One of the founders of the Medellin drug cartel has returned to Colombia after serving more than 20 years in prison in the United States for drug trafficking.
Fabio Ochoa Vázquez, now 67, was deported by the U.S. government and arrived in Bogotá on Monday a free man.
Ochoa was one of the founding members of the infamous cartel and a lieutenant of notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar.
The Medellin cartel controlled the cocaine trade and waged a violent campaign against the Colombian government until Escobar was murdered in 1993.
Immediately after Ochoa arrived in Bogotá, immigration officials ran his fingerprints through a database, the country’s immigration office said.
Colombian authorities confirmed Ochoa was not wanted and said Ochoa was released “to reunite with his family.”
With numerous reporters gathered at the airport terminal, Ochoa was welcomed by relatives and hugged his daughter.
Ochoa was arrested in Colombia in 1999 along with about 30 suspected human traffickers and extradited to the United States in 2001.
He had already served time in Colombia in the early 90s as one of the leaders of the Medellin cartel. Along with his brothers, he was the first major trafficker to surrender under a program that prevents cartel members from being extradited to the United States if they plead guilty to minor crimes in Colombia.
Ochoa and his brothers were released from prison in 1996, but Ochoa was arrested once again during the so-called Operation Millennium in the late 1990s for his alleged involvement in a U.S. cocaine smuggling operation.
In 2003, Ochoa was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison by a U.S. court for his involvement in a cartel that brought an average of 30 tons of cocaine into the United States each month from 1997 to 1999.
In the 1980s, he was one of the top operators of Escobar’s Medellin ring, a supplier at its peak that accounted for 80% of the U.S. cocaine market.
The defunct Medellin Cartel, along with the Cali Cartel, was one of the most powerful and feared drug networks of the 1980s.
Extraditions of drug suspects between Colombia and the United States were halted due to a violent campaign of bombings and assassinations, but resumed in 1997.
