Legendary drug cartel leader Fabio Ochoa Vazquez has been extradited to Colombia after his release from a US prison

One of Colombia’s legendary drug lords The main operator of the Medellin cartel has been deported to the South American country, after serving 25 years of a 30-year prison sentence in the United States.

Shortly after, Fabio Ochoa was a free man again.

Ochoa arrived at El Dorado Airport in Bogota on a deportation flight on Monday, wearing a gray jacket and carrying his personal belongings in a plastic bag. After exiting the plane, the former cartel boss was greeted by immigration officials wearing bulletproof vests. There were no police on site to arrest him.

Colombia’s National Migration Agency immediately posted a brief statement on the social media platform

Ochoa, 67, and his older brothers amassed a fortune when cocaine began flowing into the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to US authorities, to the point that in 1987 they were included in Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires.

While living in Miami, Ochoa ran a distribution center for the cocaine cartel he once headed Pablo Escobar. Escobar died in a shootout with authorities in Medellin in 1993.

Ochoa was first indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1986 murder of Barry Seal, an American pilot who flew cocaine flights for the Medellin Cartel but became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Ochoa turned himself in with his two older brothers, Juan David and Jorge Luis, to Colombian authorities in the early 1990s under a deal that avoided extradition to the United States.

The three brothers were released from prison in 1996, but Ochoa was arrested again three years later on drug trafficking charges and extradited to the United States in 2001 in response to an indictment in Miami naming him and more than 40 people as part of a drug trafficking conspiracy. .

He was the only suspect in that group who chose to stand trial, leading to his conviction and 30-year prison sentence. The other defendants received much lighter prison terms because most of them cooperated with the government.

Ochoa’s name faded from popular memory as Mexican drug traffickers took center stage in the global drug trade.

But the former Medellin cartel member was recently cast in the Netflix series Griselda, where he first battles plucky businesswoman Griselda Blanco for control of Miami’s cocaine market, then forges an alliance with the drug lord, played by Sofía Vergara.

Ochoa was also photographed in Narcos series on NetflixAs the youngest son of an elite Medellin ranching and horse-breeding family, he contrasted sharply with Escobar, who came from more humble roots.

Authorities have never been able to confiscate all of the Ochoa family’s illicit drug proceeds, and he expects the former Mafia boss will make a welcome return to his homeland, said Richard Gregory, a retired assistant U.S. attorney who was on the prosecution team that convicted Ochoa.

“He’s not going to retire a poor man, that’s for sure,” Gregory told The Associated Press earlier this month.