One of Colombia’s notorious drug lords and a key figure in the Medellin cartel, Fabio Ochoa, has returned to his home country after completing 25 years of a 30-year prison term in the United States.
Shortly after his arrival, he was granted his freedom once more.
Ochoa landed at Bogota’s El Dorado airport on Monday aboard a deportation flight. Wearing a gray sweatshirt and carrying his belongings in a plastic bag, he was met by immigration officials clad in bulletproof vests.
Notably absent at the scene were police officers to detain him.
Colombia’s national immigration agency issued a brief statement on X, confirming Ochoa’s release.
The statement explained he was “freed so that he could join his family” following routine procedures, including fingerprint verification and a database check that confirmed no active warrants against him in Colombia.
Now 67 years old, Ochoa and his elder brothers were instrumental in the Medellin cartel’s rise, profiting immensely during the late 1970s and early 1980s as cocaine infiltrated the U.S. market.
By 1987, the brothers’ immense wealth landed them on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires.
Ochoa, who once operated a distribution network for Pablo Escobar’s cartel in Miami, became embroiled in numerous legal battles.
While Escobar’s reign ended in 1993 when he was killed in a Medellin shootout, Ochoa’s legal troubles continued.
In 1986, Ochoa was indicted in the U.S. for his alleged role in the murder of Barry Seal, an American pilot turned informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Years later, in the early 1990s, he and his brothers Juan David and Jorge Luis surrendered to Colombian authorities, avoiding extradition to the U.S. through a negotiated deal.
Released from Colombian prison in 1996, Ochoa was arrested again in 1999 for drug trafficking.
In 2001, he was extradited to the United States under an indictment naming him and over 40 others as participants in a drug smuggling conspiracy.
Unlike most of his co-defendants who cooperated with authorities and received lighter sentences, Ochoa opted for trial, resulting in his conviction and a 30-year prison term.
While his prominence has faded amid the rise of Mexican cartels, Ochoa’s legacy lives on in pop culture.
He was portrayed in Netflix’s Griselda, depicted as both a rival and later an ally of drug trafficker Griselda Blanco, played by Sofia Vergara.
He also appears in the Netflix series Narcos as the youngest son of a prestigious Medellin family with interests in ranching and horse breeding, a stark contrast to Pablo Escobar’s humbler origins.
A former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Ochoa, Richard Gregorie, reflected on the cartel leader’s return.
“He won’t be retiring a poor man, that’s for sure,” Gregorie remarked earlier this month, noting that authorities were unable to confiscate all of the Ochoa family’s illicit drug profits.
