International Cocaine Trafficker Gets 17 Years In Prison

Tampa FL

12 November, 2021

6:13 PM

Description

TAMPA, FL — International Colombian cocaine trafficker and money launderer, "El Doctor," will spend more than 17 years in federal prison after being sentenced in Tampa Friday. U.S. District Judge Susan C. Bucklew sentenced Diego Fernando Cardona Lozano, 46, of Cali, Colombia, also known as "El Doctor" and "Pomada," to 17 years and 6 months in federal prison for conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and conspiring to commit international money laundering. The court also ordered Cardona Lozano to forfeit approximately $1.4 million traceable to proceeds from his offenses. Cardona Lozano pleaded guilty on Dec. 20, 2019. According to court documents, Cardona Lozano was the leader of a transnational criminal organization that used the port of Buenaventura, Colombia, to distribute thousands of kilograms of cocaine worldwide and launder drug proceeds from other countries back to Colombia through the Black Market Peso Exchange. The organization concealed cocaine within legitimate shipping containers bound for ports of entry worldwide by obtaining shipping manifests to identify particular destinations where associates could retrieve the cocaine with the assistance of corrupt port employees and officials. More than 2,000 kilograms of cocaine were seized in Colombia, Mexico and Costa Rica in connection with this conspiracy. In addition, money laundering activities carried out in North America, Australia and the Netherlands were tied to the organization. This case was investigated by the Panama Express Strike Force, a standing Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force comprised of agents and analysts from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the U.S. Southern Command's Joint Interagency Task Force South.