Brother of powerful Colombian senator pleads guilty to narcotics charge

New York (AP):

The brother of a powerful leftist senator in Colombia pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal narcotics charges as part of a sting in which he offered to introduce US drug informants to dissident guerrillas who could help smuggle huge quantities of cocaine to New York.

Álvaro Córdoba, dressed in prison garb, entered a plea in Manhattan federal court to a single count of conspiring to send 500 grams (17 ounces) or more of cocaine into the US. He will be sentenced to a mandatory five years in prison, but could also face more than two decades behind bars under sentencing laws. His plea does not contain any promise to cooperate with law enforcement.

“I knew that the cocaine would end up in the United States, and I knew what I was doing was wrong,” Córdoba, who will be sentenced in April, told Judge Lewis J. Liman.

Córdoba, 64, was arrested in Medellin, Colombia, in 2022 and extradited to the US almost a year ago by President Gustavo Petro, who was elected with the support of Córdoba’s sister, Senator Piedad Córdoba. The case was something of a minefield for Petro, given his historic ties to the left as a former rebel himself and his newfound role as commander-in-chief of security forces that have long served as the United States’ caretaker in fighting narcotics smuggling in the South American nation.

Piedad Córdoba has been a harsh US critic who, under previously conservative Colombian rule, promoted closer ties to Venezuela’s socialist government and more support for traditionally overlooked Afro-Colombian communities.

While prosecutors have not accused the senator of any involvement in the drug conspiracy, her brother’s court-appointed attorney, John Zach, suggested in an October hearing that agents for the US Drug Enforcement Administration instructed informants to target the politician. And the senator herself likened the sting against her and her brother to the manhunt decades ago that brought down Medellin cartel boss Pablo Escobar.

But her complaints of “political persecution” fell on deaf ears, with Petro signing off on Córdoba’s extradition shortly after he was elected.