Spectacular security operation to extradite Colombian drug lord to US (video-photo)

Dairo Antonio Usuga David was seen armored by hundreds of soldiers as he boarded the plane towards the US.

The Colombian, otherwise known as ‘Otoniel’, is considered the head of the Gulf cartel and was one of the most wanted in the country, until his sudden capture late last year.

He arrived at the airport today in an armored vehicle accompanied by dozens of armed police and military.

Colombian President Ivan Duque has compared Usuga David to the infamous former drug lord Escobar, once the head of the Colombian cartel Medellin.

Duque added that the extradition to be tried by US officials: “He is not only a dangerous trafficker, but a murderer of social leaders, a sexual abuser and a police officer.”

Colombia has been facing a decades-long war on drug traffickers, declared by President Duque, but has been called by his critics a force majeure amid widespread corruption by the country’s officials.

Otoniel reportedly paid bribes to state officials for decades by forming illegal alliances with right-wing and left-wing politicians.

Wearing a bulletproof vest and bulletproof vest he was moved yesterday from prison in the capital Bogota to a military transport airfield.

Otoniel is reported to have trafficked 180 to 200 tonnes of cocaine a year, and authorities say he is responsible for hundreds of security forces killings.

But he was also wanted in the US for crimes such as drug trafficking, conspiracy and illegal possession of weapons.

Otoniel’s lawyers had called for a ban on his extradition and demanded that he testify about Colombia’s internal conflict by uncovering links between the military, politics and armed trafficking groups.

Colombia had banned the practice of extradition to the United States in 1991 but returned in 1997.

Officials said Otoniel was caught in an extensive operation involving hundreds of people and dozens of aircraft, without giving details of the time and place of the incident.

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