Columbian National Police launched this photograph of “Prince of the Semisubmersibles” Quintero Rengifo following his arrest in 2021
So lengthy as cocaine continues to be probably the most worthwhile cargo that may be transported by sea, so referred to as “narco subs,” or extra precisely semi-submersibles, will continue to present a tricky target for authorities. One one who will now not be benefiting from their operation is the person Columbian media dubbed the “Prince of the Semi-Submersibles,” Oscar Adriano Quintero Rengifo, a/ok/a “Guatala.” The 35 12 months previous Colombian nationwide goes to be in a U.S. federal jail for a very long time
Yesterday in Tampa, Fla., U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell sentenced Rengifo to twenty years and 10 months in jail for smuggling cocaine into the United States of America.
Rengifo was arrested in Colombia on the request of the United States on January 29, 2021, and extradited to the United States on January 26, 2022. He pleaded responsible on May 20, 2022.
According to the plea settlement filed within the case, says the Department of Justice, Rengifo was a part of a transnational felony group that smuggled cocaine from South America to Central America for final importation into the U.S. The group primarily despatched vessels together with self-propelled semi-submersible vessels to Guatemala, the place the cocaine was then smuggled over the Guatemala/Mexican border after which into the United States. A former mayor in Guatemala, who managed drug routes in northern Guatemala into Mexico, oversaw the smuggling of cocaine to Mexican cartel members.
According to the Department of Justice, Rengifo progressed throughout the group, from organizing smuggling operations, to in the end investing in shipments and securing traders.
From at the least as early as January 2015 via September 2019, the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted at the least 4 vessels, together with two semi-submersible vessels, instantly linked to the defendant’s group, and involving greater than 13,000 kilograms of cocaine.
The case was investigated by the Panama Express Strike Force, a standing Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) comprised of brokers and analysts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service, and the U.S. Southern Command’s Joint Interagency Task Force South. The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs and the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section (NDDS) Judicial Attachés in Bogotá, Colombia, considerably assisted in in securing the arrest and extradition of the defendant to the United States. The Government of Colombia and the Colombian Office of the Attorney General supplied important help and assist.
