BISSAU (Reuters) – Four foreign nationals convicted of trafficking 2.63 metric tons of cocaine in Guinea-Bissau last September have been transferred to the United States to face another trial there, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday.
Ramon Manriquez Castillo, a dual U.S. and Mexican citizen; Mexican citizen Edgar Rodriguez Ruano; Fernando Javier Escobar Tito from Ecuador and Anderson Jair Gamboa Nieto from Colombia were charged with conspiring to distribute cocaine through Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, the Bahamas and Guinea-Bissau between November 2023 and September 2024, the statement said.
The four men were each sentenced in January in Guinea-Bissau to 17 years in prison following a record bust known as “Operation Landing”. They were convicted alongside Brazilian Marlos Balcacar, who died at Simao Mendes Hospital in the capital Bissau on March 3, according to authorities in the West African country.
They appeared in court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Thursday, charged with distributing large quantities of cocaine while using a U.S. registered airplane with an American citizen on board, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida said.
If convicted in the U.S., they could face from 10 years to life in federal prison, the statement said.
They were transferred on Wednesday to a U.S. prison under a mutual agreement with the U.S., Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Cissoko Embalo told reporters on Thursday.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which has met with Bissau-Guinean authorities several times since January, requested the transfer of the detainees for security reasons, a source in the Guinea-Bissau government told Reuters.
“The reason for the transfer of the traffickers is that Guinea-Bissau does not have high-security prisons,” Embalo said.
“Moreover, this transfer is proof that Guinea-Bissau is no longer a narco state.”
Guinea-Bissau does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S., but Embalo said that even Bissau-Guinean nationals subject to international arrest warrants would be handed over to the U.S. if requested.
In one of the country’s largest drugs busts, Bissau-Guinean police in September seized 2.63 metric tons of cocaine on a Gulfstream IV aircraft that arrived from Venezuela at Bissau’s main airport.
Agents confiscated 78 bales of drugs, the police said in a statement at the time.
Drug smugglers often use West African countries as a transit point to ship cocaine from South America to Europe.
(Reporting by Alberto Dabo in Bissau and Ayen Deng Bior in Dakar; Writing by Portia Crowe and Ayen Deng Bior; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
