Drug baron leaving US jail may be Panama bound

A major drug baron about to be released from a US prison, may be heading for Panama, to face additional charges where he was first arrested.

After purging a sentence of eight years and eight months in Marianna, Florida, Colombian Jesus Archangel Henao Montoya, will be coming out of jail after believed  alias El Mocho, capo of an extended family  that for more than a decade dominated  the North Valley narco cartel and cocaine shipments to the U.S.

Sources from the Drug Prosecutor's Office of Panama’s Attorney General said  that El Mocho would be freed on September 26, benefiting  from a reduction of his sentence which, according to Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper came from betraying his former narco colleagues .

In a report published August 19, it was claimed  that Henao Montoya sqealed on at least 12 influential narcos and testified against Carlos Patiño, alias Patemuro, and Hernando Gomez, aka Scratch, two members of the Norte del Valle cartel who were  arrested and extradited to the U.S.

In addition, the Colombian newspaper said El Mocho "sealed his freedom" by giving up  up some of the clan's fortune, estimated at millions of dollars.

Henao Montoya was arrested in Panama on January 10, 2004 and handed over to the judicial authorities of the United States four days later.

The delivery was based on Article 2505 of the Judicial Code and the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty in force between Panama and the U.S., and the Vienna Convention against Illicit Trafficking.

After his capture, the Panamanian authorities initiated legal proceedings for drug trafficking and, based on this and the legal assistance treaty, are  now considering whether to ask U.S. to extradite him  La Prensa  reported.

According to court sources of, the case against the drug capo  is in the Sixth Criminal Court, but has been  since 2007, when the Drug Prosecutor's Office requested its call to trial.

But in that year his brother Lucio Quintero Marin, was sentenced to four years and with his wife  Lorraine, who also was arrested in Panama wasnd delivered to Colombia.

Lorena Henao Montoya, the only woman who was part of the clan, served seven years of a 12-year sentence, and was released in May 2011.

Colombia wants to prosecute El Mocho for alleged involvement in the killing of Rio Frio, in the North Valley Department, when 130 peasants were killed.

As part of the investigation conducted in Panama against Henao Montoya, authorities seized several items, including La Porcelana, in El Llano de Tortí, in the district of Chepo, where he was arrested with his brother, sister

In March 2009, the Conapred auctioned 16 horses, owned by Henao Montoya, which  were in the stables of the estate.

They were sold at prices between $200 and $500 dollars.  

El Mocho and his brother, Urdinola Grajales inherited the North Valley, narco cartel after the death of their  brother, José Orlando.

José Orlando, aka The Godfather, was an ex-cop who, according to the magazine Semana, became the capo of the most feared gangsters in Colombia in the 80s and 90s, Pablo Escobar and the brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez leaders of the Medellin and Cali cartels.

José Orlando controlled the cartel until he was killed by seven shots at the Modelo prison in  November 1998.

Urdinola Grajales, first husband of Lorraine, was named King of heroin. He was captured at his farm in Zarzal, April 26, 1992. He died of a heart attack 10 years later in the maximum security prison in Itagui, Antioquia.

After that , El Mocho was the top leader of the cartel. In December 2003, Interpol located him in Panama and, a month later,  he was captured and taken to America, reportedly betrayed by his own men.