The United States today announced the extradition from Colombia of Carlos Fernando Melo, accused of participating in an alleged plan to attack the country’s embassy in Bogotá and assassinate US agents.
Melo, who was arrested in May of last year by the Colombian authorities at the request of the US, arrived in New York yesterday, Thursday, and will appear today before a federal judge, the Prosecutor’s Office explained in a statement.
The United States accuses this Colombian citizen of 58 years of crimes of narcoterrorism, possession of firearms and drug trafficking.
According to prosecutors, at the end of 2019 Melo tried to buy explosives and machine guns, supposedly to be used by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), to some traffickers who were actually informants of the DEA, the US anti-drug agency.
In those contacts, supposedly e explained that terrorist groups were planning possible attacks, including the murder of a DEA agent and an attack on the US embassy and spoke with a person who presented himself as a member of the Lebanese group Hezbollah with access to explosives, but that he really was an undercover US agent participating in the investigation.
According to the indictment, as part of those plans, Melo enlisted a collaborator to photograph the US diplomatic headquarters in Bogotá.
In addition, he allegedly offered his contacts cocaine to be imported into the United States.
Melo is accused of participating in a drug-terrorist conspiracy, a crime that carries a minimum sentence of twenty years in prison and a maximum of life imprisonment, and of conspiring to import cocaine, which is punishable by between ten years and life imprisonment.
He also has other charges related to possession of weapons for which he also faces the possibility of ad to spend life behind bars.
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