Colombian Paramilitary Leader Jailed

News Americas, WASHINGTON, D.C., Weds. July 1, 2015: A senior paramilitary leader and one of Colombia’s most notorious drug traffickers will spend the next 15 years of his life in prison for leading an international drug trafficking conspiracy that imported into the United States ton-quantities of cocaine.

Salvatore Mancuso-Gomez, aka El Mono and Santander Lozada, formerly of Monteria, Colombia, was sentenced 190 months in prison this week by U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the District of Columbia.

Mancuso-Gomez had pleaded guilty in October 2008 to one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine knowing and intending that it would be imported into the United States.

“Through his leadership position in the AUC, Salvatore Mancuso-Gomez directed the manufacture and shipment of over 100,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States and elsewhere,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.  “In addition to enriching himself, Mancuso-Gomez and the AUC used this drug money to raise and arm a paramilitary force of more than 30,000 fighters and cement his control over regions of Colombia.  This case is yet another example of our continued commitment to collaborating with our international partners to prosecute criminals and warlords who traffic in illegal narcotics, violence and intimidation.”