Aldemar Soto-Charry, 64, a senior member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has been sentenced to 78 months in federal jail for planning to distribute cocaine to be brought into the United States, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
Soto-Charry, who goes by the name “El Ingeniero,” admitted guilt on October 11, 2024, to being part of a plan to sell over 500 grams of cocaine and helping with that crime, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
The department said that Soto-Charry sold more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine for a Mexican gang, aware that it would end up in the U.S.
The Drug Enforcement Administration started focusing on Colombian criminals connected to FARC in 2018, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
That year, the office reported that Soto-Charry told undercover agents that FARC leaders wanted to hide $10 million made from drugs by investing it in real estate in Panama, which included building a medical center.
The U.S. attorney’s office stated that Soto-Charry talked about cocaine labs run by FARC and said the group could provide up to 2,000 kilograms of cocaine every few weeks.
From October 2018 to July 2019, the office said Soto-Charry met with undercover agents pretending to be middlemen for the Mexican Gulf Cartel. They talked about the quality and price of cocaine and how to smuggle it.
In these talks, the office mentioned that Soto-Charry’s partners helped send a sample of cocaine and talked about how to smuggle it into the U.S.
The U.S. attorney’s office revealed that his associates brought a five-kilogram sample and shared plans for bigger deliveries.
His co-defendant, Mauricio Mazabel-Soto, was sentenced to 73 months in prison, while another co-defendant, Alfredo Molina-Cutiva, got a 70-month sentence, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
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