Ex-narcotics Trafficker Fabio Ochoa’s Release from U.S. Prison Postponed Until 2025

In a surprising decision, the US justice system has agreed to postpone the release from prison of former Colombian drug trafficker Fabio Ochoa, which was initially scheduled for September of this year. The postponement until 2025 is a mystery, as the former member of the Medellin Cartel in the 1980s and 1990s is serving a 33-year sentence in a prison in Georgia, United States, but has received reduced sentences for good behavior and collaboration with the justice system.

The news has come as a surprise to lawyers and family members of the dangerous drug trafficker who was, along with his brothers Jorge and Juan David, the founder of the criminal gang that subjugated an entire country 35 years ago. Captured in October 1999, Colombian President Andres Pastrana authorized his extradition to the United States in 2001. Two years later, he was sentenced for human trafficking, conspiracy, criminality and cocaine distribution to 33 years in a U.S. federal prison.

Incarcerated for more than two decades

Ochoa, now 66 years old, has been in prison for more than two decades. In prison he has developed inventions related to renewable energies and, according to prison reports, he has had good behavior, a fact that has favored reductions in his sentence.

Taking into account these reductions, he was initially scheduled to be released from prison in September of this year, with a more than certain deportation to his country of origin, Colombia. However, the newspaper El Tiempo has revealed a change in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, postponing the release until next year.

As for the reasons, it is known that they will only be explained to the prisoner and his lawyers, so they will not be made public for now.

Doubts about payment of the defense

Another of the dark episodes of this case, which has been in suspense for more than ten years, is the origin of the funds with which Fabio Ochoa is paying the costs of his defense. The Attorney General’s Office has been investigating for years the origin of these resources, which in light of recent revelations include the participation of Guillermo Angel, known as Guillo, a pilot linked to the Ochoa family clan.

According to information from the newspaper El Tiempo, alias Guillo, who appeared in the 1990s as part of the so-called Twelve from the gallows, has been summoned for indictment by the Attorney General’s Office for his role in coordinating Ochoa’s defense, under suspicion of money laundering and illicit enrichment.

Facing alias Popeye, head of the cartel’s hitmen and Escobar’s right-hand man, who died in 2020 after serving 23 years in prison in Colombia, Guillo and the Twelve from the gallows were Pablo Escobar’s informers, helping to locate and kill the criminal leader in December 1993.

Now, the investigations are focusing on alias Guillo, who is the subject of significant doubts about illicit money laundering activities that were allegedly used to pay for Fabio Ochoa’s defense.