Top Colombian drug trafficker is sent to U.S.

The former leader of a top Colombian drug cartel has been extradited to the United States and will face a criminal trial in Brooklyn Federal Court, prosecutors said Thursday.

Dairo Antonio Usuga David, 50, is charged with leading Clan del Golfo, an international criminal organization between 2012 and his arrest by the Colombian authorities in October.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace described Usuga David as “one of the most dangerous, most wanted drug kingpins in the world.” He’s accused of smuggling tons of cocaine to the United States through Mexico and Panama and leading one of the most violent Colombian gangs, which had more than 6,000 members at its peak.

“He believed he was essentially untouchable, until now,” Peace said.

Usuga David was captured in the forest of Antiochia, Colombia by a fleet of law enforcement agents after a nearly two-decade run in the upper echelons of Clan del Golfo.

The former CEO of the cartel directed his minions to murder dozens of rivals, police and perceived rats within his ranks, prosecutors claimed.

His power made him more of a paramilitary ruler than a drug lord, prosecutors said. Usuga David once directed a shutdown of towns and villages within his control after a 2012 police raid killed his brother.

Villagers were told to remain inside their homes and Usuga David advised his army to execute those who disobeyed, according to the feds.

The drug-trafficker is charged with running a continuing criminal enterprise and participating in an international conspiracy to manufacture and distribute cocaine along with other narcotics trafficking charges. He faces life in prison.

“Usuga David directly oversaw and ordered numerous acts of violence carried out by CDG members, including murders, assaults, rapes, kidnappings, torture, and assassinations against Colombian authorities, rival drug traffickers and paramilitaries, and civilians,” prosecutor Francisco Navarro wrote in a memo asking a judge to hold Usuga David without bail.

“Usuga David has shown total disregard for human life.”

At his arraignment in Brooklyn Federal Court Thursday, Judge Vera Scanlon ordered Usuga David held without bail leading up to his trial