BROOKLYN, N.Y. (PIX11) — The former leader of Colombia’s paramilitary cocaine cartel — known as Clan del Golfo — received 45 years in a United States prison Tuesday for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.
Dairo Antonio Úsuga David, known as “Otoniel,” was also ordered to pay $216 million with a forfeiture of his assets.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland commented on the sentencing, noting Otoniel, 51, led one of the largest cocaine trafficking organizations in the world “and ordered the ruthless execution of Colombian law enforcement, military officials, and civilians.” Massive amounts of Otoniel’s cocaine were pumped into the U.S., according to prosecutors.
Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, noted in a release that Clan Del Golfo, known as CDG, controlled vast amounts of territory in the Uraba region of Antioquia, Colombia, which is close to the Colombian/Panamanian border, covering the Caribbean and Pacific coasts. CDG members wear military uniforms and employ military tactics and weapons to reinforce their power. The group incited wars and violence against rival drug traffickers.
Peace said CDG employed an army of “sicarios,” or hitmen, who carried out murders, assaults, kidnappings, torture and assassinations against competitors and “those deemed traitors to the organization, as well as their family members.”
“When you consider the scale of Usaga David’s operations — a man with a private army who dared to place bounties on the heads of law enforcement and other government officials in Colombia — you have to admire the tenacity and courage of the team that brought him to justice, both in Colombia and the U.S,” NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations in New York, and the FBI joined federal prosecutors in Florida and Texas to make the case against Otoniel with the Eastern District of New York.
