LOS ANGELES
A federal jury has convicted Jorge Rubén Camargo-Clarke, the former leader of Panama’s largest drug trafficking organization, of conspiring to distribute cocaine for unlawful importation into the U.S. Justice Department announced Friday.
Camargo-Clarke, 46 — also known as “Cool nene” — was found guilty late Thursday of one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He has been in federal custody since March 2023, when he was extradited from Costa Rica.
Camargo faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison and a possible life term. US District Judge André Birotte Jr. scheduled sentencing for June 12.
Prosecutors said Camargo headed the Bagdad syndicate, a sprawling criminal enterprise that directed roughly 4,000 traffickers in Panama and Colombia. Evidence at trial showed the organization controlled much of Panama’s Pacific coast cocaine corridor, coordinating large maritime shipments bound for Central America and ultimately the United States.
Authorities testified that Camargo used BlackBerry Messenger to communicate with Colombian suppliers and regional partners, personally overseeing boat shipments and directing where drugs were delivered, concealed, and transferred along trafficking routes.
In 2017 alone, Panamanian security forces seized approximately 7.9 tons of cocaine from areas under Camargo’s control. Among those seizures was more than 200 kilograms recovered in November 2017 from an underground cache in Rio Caimito — a shipment prosecutors said Camargo had ordered from Colombia for onward transport to the United States.