The leader of a renowned Colombian criminal organization who pleaded guilty to US drug trafficking charges was sentenced to 45 years in prison on Tuesday by a Brooklyn judge who deemed him “more prolific” than the late kingpin Pablo Escobar.
The roughly 100,000 kg of cocaine that Dairo Antonio Usuga David, also known as Otoniel, transported to the US while running the Clan del Golfo cartel was described as “extraordinary” by US District Judge Dora Irizarry in her sentence. She subsequently rejected a defense assertion that the prosecution used “hyperbole” in comparing Otoniel, 51, to Pablo Escobar, the former Medellin cartel boss who was assassinated in a US-Colombia operation in 1993.
Otoniel – who will also be required to surrender $216 million – once served as the head of the Clan del Golfo (CDG), a potent criminal organization that oversees the entry points for cocaine into Mexico and the US as well as being one of the biggest distributors of the drug globally.
“Otoniel led one of the largest cocaine trafficking organizations in the world, where he directed the exportation of massive amounts of cocaine to the United States and ordered the ruthless execution of Colombian law enforcement, military officials, and civilians,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
In October 2021, Otoniel was taken into custody by Colombian security agents close to the nation’s border with Panama. He entered a guilty plea in January 2023 after being extradited to the US in May 2022.
“To maintain control over CDG territory, Úsuga David and the CDG employed an army of ‘sicarios,’ or hitmen, who carried out acts of violence, including murders, assaults, kidnappings, torture, and assassinations against competitors and those deemed traitors to the organization, as well as their family members,” prosecutors said in the news release.
Before being convicted, Otoniel apologized in court to his victims as well as the US and Colombian governments. “Don’t take the same path that I took. The armed conflict should stay in the past. Weapons should stay in the past,” he said in a message to the Colombian youth on Tuesday.
