NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 A Colombian man who was once one of the world's most-wanted drug lords pleaded guilty Wednesday to U.S. smuggling charges, admitting that he led a cartel and paramilitary group that trafficked in cocaine and deadly violence.
鈥淭ons of cocaine were moved with my permission or at my direction,鈥 Dairo Antonio 脷suga, better known as Otoniel, told a Brooklyn federal court.
鈥淭here was a lot of violence with the guerillas and the criminal gangs,鈥 he added, and acknowledged that 鈥渋n military work, homicides were committed.鈥
脷suga, 51, will face at least 20 years in prison when sentenced, prosecutors said. But the U.S. government agreed not to seek a life sentence in order to secure his extradition from Colombia earlier this year, according to U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry.
As part of his plea deal, he agreed to forfeit $216 million.
脷suga presided over the Gulf Clan, which terrorized much of northern Colombia to control major cocaine-smuggling routes. U.S. authorities have called him one of the most dangerous drug traffickers on the planet, and he .
鈥淲ith today鈥檚 guilty plea, the bloody reign of the most violent and significant Colombian narcotics trafficker since Pablo Escobar is over," Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
Defense lawyer Paul Nalven said 脷suga was 鈥渧ery remorseful鈥 and portrayed him as 鈥渁 child of the cycle of violence鈥 that has wracked Colombia throughout his life. 脷suga, who has a fourth-grade education, was dragooned at age 16 into guerrilla warfare, the attorney said.
After his arrest, 脷suga asked his cartel to stop attacking police, and he's hoping something fruitful comes of the among President Gustavo Petro's administration, the Gulf Clan and four other armed groups in hopes of fostering a lasting peace.
鈥淗e'd like to see a better Colombia,鈥 Nalven said.
The Gulf Clan, also known as the Gaitanist Self Defense Forces of Colombia, has thousands of military-garbed members who battle rival gangs, paramilitary groups, and Colombian authorities in order to keep a bloody hold on its turf near the Panama border, prosecutors said. Cocaine smuggling pays for it all 鈥 including, 脷suga admitted, via 鈥渢axes鈥 the group charges on any cocaine produced, stored or transported through its territory.
脷suga ordered the killing and torture of perceived enemies, offered bounties for slaying police and soldiers, and ordered up campaigns to go after them with military-grade weapons, according to prosecutors. He flexed his power by declaring 鈥渟trikes鈥 in which businesses had to shut down and people had to stay home 鈥 on pain of death 鈥 in the cartel's turf, prosecutors said.
脷suga was named in a series of U.S. indictments going back to 2009. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest, and the Colombian government offered $800,000. Over the years, Colombian authorities arrested or killed hundreds of cartel members, deployed over 1,000 police officers to hunt for the kingpin and publicized the U.S. reward .
But 脷suga through a combination of corruption, connections to both left- and right-wing combatants in his country's internal conflict 鈥 he'd been part of groups on both sides 鈥 and living off the grid in the countryside. He purportedly used a different safe house every night.
When he was apprehended, Iv谩n Duque said 脷suga was 鈥渘ot only the most dangerous drug trafficker in the world, but he is murderer of social leaders, abuser of boys, girls and adolescents, a murderer of policemen.鈥
脷suga was . He pleaded guilty Wednesday to leading a continuing criminal enterprise and various drug trafficking charges that involve nearly 97,000 kg (107 tons) of cocaine that was ultimately bound for the U.S.
