United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announces that Jorge Hernan Gonzalez-Ortiz (50, Colombia) and Carlos Andres Aldana-Gil (43, Colombia) have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States.
Each faces a maximum penalty of life in federal prison. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.
According to the plea agreements and other court documents, from 2016 until 2023, Gonzalez-Ortiz established and led a drug trafficking organisation in Colombia responsible for transporting cocaine via commercial airplanes.
Conspirators loaded the commercial aircraft with cocaine disguised in boxes of fruit at Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport in Cali, Colombia and intended for Gustavo Rojas Pinilla International Airport in San Andrés Island, Colombia.
With the assistance of corrupt Colombian police officers, the conspirators unloaded the cocaine and then smuggled it by boat to either Nicaragua or Honduras, then to Mexico and the United States.
From 2016 until 2023, Gonzalez-Ortiz’s organization smuggled cocaine onto at least 27 commercial flights in Cali, totaling at least 43,000 kilograms.
From 2021 to 2023, Aldana-Gil worked on behalf of Gonzalez-Ortiz for all logistical aspects of the smuggling operation from Cali. He received truckloads of cocaine from other conspirators, transported the drugs to the airport, and paid an airport security supervisor to divert security cameras away from the airport’s external gates.
He also hired and paid the conspirators responsible for altering the cargo manifests as well as the luggage cart drivers who loaded the drugs onto commercial aircraft. On July 29, 2023, one of the organization’s cocaine shipments was interdicted by the Colombian National Police after it was offloaded from a commercial aircraft in San Andrés Island.
