Who is daniel barrera

Treasury Department as a special designated narcotics trafficker. He was arrested last September in Venezuela. He was then sent to Colombia, where the U. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a release that Barrera's organization produced as much as tons of cocaine annually and used some of the proceeds to fund terrorist groups, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or the FARC.

Authorities said he purchased raw cocaine base or paste from the FARC and converted it into powder at laboratories he owned and operated in an area of Colombia once controlled by the since-demobilized terrorist group, Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia or AUC.

James Dinkins, executive assistant director of the U. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's "ICE" Homeland Security Investigations, said Barrera and his co-conspirators are accused of running one of the largest cocaine trafficking operations in history. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch in Brooklyn, where Barrera also is facing charges, called Barrera "the kingpin of a stunningly prolific Colombian drug cartel, which flooded the globe with its deadly product.

She said the money he provided terrorist organizations in Colombia was "responsible for decades of death and destruction in Colombia, all to ensure his deadly business ran smoothly. It does in the original Spanish. Fair point.

Well, isn't that marvellous! The drug war is over and the good guys won. Alas, the international drug trade was not entirely stitched up by these three arrests. There is still much to be done, especially as Peru is due to overtake Colombia as the world's largest producer of cocaine. There's always something, isn't there?

There is. Here, try this white powder — it'll take your mind off things. Do say: "Barrera escaped from his Colombian prison eight months after his first arrest in I wouldn't sleep too soundly yet. Daniel Barrera - pass notes No 3, Better known as 'El Loco', the Colombian drug lord's arrest has been declared a huge victory in the war against drugs.

At the time of his capture, Barrera was being investigated by Colombian authorities for drug trafficking, money laundering, and homicide. In October , Barrera pleaded guilty in a US court for conspiracy to launder tens of millions of dollars in drug profits. According to Colombian and foreign counternarcotics officials, Barrera operated in the Eastern Plains, principally the provinces of Meta, Vichada, Casanare and Guaviare.

Barrera himself was alleged to operate in the Vichada province of Colombia and in parts of Venezuela , where he allegedly had the protection of local officials. Barrera also used Venezuela as a storage and staging point to send drugs to Europe. He also used West Africa as a transit point for drugs shipped to Europe. Intelligence sources told InSight Crime that in the years leading up to his arrest, he spent most of his time in Venezuela in order to have more security against prosecution and extradition.

Barrera succeeded in bringing seemingly disparate political forces together for business purposes. His alliances with Cuchillo in the early part of the s and with Comba in the latter part of the same decade put Barrera among the most formidable of Colombian traffickers. One of these alliances was with another major Colombian drug trafficker known as Don Lucho. However, although Barrera was known to work with Don Lucho, and likely performed some security jobs for him, evidence shows that he was almost certainly a powerful drug trafficker in his own right who managed his own profitable cocaine business separate from his connections with Don Lucho.

According to information from confidential informants in the indictments against him, Barrera moved up to tons of cocaine per year between and , earning hundreds of millions of dollars of drug proceeds along the way. Two months after his capture in Venezuela, Barrera was deported to Colombia in November In , Barrera pleaded guilty in a US federal court to conspiring to launder tens of millions of dollars in drug money, as well as to drug trafficking charges.

In July , Barrera was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in the cocaine trafficking conspiracy. We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.