(New York) Colombia’s biggest drug trafficker, “Otoniel,” head of the Gulf Clan cartel, pleaded not guilty Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn to international cocaine trafficking charges pending against him after his extradition to the United States. United.
Updated yesterday at 6:29 p.m.
Dairo Antonio Usuga David, alias Otoniel, 50, was notably charged with directing a criminal enterprise between June 2003 and October 2021, and with international association of criminals to manufacture and distribute cocaine with the intention of export illegally to the United States, Brooklyn federal prosecutor Breon Peace said earlier.
If convicted, he faces life in prison.
He appeared before Federal Judge Vera Scanlon, handcuffed and dressed in the orange jumpsuit of American prisoners. The magistrate decided to place him in pre-trial detention, which he did not contest on Thursday, and the next hearing was set for June 2.
New Escobar
During a press conference which took place shortly before the hearing, the prosecutor referred to “one of the most dangerous and wanted drug kingpins in the world”, echoing the Colombian President, Ivan Duque, who Wednesday compared him to Pablo Escobar, the founder of the Medellín cartel shot dead by police in 1993.
The Colombian authorities claimed that the Gulf Clan, in retaliation, launched an operation to assassinate police and military.
No casualties have been reported so far, but in northwest Colombia, where the cartel is influential, Otoniel’s men have imposed an ‘armed strike’ until next Tuesday, according to a published notice. on social networks.
In the Bajo Cauca, six municipalities are on high alert due to the “obvious presence” of cartel members, according to Luis Fernando Suárez, secretary of the government of this Colombian department.
In other municipalities, vehicles were set on fire and schools were closed after individuals fired in the air near establishments.
“Otoniel” was arrested on October 23 in northwestern Colombia during a large military operation. He has been prosecuted for drug trafficking since 2009 in a New York court and his head was put on a price of 5 million dollars by the United States.
American justice considers that he was the “supreme leader” from 2012 to 2021 of the Gulf Clan, a criminal organization that could have counted up to 6,000 men depending on the period, and controlling part of the coastal department of Antioquia.
To control this territory, “he oversaw an army of henchmen who murdered, kidnapped and tortured victims, including members of Colombia’s law enforcement and military,” prosecutor Breon Peace charged.
Overdose epidemic
On Wednesday afternoon, a convoy of five armored police vehicles had transported Otoniel from a prison in the capital Bogota to a military airport, where he was handed over to agents of the United States Drug Enforcement (DEA). He had landed late in the evening in New York.
The United States accuses Mr. Usuga and the Gulf Clan of smuggling dozens of tons of cocaine onto American soil.
According to the indictment, between 2003 and 2021 “his clan attempted to export more than 90,000 kg of cocaine to the United States”, underlined the boss of the DEA, Anne Milgram, or according to her 2 billion dollars. dollars worth when sold on the street.
“The United States is today in the midst of an unprecedented overdose epidemic”, with “an American dying every five minutes in our country”, she recalled, pointing the finger at international cartels drug.
The extradition of Otoniel was presented as a success by Colombia, but relatives of his victims had asked for a “suspension” of the extradition, believing that this procedure would “hide from (Colombian) justice a paramilitary leader who has committed crimes against humanity in our country”.
They invoked their right to know the truth and to receive reparations.
Coming from a peasant family in the northwest of Colombia, Dairo Antonio Usuga David was a far-left guerrilla, then a far-right paramilitary, before becoming the head of the Gulf Clan. He had succeeded his brother Juan de Dios, known as “Giovanni”, killed by the police in 2012.