Colombian man sentenced for role in cocaine importation conspiracy

TAMPA, Fla. — A Colombian man was sentenced Friday to 11 years and three months in federal prison for conspiring with others to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, knowing and intending that it would be unlawfully imported into the United States. This case was investigated by the Panama Express Strike Force - North, which includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

According to court documents, on multiple occasions between 2009 and 2012, Richard Mosquera, 44, of Colombia, South America, worked with codefendant Anderson Bryan Lever and others to smuggle cocaine. Lever dispatched cocaine-laden vessels from San Andres Island, Colombia, and Mosquera received them in Honduras. On each occasion, Mosquera received the cocaine and provided bales of U.S. currency, each containing up to $500,000, to the mariners who had just smuggled the cocaine. The mariners then smuggled the money back to San Andres Island, and Mosquera transferred the cocaine to others for eventual unlawful importation into the United States.

Mosquera was arrested in Colombia and subsequently extradited to the United States. He pleaded guilty Nov. 25.

The Panama Express Strike Force, a standing Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), is comprised of agents and analysts from HSI, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and U.S. Southern Command's Joint Interagency Task Force South. The principal mission of the OCDETF Program is to identify, disrupt and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and those primarily responsible for the nation’s drug supply.