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Tuesday, August 8, 2023

"Otoniel" Dairo Antonio Úsuga, Former Head of the Clan del Golfo in Colombia Sentenced to 45 Years in US Prison

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat


For years, the man known as Otoniel was seen as one of the world’s most dangerous drug lords, the elusive boss of a cartel and paramilitary group with a blood-drenched grip on much of northern Colombia. On Tuesday, Dairo Antonio Úsuga said he was “accepting responsibility for the crimes that I have committed” as he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the US.

“I apologize to the governments of the United States and of Colombia and to the victims of the crimes that I have committed,” Úsuga, 51, said through a court interpreter.

The former leader of the notorious Clan del Golfo, or Gulf Clan, had pleaded guilty in January to high-level drug trafficking charges, admitting he oversaw the smuggling of tons of US-bound cocaine and acknowledging “there was a lot of violence.”

The US agreed not to seek a life sentence in order to get him extradited from Colombia, where he faces the prospect of further prosecution if he survives long enough to be released in the States.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the 45-year sentence showed the nation would hold criminal kingpins accountable, “no matter where they are and no matter how long it takes,” for harming Americans.


Úsuga and his lawyers sought to cast him as a product of his homeland’s woes — remote rural hardship, surrounded by guerilla warfare, recruited into it at age 16, and hardened by decades of losing friends, fellow soldiers, and loved ones to violence.

“Having been born into a region of great conflict, I grew up within this conflict,” he said in court, advising young people “not to take the path that I have taken.”

“We should leave armed conflicts in the past,” he added.

But U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry, invoking her own childhood in a South Bronx housing complex that she said was wracked with drug dealing and violence, told the kingpin that environment was no excuse. “People growing up in these communities, who have the will and have the desire, work their way out of it,” she said, telling Úsuga that he had chances “to leave this life behind — and you didn’t.”

For decades, nearly every Colombian’s life has been touched by the country’s many-sided conflict. A mishmash of leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups, narcotraffickers, and other bands of criminals have warred for control of mountainous swaths of the country.

The violence has claimed the lives of more than 1 million people and left millions more forcibly displaced, disappeared, and otherwise harmed, according to data from the country’s Victim’s Unit. The government has sought to sign peace accords with the armed groups but has struggled to consolidate peace in a complex conflict rooted in rural poverty and lack of opportunities.

Úsuga fought alongside both left- and right-wing combatants at different points in his life before becoming part and then supreme leader of the Gulf Clan, known as one of Colombia’s most powerful and brutal forces. He was the country’s most-wanted kingpin before his arrest in 2021, and he had been under indictment in the US since 2009.

The Gulf Clan, also known as the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (or AGC). The Colombian group holds sway in an area rich with smuggling routes for drugs, weapons, and migrants. Boasting military-grade weaponry and thousands of members, the group has fought rival gangs, paramilitary groups, and Colombian authorities. It financed its rule by imposing “taxes” on cocaine produced, stored, or transported through its territory. As part of Úsuga’s plea deal, he agreed to forfeit $216 million.

Úsuga ordered killings of perceived enemies, one of whom was tortured, buried alive, and beheaded, and terrorized the public at large, prosecutors say. They say the kingpin ordered up a days-long, stay-home-or-die “strike” after his brother was killed in a police raid, and he offered bounties for the lives of police and soldiers, even $70,000 for a police dog.

Even for a prosecutor’s office that has won trafficking convictions of such figures as Mexican drug baron Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and former Mexican Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, Úsuga was a major target. Brooklyn-based US Attorney Peace said in a statement that the misery spawned by Úsuga’s “incredibly violent, vengeful, and bloody reign” might never be fully calculated.

“The damage that this man named Otoniel has caused to our family is unfathomable,” relatives of slain police officer Milton Eliecer Flores Arcila wrote to the court. The widow of Officer John Gelber Rojas Colmenares, killed in 2017, said Úsuga “took away the chance I had of growing old with the love of my life.”

“All I am asking for is justice for my daughter, for myself, for John’s family, for his friends, and in honor of my husband, that his death not go unpunished,” she wrote. All the relatives’ names were redacted in court filings.

Despite manhunts and US and Colombian rewards offering $5 million in total, Úsuga long evaded capture, partly by rotating through a network of rural safe houses. After his arrest, Gulf Clan members attempted a cyanide poisoning of a potential witness against him and tried to kill the witness’ lawyer, according to prosecutors.

Source AP News

16 comments:

  1. Theres is no excuse i was born in Sinaloa basically born a soldier in a war. Againgst all odds i chose a diffrent path , im still a soldier but a soldier of justice a soldier of hard work and dedication a soldier who contributes to the existences of mankind a key figure in these world excuses are for those who fear the consequences of their actions i don't fear the consequences because i know i have done rigth
    -American Sinaloa -

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    1. @American Sinaloa I commend you! Are you American Citizen or Both?!

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    2. Sound like a good man take care 👍😀

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    3. Nobody cares about your fake story cause its obvious you ain't with the business.

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    4. So cause your born in Sinaloa your a soldier against all odds jaja.acting like he was imprisoned and couldn’t do anything .Looking at the mirror feeling like your soldier everyday huh.

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    5. Foo you act like everyone in sinaloa is in the drug game. I live in Culiacán and I can tell you the majority of people here are hardworking families. People trying to live decent lives. Ive lived in various colonias and gated communities over the past 8 years until my wife and I purchased our home. I can tell you the majority of people I have met here aside from family are hard working people. They’re the heart of the city not the cartel members aside from popular belief. The only thing the cartel has done here in exploit the poorest and most uneducated people and most came from southern mexico and are descendants of field workers that came here in the 80s who got pulled into that bullshit of a life. Most natives from here can’t stand the cartel because of their arrogance and the way the treat people. Most people here make a decent living from cattle and agriculture as a side hustle to their jobs/careers here in the city.

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  2. They (Clan del Golfo de Colombia 🇨🇴) reportedly have the best cocaine quality consistency and stamp the kilos with a beautiful Dolphin emblem.

    You know your cocaine is stepped on by Los Chapitos and the rest if the bundles don’t come with the right color paks.

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    1. Lmfao no way Ivan is generous enough to not cut our blow

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  3. Damn thats a long time. It aint worth it.

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  4. Off topic. I came across a video of (El Tena) capo belonging to CABALLEROS TEMPLARIOS. Hes in the sierra, with military gear on and in a blindada with his men keeping vigilance on the uphill terrain

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  5. All the fanboy and girls need to look into how ontonel was living. Thats how your boys mencho and mayo live its not as glamourous as you think.

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    1. Exactly. Ontiel was living deep in the jungle, in a new place everyday, traveling by mule. He didn’t get to enjoy his billions at all. Wasn’t La Tuta living in a cave? When you’re a top narco, you live worse than Bin Laden. Stay low, make 100 million, then bounce to Curaçao. Fuck being top dog.

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    2. Its just a problem for Couch potatoes but not if you are used to it. Being out in the sierra or the mountains instead of some condo is nice

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    3. @9:20. I agree completely. To literally sell your soul, committing unimaginable atrocities upon human beings , and to further enrich yourself , when you cannot even enjoy the ill gotten gains . So some will wonder ,why do it in the first place ? His ego is the reason he could not retire, once he had an amount of money that would be considered generational wealth. I know he isn’t filing tax returns, so we don’t know his actual fortune, but I can assume it would be in the few billions . His ego is why he couldn’t stop while he was ahead . He felt he would be nothing without the image he was perceived by others . The power , the fear he made others feel etc… all of it . Most of the time this is what happens with narco traffickers . And those who are on the outside looking in, tell ourselves “ why didn’t he get out the game “ , why didn’t he just take the money and live happily for the rest of his life “. I remember years ago when I myself, finally gave up being in the “game”. It wasn’t the fact that I would have to make legal money from now on, but the fact that being a drug dealer ….was my identity. It wasn’t even amount of money I would no longer be receiving. It was the fact that I felt without the title of “drug dealer” I was nothing . I went through months and months of depression and even went back for a few months, until an almost successful morning raid about costed me a career criminal sentence in federal prison. Only looking back now can I see the psychology of it all . And I thank God, for giving me the thousands of chances to get my life together

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    4. Otoniel grew up poor as fuck living in the jungle was not that bad. But 45 years in prison thats fucked up. All the money in the world not worth it.

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