A Dominican drug lord known as “El Abusador” was recently extradited to the U.S. by Columbian authorities to be prosecuted for drug trafficking charges brought by the District of Puerto Rico.
Cesar Emilio Peralta-Adamez was charged in 2018 with “conspiracy to import heroin and cocaine into the customs territory of the United States (Counts One and Two) and with distributing five kilograms or more of cocaine for purposes of unlawful importation into the United States (Count Three),” a U.S. Department of Justice press release said.
“This arrest and extradition underscore the collaboration and cooperation between our law enforcement partners, as well as our commitment and resolve to combat transnational organized crime,” U.S. Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow said in the release. “We will continue to maximize our multi-agency efforts to bring to justice those who disregard our laws and smuggle drugs into Puerto Rico and the continental United States.”
Peralta was the alleged leader of a transnational criminal organization located in the Dominican Republic that received several tons of cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela that was then smuggled into Puerto Rico and the continental United States, the release said. He was found in Cartegena, Columbia on Dec. 2, 2019 and has been imprisoned in the country ever since.
“This prosecution is part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation Filoteao, with the collaboration of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI),” the release said. “The OCDETF program identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach”
Peralta faces a sentence of 10 years to life in prison, the release said.
