Who is Otoniel, Colombia's 'most violent' drug lord since Pablo Escobar sentenced to 45 years in US?

Disgraced Colombian drug trafficker Dairo Antonio Usuga David, better known as Otoniel, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States. The sentence was announced by a federal judge on Tuesday after Otoniel admitted to running a vast network of criminal operations and cocaine smuggling.

The notorious drug lord and the boss of a paramilitary group hasdrenched much of northern Colombia in blood. He had previously pleaded guilty to charges of drug distribution and running a criminal enterprise in a court in Brooklyn, New York.

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His violent paramilitary group is known as the Clan del Golfo or the Gulf Clan cartel.

While accepting his crimes and involvement in the drug cartel, Otoniel said in the court on Tuesday, “I apologise to the governments of the United States and of Colombia and to the victims of the crimes that I have committed”.

Who is Otoniel? ‘Most violent’ Colombian drug lord

Dario Antonio Usuga David or Otoniel was born to a modest peasant family in northwestern Colombia. At the age of 18, in 1989, he joined the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), a guerrilla group with a strong presence in the region. The group sought to defend poor peasants against landowners and the government.

“He was not a revolutionary. But it was all there was and he went with them," his mother explained in a 2015 interview with a journalist. The EPL signed a peace agreement with the government two years later, in 1991, and its members returned to civilian life. He then joined the United Self-Defenses of Colombia (AUC), a Colombian far-right paramilitary and drug trafficking group.

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In 2005, Úsuga began working for Daniel Rendón Herrera, the then-leader of the Los Urabeños drug trafficking group. Otoniel and his brother Giovanni took control of the Los Urabeños in 2009. After Giovanni was shot and killed during a police raid, Otoniel took full leadership of the drug trafficking group.

New York federal prosecutors described Úsuga as “the most violent and significant” Colombian drug trafficker since Pablo Escobar and as the Gulf Clan's "supreme leader."

He is accused of sending dozens of shipments of cocaine to the United States, killing police officers, recruiting minors, and sexually abusing children, among other crimes.

(With inputs from agencies)

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