“Pablo Escobar” as he’s been nicknamed in Ecuador a drug kingpin who was under custody in Colombia has been extradited to the United States early on Saturday morning.
“Gerard,” also known as Washington Prado, is being charged for transporting more than 250 tonnes of Colombian cocaine from Ecuador’s Pacific coast to Central America and beyond to the United States, prosecutors said in a statement.
The 36-year-old was apprehended in April 2017 and detained in a maximum security prison in Bogota.
Gerrad has been compared to the late Colombian kingpin Escobar who was taken down during a police operation in Medellin in 1993 in which he was killed.
Prado has also been linked to plots of bribing and murdering prosecutors and investigators in Ecuador.
Initially had claimed to be an ex-guerrilla with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to avoid extradition.
As part of the peace deal between Colombia and the FARC that ended a five-decade-long conflict, ex-guerrillas involved in drug trafficking could avoid extradition to the United States in exchange for reparations and a vow to abandon their life of violent crime.