One of Colombia’s infamous drug lords and a prominent figure in the Medellín cocaine cartel has been released from a U.S. prison and is set to be deported back to his home country.
Fabio Ochoa Vásquez, 67, completed 25 years of a 30-year sentence, according to records from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. He and his older brothers amassed immense wealth during the late 1970s and early 1980s as cocaine flooded the United States. By 1987, their fortune landed them on Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires. Ochoa operated a cocaine distribution hub in Miami, working within the cartel once led by Pablo Escobar.
Although his prominence diminished as the drug trade shifted from Colombia to Mexico, Ochoa regained public attention through the hit Netflix series Narcos. The series depicted him as the youngest son of a prestigious Medellín family involved in ranching and horse breeding, contrasting sharply with Escobar’s more humble origins.
Known by nicknames like “Julio” and “Pepe,” Ochoa was first indicted in the U.S. for his alleged role in the 1986 killing of DEA informant Barry Seal. Seal’s story was later dramatized in the 2017 film American Made, starring Tom Cruise.
Ochoa was initially arrested in Colombia in 1990 under a government program that assured drug lords they wouldn’t be extradited to the U.S. At the time, he was among the “Dozen Most Wanted” Colombian drug traffickers. In 2001, he faced extradition to the U.S. following an indictment in Miami that implicated him and over 40 others in a drug smuggling conspiracy. Of those charged, Ochoa was the only one to stand trial, which led to his conviction and lengthy prison sentence.
During the trial, jurors were transported in vans with tinted windows to maintain their anonymity, with their identities concealed even from lawyers and prosecutors, according to the BBC. Many of Ochoa’s co-defendants received lighter sentences after cooperating with the government.
Following his 1999 arrest, Ochoa famously put up billboards in Medellín and Bogotá proclaiming, “Yesterday I made a mistake. Today I am innocent.”
Richard Gregorie, a retired assistant U.S. attorney involved in Ochoa’s prosecution, noted that authorities never recovered all the illicit proceeds linked to the Ochoa family. He speculated Ochoa would return to Colombia far from destitute. “He won’t be retiring a poor man, that’s for sure,” Gregorie told the Associated Press.
Ochoa’s Miami-based attorney, Richard Klugh, declined to comment but had argued unsuccessfully in court that his client’s sentence was disproportionately long relative to the amount of cocaine authorities could directly tie to him.
Colombia continues to dominate global cocaine production, primarily supplying the United States and Europe. Last year, the nation set a new record for cocaine production and coca leaf cultivation. Just last week, the Colombian Navy announced a multinational operation that intercepted over 225 metric tons of cocaine, exposing a new trafficking route in the Pacific.
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