WASHINGTON D.C.
A federal judge on Monday sentenced the leader of a Guatemalan drug trafficking organization to 23 years in prison for his participation in an international drug trafficking conspiracy, according to officials.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly also ordered Waldemar Lorenzana-Lima to pay $50 million as restitution, officials stated.
Lorenzana-Lima plead guilty on Aug. 18, 2014.
Lorenzana-Lima admitted that from March 1996 to November 2007, he was a member of a drug trafficking organization that would store large quantities of cocaine from Colombia at Lorenzana-Lima’s properties in Guatemala,
The drugs were imported into Mexico and the United States.
The court concluded at sentencing that Lorenzana-Lima’s conduct qualified him as an “organizer or leader” of the drug trafficking organization within the meaning of the applicable federal sentencing guidelines.
On April 27, 2010, the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control designated Lorenzana-Lima and his sons, Eliu Lorenzana-Cordon and Waldemar Lorenzana-Cordon, as specially designated narcotics traffickers.
The Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, this designation means that the organization had significant ties to the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, according to officials.
DOJ NOTED:
The DEA Special Operations Division’s Bilateral Investigations Unit and Guatemala City Country Office led the investigation, which was supported by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force program and the Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs.