Colombian drug kingpin pleads guilty

A Colombian drug kingpin admitted leading a cartel that sent more than $10 billion worth of cocaine to the United States and pleaded guilty yesterday to US racketeering charges, the Justice Department said.

Luis Hernando Gomez-Bustamante, also known as "Rasguno," pleaded guilty in Washington, DC, federal court to being a leader of the Norte Valle cartel. Since 1990, the group has exported more than 500,000 kg (1.1 million pounds) of cocaine, worth more than $10 billion, from Colombia to Mexico and ultimately to the United States, the department said.

It said the cartel engaged in murder, drug smuggling, money laundering and bribery, and relied on the paramilitary organization Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, or AUC, for protection. The US State Department has labeled the AUC a terrorist group.

Gomez-Bustamante also acknowledged taking part in a conspiracy to make and distribute more than 10,000 kilograms of cocaine destined for the United States, the department said.

The United States, as part of an extradition request to Colombia, has agreed not to seek a life sentence for Gomez-Bustamante and instead seek a multi-year prison term.

Gomez-Bustamante pleaded guilty in June to separate drug-trafficking conspiracy charges at federal court in New York. He faces a minimum 10-year sentence on those charges.

Gomez-Bustamante was first indicted in 2002, and arrested trying to enter Cuba in 2004. He was deported to Colombia in 2007 and extradited to the United States.