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Evergreen Reporter

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Colombian drug smuggler sentenced for trafficking over one ton of cocaine

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Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General | https://www.justice.gov/

Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General | https://www.justice.gov/

A Colombian national was sentenced on July 17, 2024, to 65 months in prison for smuggling 1,550 kilograms of cocaine in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Edgar Parades Sanchez pled guilty to the drug smuggling offense.

Documents filed with the court in connection with his guilty plea established that on November 7, 2023, while on routine patrol in the eastern Pacific Ocean, a marine patrol aircraft located a target of interest Go Fast Vessel (GFV) approximately 105 nautical miles south of Panama. United States Coast Guard Cutter Waesche was patrolling nearby and diverted to intercept the vessel.

The cutter Waesche launched its small boats and a helicopter to investigate. When the helicopter arrived on scene, the vessel went dead in the water. The small boats launched from the cutter arrived on the scene and a team began boarding the GFV. The boarding team encountered four people on board the vessel, including Edgar Parades Sanchez. The GFV had no physical flag flown, no homeport on the hull, no registration numbers on the hull and no name on the hull. The master of the vessel made a claim of Costa Rican nationality for the vessel. The country of Costa Rica was contacted and could neither confirm nor deny the nationality of the vessel. The vessel was thus considered a Vessel Without Nationality under United States law.

The four people on board the vessel and the cocaine found on it were removed to USCG Cutter Waesche. The vessel was sunk by the Coast Guard due to it being a hazard to navigation because of its distance from land, lack of suitable tow points, absence of navigational lights, and excessive fuel onboard. The final at-sea weight of the cocaine was 1,550 kilograms. The wholesale value of the cocaine seized is conservatively valued at approximately $46 million.

The three people on board with Sanchez were Abelardo Castellon, Jorge Escobar Mejia, and Kainor Antonio Nicolas Castellon. They were previously sentenced by the court.

The case was investigated by United States Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Investigations. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney George F. May.

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