US sentences ex-Colombian spy to 12 years in prison on drug charges

WASHINGTON

A former Colombian military intelligence officer was sentenced on Tuesday to 12 years behind bars after being found guilty of trafficking thousands of kilograms of cocaine.

Fabian Humberto Tovar Caicedo, 41, a sergeant in Colombia's Army Intelligence, is one of five members of Colombia's military and National Police that have been sentenced in US courts on charges related to cocaine trafficking with some shipments including up to 10,000 kilograms of cocaine. The drugs were shipped from Colombia to Mexico for distribution in the US, according to prosecutors.

Tovar Caicedo was convicted of conspiring to send the shipments from 2017-2018, working on behalf of a drug trafficking organization, bribing a Colombian police officer to facilitate the shipments, and using his military training to encrypt phones.

Three fellow defendants -- Fragoso D’Acunti, Fabian Andres Leyton Vargas, and Antonio Aldemar Avila Acevedo -- were each sentenced to 12 years. Jose Mauricio Castaneda Garzon, a fifth co-conspirator, was handed a sentence of over seven years.

Leyton Vargas, an ex-Colombian Air Force officer, met Tovar Caicedo during military training in the US, according to the Justice Department.

Two shipments of cocaine totaling nearly 4,000 kilograms were intercepted by Colombian law enforcement before they could leave the country's ports. Additional shipments were seized at the US port in Savannah, Georgia, the department said.