Fabian Humberto Tovar Caicedo Sentenced to 12 Years for International Drug Trafficking Conspiracy, Virginia, 2023

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A former Colombian military intelligence official was sentenced today to 12 years in prison for his participation in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine for importation into the United States.

Fabian Humberto Tovar Caicedo, 41, a sergeant in Colombian Army Intelligence, helped organize a drug trafficking organization (DTO) that conspired to send multi-thousand-kilogram shipments of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico for eventual importation into the United States.

According to court documents, from August 2017 through April 2018, Tovar Caicedo helped his co-conspirators plot to send multiple shipments of cocaine, starting at 1,000 kilograms but moving up to as many as 10,000 kilograms per shipment.

One of the defendant’s co-conspirators was Fabian Andres Leyton Vargas, a Colombian Air Force officer, whom the defendant met at a military training in the United States. Leyton Vargas used his position in the Colombian Ministry of Defense to identify and contact security and law enforcement officials in the Port of Santa Marta to be targeted for bribes.

Defendants Fabian Andres Leyton Vargas, Antonio Aldemar Avila Acevedo, and Jose Mauricio Castaneda Garzon, along with Tovar Caicedo, were sentenced to 12 years in prison for their roles in the conspiracy.

This multi-year investigation targeted corruption in Colombia’s ports and led to three indictments charging officials in the Colombian Army, Air Force, and National Police.

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