COLOMBIA EXTRADITES DRUG LORD TO U.S.

Usuga David called most dangerous trafficker in world

Colombia extradited the alleged head of the feared Gulf Clan, who had been the country’s most wanted drug lord before his capture, to the United States on Wednesday where he faces indictments in three federal courts.

Colombian President Ivan Duque said Dairo Antonio Usuga David is “comparable only to Pablo Escobar,” referring to the late former head of the Medellin drug cartel.

“He is not only the most dangerous drug trafficker in the world, but he is murderer of social leaders, abuser of boys, girls and adolescents, a murderer of policemen,” Duque said, accompanied by Colombia’s military leaders, whom he congratulated for guarding Usuga David and capturing him in October 2021.

The former rural warlord, better known by his alias Otoniel, had stayed on the run for more than a decade by corrupting state officials and aligning himself with combatants on the left and right. He was transferred Wednesday in handcuffs and wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest from a prison in Bogota to a heavily guarded military transport airfield.

He’s long been a fixture on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s most-wanted list. He was first indicted in 2009, in Manhattan federal court, on narcotics charges and for allegedly providing assistance to a far-right paramilitary group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Later indictments in Brooklyn and Miami federal courts accused him of importing into the U.S. at least 73 metric tons of cocaine between 2003 and 2014 through countries including Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and Honduras.

Usuga David has also cycled through the ranks of several guerrilla groups, most recently claiming to lead the Gaitanist Self Defense Forces of Colombia.