Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, a legendary figure from Colombia’s Medellin cocaine cartel, was released Tuesday from U.S. federal prison after serving 25 years of a 30-year sentence, prison records show.
Ochoa, 67, amassed a fortune with his brothers during cocaine’s surge into the U.S. market in the late 1970s and early 1980s, achieving such wealth that Forbes Magazine listed them among its billionaires in 1987. Operating from Miami, he managed a distribution center for the cartel then led by Pablo Escobar.
First indicted in the U.S. for alleged involvement in the 1986 killing of DEA informant Barry Seal – whose story inspired the 2017 film “American Made” – Ochoa was initially arrested in Colombia in 1990 under a program promising protection from U.S. extradition. At the time, he appeared on the U.S. “Dozen Most Wanted” Colombian drug lords list.
Following a 2001 extradition to face Miami drug trafficking charges, Ochoa became the only one among more than 40 defendants to go to trial rather than cooperate with prosecutors, resulting in his lengthy sentence.
“He won’t be retiring a poor man, that’s for sure,” said Richard Gregorie, retired Assistant U.S. Attorney who helped convict Ochoa, noting authorities never recovered all the family’s drug proceeds. Ochoa’s attorney, Richard Klugh, declined comment on the release.
