Extraterritoriality
| Pages | 2-5 |
2Volume 22, January–March 2016 international law update
© 2016 International Law Group, LLC. All rights reserved. ISSN 1089-5450, ISSN 1943-1287 (on-line) | www.internationallawupdate.com
EXTRATERRITORIALITY
I C
U.S.,
F C
In October 2009, after a three-week trial, a
grand jury charged 27 defendants with participation
in a vast Colombian conspiracy to import cocaine
into the United States. Four of the defendants
(Appellants) were found guilty of conspiring to
knowingly or intentionally import ve or more
kilograms of cocaine into the United States in
violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 959 and 960, and all
in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 963; and three of the
four defendants guilty of aiding and abetting each
other while distributing ve or more kilograms
of cocaine, intending and knowing that it would
be unlawfully imported into the United States, in
violation of 21 U.S.C. § 959 and 18 U.S.C. § 2.
e specic Statutes at issue, §§ 959 and 963,
provide:
“21 U.S. Code § 959 - Possession, manufacture,
or distribution of controlled substance
(a) Manufacture or distribution for purpose of
unlawful importation
It shall be unlawful for any person to
manufacture or distribute a controlled substance in
…. intending, knowing, or having reasonable cause
to believe that such substance or chemical will be
unlawfully imported into the United States …
…. (d)Acts committed outside territorial
jurisdiction of United States; venue
is section is intended to reach acts of
manufacture or distribution committed outside
the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Any
person who violates this section shall be tried in the
United States district court at the point of entry
where such person enters the United States, or in
the United States District Court for the District of
Columbia.”
“21 U.S. Code § 963 - Attempt and conspiracy
Any person who attempts or conspires to
commit any oense dened in this subchapter shall
be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed
for the oense, the commission of which was the
object of the attempt or conspiracy.”
e trial focused on a thwarted attempt in
December 2007 to move 1,000 kilograms of
cocaine from Colombia to Guatemala, from there
to the United States-Mexico border, and then into
the United States (“HP1607 deal”). It involved a
plane with tail number HP1607, and defendants
Jaime Gonzalo Castibl Cabalcante (“Cabalcante”),
Julio Hernando Moya Buitrago (“Moya”) and
Oscar Orlando Barrera Piñeda (“Piñeda”).
e defendants had the following roles in this
transaction: Cabalcante brokered the HP1607 deal
by introducing the Colombian suppliers to the Los
Zetas drug cartel, buyers from Mexico; Moya, was
the air trac controller who worked as a supervisor
at the El Dorado International Airport in Bogota
and agreed to help Carlos Eduardo Gaitan-Uribe
(“Gaitan”), who coordinated the logistics of the
transaction, get HP1607 through Colombian
airspace; Piñeda was the pilot who ew HP1607
from Bogota to Panama for staging and coordinated
the pilots who ew the plane from Panama back
into Colombia to pick up the cocaine.
Defendant Roberth William Villegas Rojas
(“Rojas”) was not involved in the HP1607
transaction. However, he was connected to the
conspiracy through a drug tracker named
German Giraldo Garcia (alias “El Tio”). El Tio, who
was indicted in this case but remained a fugitive,
worked with David Quinones (“Quinones”),
Gaitan’s logistics partner, to build an organization
to import drugs into the United States. El Tio was
involved in the second transaction that the trial
focused on. is was a deal made in 2008 with a
cocaine supplier named Jamed Colmenares (alias
“El Turco”). is $1.1 million deal, also involving
a Mexican man called “Chepa,” failed when the
Colombian National Police intercepted a truck
carrying about 1,000 kilograms of cocaine. Chepa
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