Drug lord sentenced to 45 years in US jail

A US court sentenced Tuesday the Colombian drug lord Dairo Antonio Úsuga David, alias “Otoniel”, to 45 years in prison for each of the three charges of drug trafficking of which he declared guilty, although he will serve them simultaneously.

Judge Dora Irizarry, of the Eastern District Court of New York, imposed the sentence that the prosecution had requested, arguing that this is “without a doubt one of the most serious cases in terms of drug trafficking activity” that the court has instructed and rejected. the apologies requested by the convicted person, who pleaded in favor of an end to the armed conflict and a negotiated peace. “I doubt if they hadn’t stopped him, he would have stopped what he was doing,” she said.

At the end of 2021, when he was captured in the jungles of northwestern Colombia in an operation involving 500 military and police officers backed by agencies from the US and the UK the then president of Colombia, Iván Duque, compared him to Pablo Escobar.

In a New York court, where he was extradited in May 2022, he acknowledged having sent 96,800 kilos of cocaine to the United States.

In January, he accepted charges of continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to manufacture and distribute cocaine, and maritime conspiracy to traffic drugs. His conviction occurs at a time when the cocaine business is going through an unprecedented crisis in Colombia due to overproduction and the change in consumption habits in the United States.

The former leader of the paramilitary group Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia (AGC), also known as Clan del Golfo, hoped his guilty plea would spare him a lengthy and costly trial. And perhaps a more lenient ruling from Judge Dora Irizarry.

Of peasant origin and accused of sexually abusing girls, he went from left-wing guerrilla to extreme-right paramilitary, before consolidating himself as a cocaine boss.

During his imprisonment, the robust drug trafficker complained about the harsh conditions of isolation that prevented him from speaking with his family or receiving correspondence. 

On the eve of his extradition, he assured a court that senior military commanders were involved in drug trafficking and splashed politicians who took advantage of the territorial control he had. In retaliation for handing him over, his men unleashed a wave of attacks in which some thirty police officers died.

Born on September 15, 1971, in the municipality of Necoclí (northwest), he went on to lead the Clan del Golfo after the death of his brother Juan de Dios, killed in clashes with the police in 2012.