The chronicle surrounding Colombian drug lord Fabio Ochoa Vásquez has turned a new page as he was released from a U.S. prison on Tuesday, having served 25 years of a 30-year sentence, now poised for deportation back to Colombia. According to NBC Miami, Ochoa, a former key figure of the infamous Medellin cocaine cartel, was 67 at the time of his release.
Involved in the early spread of cocaine to the U.S. in the 1970s and 80s, Ochoa and his family's wealth soared, leading them to be listed among billionaires by Forbes Magazine in 1987. With the center of drug trade shifting from Colombia to Mexico, mostly faded from public consciousness, Ochoa resurfaced in cultural memory depicted in the Netflix series "Narcos," where once he ran a Miami-based cocaine distribution hub.
As initially reported by CBS News, Ochoa was accused in the U.S. for playing a part in the 1986 killing of DEA informant Barry Seal. His 1990 arrest in Colombia was under assurances that drug kingpins would avoid extradition to the U.S., even as Ochoa found himself on the notorious “Dozen Most Wanted” list.
Ochoa was arrested again and extradited to the U.S. in 2001, where he stood trial and was convicted as part of a large drug-smuggling conspiracy. Emphasizing Ochoa's inevitable affluence upon return, retired assistant U.S. attorney Richard Gregorie told The Associated Press, "He won't be retiring a poor man, that's for sure." His trial was a guarded affair: jurors shuttled to court in tinted window vans for their safety, according to the BBC report detailed by CBS News.
Despite the efforts of Miami-based attorney Richard Klugh, Ochoa's early release petitions were not successful, disputing the proportion of his sentence to the cocaine amounts attributed to him. Meanwhile, Colombia persists as the lead cocaine producer, as brought to light by recent findings of a new Pacific trafficking route by the Colombian Navy.
