08/15/12 – On Tuesday, August 7, Colombian authorities extradited Dolly Cifuentes Villa, “La Meno,” to the United States, nearly a year after her initial arrest by Colombian law enforcement and six months after the Colombian Supreme Court initially approved her extradition. Cifuentes, a member of Colombian drug cartel Oficina de Envifado,”which allegedly has strong ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, was formally passed over to Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials at the Bogotá-based military airport last Tuesday. She is accused of money laundering and drug trafficking, with some reports crediting her and her brothers for moving 30 tons of cocaine into the United States since 2007. The Colombian Supreme Court ruled that she could be extradited and tried in Florida due to the international nature of her crimes and the potential that the Colombian judicial system would not be able to provide a fair and proper hearing given her profile and influence in Colombia.
Cifuentes is a notorious figure in Colombia because of her criminal activities, family ties, and romantic past. Her brother was Francisco Cifuentes Villa, the personal pilot for Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, until Francisco’s assassination in 2007. After his death, his siblings, including Dolly, formed a partnership with Mexico’s Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán of the Sinaloa Cartel and began laundering money in the United States. Dolly was also at the center of political controversy when her longtime romantic partnership with Jaime Uribe was publicly reveled after her arrest in 2011. Uribe, now deceased, was the brother of Álvaro Uribe, former president of Colombia (2002-2010), raising questions about the president’s connections to the organized crime group Oficina de Envigado, for which Dolly had worked. In addition, Jaime and Dolly’s daughter, Ana María Uribe Cifuentes (31), was arrested last year in the same operation that brought down La Meno. U.S. authorities believe Ana María to be an integral part of the family’s organized crime business, hence the U.S. Treasury Department’s black-listing of both her and her mother. Arco Iris, a Colombian NGO, reported that President Santos of Colombia admitted to not knowing why Ana María was not extradited as part of the recent operation.
Sources:
“Colombia extradites drug trafficking suspect to US.” AFP. August 7, 2012.
“Extraditada Dolly Cifuentes Villa.” La Nacion. August 8, 2012.
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