Drug kingpin extradited to U.S., indicted

LOS ANGELES — A Colombian drug kingpin who participated in a violent ring that used planes, speedboats and submarines to smuggle cocaine worth hundreds of millions of dollars faced federal trafficking charges Friday in a Los Angeles courtroom, prosecutors said.

Victor Hugo Cuellar-Silva is among nearly four dozen defendants charged in a vast conspiracy to ship tons of cocaine from South America through Mexico to the United States.

The indictment unsealed Thursday was unique in targeting people throughout the drug distribution chain from the source of where the coke was produced in Colombia to investors in Mexico, transportation coordinators, houses where the drugs were stashed and to large scale distributors in the U.S., federal prosecutors said.

The indictment charged 47 people in the drug operation. Seven defendants were arrested Thursday in the U.S., four were in custody in Thailand and about a half-dozen were facing extradition from Colombia. The others remained at large.

Cuellar-Silva, who was extradited Thursday from Colombia, was a high-ranking member of the drug ring headed by Mexican fugitive Angel Humberto Chavez-Gastelum, who is one of the most-wanted drug traffickers in the world, prosecutors said.

Authorities seized more than 7,700 pounds of cocaine with a street value more than $500 million during the threeyear investigation.