Fabio Ochoa Vasquez He was one of the bosses of the Medellin Cartel and at the time partner of Pablo Escobarthe biggest drug trafficker in history in Colombia. After spending 26 years in prison in the United States for cocaine trafficking and other crimes, the member of the Ochoa clan was released this week.
The newspaper El Tiempo indicated that the authorities of USA they informed the Colombia what Ochoa was released and taken into custody of a federal agency. while the process of deportation to the South American country and it is verified if it has pending processes.
Fabio Ochoa He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for trafficking tons of cocaine to the United States, but he achieved a reduction of the sentence for collaborating with the United States justice system.
The Ochoa clan
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Fabio Ochoa Vásquez was born on May 2, 1957 in Medellín, department of Antioquia. He is the youngest of the children of Fabio Ochoa Restrepothe patriarch of the drug trafficking family known as the Ochoa Brothers.
According to El Tiempo, Fabio Ochoa has said that he began his criminal activity in 1974, with the introduction of half a kilo of cocaine into the United States. Sixteen years later, at the height of his illicit business, he was shipping 30 tons per month.
In 1981, when he was 24 years old, he formed part of the Medellin Cartel along with his brothers Jorge and Juan David. They are considered as the most loyal men in Pablo Escobar’s inner circle.
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The Colombian magazine Semana recalled that in 1987, when Forbes made one of its lists of the richest men in the world, it estimated the fortune of Fabio Ochoa Restrepo at 2,000 million dollars, while that of Pablo Escobar It was 3 billion dollars.
Death to Kidnappers
Los Ochoa brothers accompanied Pablo Escobar in all its wars unleashed in the 1980s, not only against its enemies in drug trafficking such as the Cali Cartelbut also against the Colombian State to avoid the extradition of drug traffickers to the United States.
Fabio Ochoa Vasquez He was also part of the MAS group (Death to Kidnappers), which was created in Colombia in the 1980s after the kidnapping of his sister Martha Nieves Ochoa by the extinct guerrilla M-19plagiarism that occurred on November 12, 1981.
According to Semana, the young woman, then 26 years old, was leaving university in Medellín and was forced to get into a red Renault car. The kidnappers asked for 12 million dollars for his release.
Martha Ochoa was kidnapped for 92 days and was finally released without her family paying the ransom.
“The formula to achieve their freedom was to paralyze the country. The Ochoas decided not to allow themselves to be blackmailed and, on the contrary, provided an unimaginable amount of money for those who offered information about their whereabouts. And they created an armed organization that many record as the beginning of paramilitarism in Colombia: MAS (Death to kidnappers). It is believed that they had 2,230 men. Dozens of murders and torture are attributed to the group. Fabio, who must have been 25 years old at the time, was a member of that MAS that was looking for his sister.”Semana recalled.
Arrest and extradition to the United States
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The Center for Historical Memory of Colombia states that in December 1990, Fabio Ochoa He surrendered to the authorities near Medellínshortly after issuing a decree from the president Cesar Gaviria that guaranteed non-extradition to the United States for those who surrendered. His brothers Jorge Luis and Juan David did the same.
Fabio Ochoa was released in 1996 after serving a sentence of almost six years in the Itagüí high-security prison.
However, he was arrested again in October 1999 in the so-called Operation Millenniuma joint investigation by the DEA and the Colombian National Police that led to the arrest of dozens of alleged drug trafficking lords.
According to the DEA, after leaving prison Fabio Ochoa continued his drug trafficking operationsno longer with Pablo Escobar, but with Alejandro Bernal-Madrigalalias ‘Juvenal’, and other drug traffickers.
The Operation Millennium conducted electronic interceptions that showed “the inner workings of the cocaine industry and focused on the most important drug traffickers and their respective organizations in both Colombia and Mexico,” CNN reported based on DEA documents.
Fabio Ochoa He was extradited to the United States in 2001. He became the 30th Colombian to be handed over to that country since the reintroduction of extradition in 1997.
According to the DEA, Fabio Ochoa was a key player in the shipment of 30 tons of cocaine each month to the United States.
Ochoa’s partner, Alejandro Bernal-Madrigal, had business with the boss Amado Carrillo Fuenteswho was known in Mexico as The Lord of the Skies and led the Juárez Cartel, explains Semana.
In August 2003, Fabio Ochoa was sentenced in Miami to 30 years and five months in prison and paid a fine of $25,000. upon being found guilty of participating in an organization that brought an average of 30 tons of cocaine into the country per month between December 1997 and October 1999.
Richard Gregorie, a retired federal prosecutor who was part of the prosecution team that convicted Fabio Ochoa in the United States, told the AP agency that authorities were never able to confiscate all of the Ochoa family’s illicit profits obtained thanks to drug trafficking.
“He won’t retire a poor man, that’s for sure,” Gregorie said.