Colombian drugs suspect extradited

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- An accomplice to former drugs baron Pablo Escobar has been extradited from Colombia to the United States.

Fabio Ochoa is accused of helping smuggle cocaine worth $1 billion a month to the United States and Europe, a senior Colombian official said.

He is one of the highest profile Colombians sent to face U.S. justice since a constitutional ban on extradition was lifted in 1997.

Ochoa was driven under tight security to Bogota's police airport and placed on a U.S.-bound plane at around 9:30 p.m. (10:30 p.m.) on Friday, General Gustavo Socha, the head of Colombia's anti-drug police, told Reuters news agency.

Ochoa, 44, a former member of the Medellin drug cartel run by Escobar, was arrested in October 1999 in a joint operation carried out by the Colombian police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration called Operation Millennium.

Agents said Ochoa was part of a ring exporting 30 tons of cocaine a month to the United States and Europe, with a street value of $1 billion.

Ochoa has admitted involvement with the Medellin cartel for which he was jailed for 5-1/2 years until 1996.

But Reuters reported that this time he intends to plead not guilty and that his extradition is a violation of a 1990 law that allowed traffickers to turn themselves in and avoid extradition to the United States.

Ochoa was indicted in September 1999 by a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, federal grand jury.