police here handed over Fabio Ochoa to U.S. authorities Friday night, concluding the most prominent extradition of an alleged Colombian drug lord since the late 1980s, the head of Colombia’s anti-narcotics police said.

Speaking moments after the extradition, Gen. Gustavo Socha said Colombian police transferred Ochoa to U.S. custody at a heavily guarded hangar next to Bogota’s El Dorado International Airport shortly after 9 p.m. The 44-year-old suspect was placed aboard a plane bound for the United States.

Ochoa’s voyage is expected to end in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he faces a federal indictment charging that, at one time, he and others conspired to ship 30 tons of cocaine a month to the U.S.

Ochoa’s wealthy horse-breeding family vehemently denies the charges against him.

“This is completely absurd,” Martha Nieves, Ochoa’s sister, said of the extradition when reached by phone in Medellin, about 160 miles northwest of Bogota, the capital. “The government won. Justice did not win.”

U.S. officials insist that alleged drug lords can buy or bully their way out of court in Colombia, making extradition a key component in the war on trafficking.

Ochoa’s hand-over came just hours after a Bogota circuit judge reversed her decision to suspend the extradition, which had been based on a procedural query by Ochoa’s lawyer. Ochoa’s family had filed 14 appeals to block the extradition.

President Andres Pastrana approved Ochoa’s extradition last week.

Ochoa is the youngest of three brothers who served as henchmen in the much-feared and now-defunct Medellin drug cartel. In 1990, the trio struck a deal with the Colombian government that allowed them to surrender, avoid extradition to the U.S., legitimize their business holdings and serve reduced sentences.

But Fabio Ochoa made headlines again in October 1999 when he was arrested in a sting operation by U.S. and Colombian counter-narcotics agents. U.S. prosecutors alleged that Ochoa had returned to his old trade.

Ochoa’s extradition comes despite tireless lobbying by his family, which has erected billboards and launched a Web site to proclaim his innocence, https://www.fabioochoa.com.

“Yesterday, I made a mistake,” Ochoa is cited as saying on the home page. “Today, I am innocent.”