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A notorious drug lord with ties to Pablo Escobar has been deported from the United States after serving 25 years in a federal prison.
What’s the deal: In an announcement, Colombian authorities confirmed the return of Fabio Ochoa Vásquez, a notorious Medellín Cartel member who served 25 years of a 30-year prison sentence in the United States. Ochoa was convicted in 2001 for his role in a massive drug trafficking conspiracy that smuggled an estimated 30 tons of cocaine per month into the US between 1997 and 1999.
Ochoa played a pivotal role in the Medellín Cartel, which dominated the global cocaine trade under the leadership of Pablo Escobar. As the youngest of three brothers heavily involved in the cartel, Ochoa oversaw key logistical operations, including the management of a Miami-based distribution center for cocaine. His ties to Escobar were instrumental in building the cartel’s empire, which at its peak was generating billions of dollars annually. Ochoa and his brothers, once listed as billionaires by Forbes magazine, turned themselves into Colombian authorities in the early 1990s under a deal that avoided extradition but resumed trafficking after their release.
Digging deeper: The Medellín Cartel, once the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world, disbanded in the 1990s following the death of its leader, Pablo Escobar, in 1993 and the arrests or deaths of its key figures, including the Ochoa brothers. While the cartel itself no longer exists in its original form, its legacy lives on in Colombia’s ongoing status as the world’s largest cocaine exporter. Many of its networks and operational methods were absorbed by other criminal groups or restructured into smaller, fragmented organizations.
Ochoa’s criminal legacy has been popularized by Hollywood, most notably through Netflix series like Narcos and Griselda. In Narcos, Ochoa is portrayed as the youngest member of the Medellín Cartel’s founding family. In Griselda, Ochoa appears as a rival to the infamous drug trafficker Griselda Blanco before forging an alliance to dominate Miami’s cocaine market.
