A drug kingpin with longtime ties to the Venezuelan government was sentenced Monday to life in prison plus 30 years after being convicted in 2023 on cocaine trafficking and weapons charges, federal prosecutors said.
Carlos Orense Azocar was found guilty after a two-week trial in the Southern District of New York of conspiring with high-ranking Venezuelan officials and members of Venezuela's military and intelligence agencies to distribute tons of cocaine to the U.S., according to the Department of Justice.
"Carlos Orense Azocar is one of the most prolific cocaine traffickers ever sentenced in this courthouse, responsible for the distribution of hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States," Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District, said in a news release.
"Orense Azocar and his co-conspirators, including high-ranking government and military officials, inflicted incalculable damage on this community."
According to court records, Orense Azocar, alias "El Gordo," or "the Fat Man," worked with members of Cartel de Los Soles, or the Cartel of the Suns, and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia guerrillas to send boats and planes laden with cocaine to Central America and transit points in the Caribbean, with the U.S. as the ultimate destination.
Orense Azocar was arrested in Italy in May 2021 and extradited a year later to New York. At the time of his arrest, he was considered one of the most significant figures in the operations of Cartel de Los Soles, which the Trump administration designated as a foreign terrorist organization in November.
Beginning in 2003, the DOJ said Orense Azocar and his drug trafficking organization distributed tons of cocaine destined for importation into the U.S. He helped transport, receive, and distribute loads ranging from hundreds to thousands of pounds from Venezuela to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and other locations using air and maritime routes.
Orense Azocar operated fincas, or ranches, in Venezuela, where he stored cocaine in underground tanks along with hundreds of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition, prosecutors said.
The properties also contained clandestine landing strips from which he dispatched airplanes loaded with cocaine.
He also loaded cocaine onto "go fast" boats that sped from the Venezuelan coast to intermediate delivery points in the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic and areas near Puerto Rico.
To facilitate his trafficking operation, the DOJ said Orense Azocar paid bribes to high-ranking officials in the Venezuelan government, including military generals and army officials, national police commissioners, and senior officials in Venezuelan intelligence agencies.
Those connections secured access to military-grade weapons, protection from military and law enforcement raids, and safe passage for cocaine convoys through checkpoints.
They also provided fraudulent aircraft transponder codes that allowed cocaine-laden planes to leave Venezuela undetected en route to Central America and Mexico, according to prosecutors.
Orense Azocar further partnered with armed guerrilla forces operating in Colombia and Venezuela to source cocaine and secure safe passage for shipments.
"Carlos Orense Azocar was a criminal kingpin who built an empire on deception, fraud and bribery," Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole said in the news release.
"Orense Azocar's close ties to the Venezuelan government provided resources to help him evade law enforcement and move massive shipments of cocaine across the Western Hemisphere.
"Today's sentence sends a clear message: DEA will relentlessly pursue and hold international drug traffickers accountable, no matter how far they run or how powerful they believe themselves to be."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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