'Last of the Cocaine Cowboys' arrested in Florida, US Marshals say

Gustavo Falcon, 55, and his wife Amelia were arrested at an intersection in Kissimmee after coming back from a long bike ride. (Orange County Jail)

The brother of the infamous Cocaine Cowboy Augusto Falcon was arrested in Florida Wednesday after spending 26 years evading an indictment that accused him of smuggling cocaine into the U.S.

Gustavo Falcon, 55, and his wife Amelia were arrested at an intersection in Kissimmee after coming back from a bike ride, the Miami Herald reported. Falcon was booked into the Orange County Jail.

Barry Golden, a U.S. Marshals Service spokesman in Miami, told the newspaper Falcon obtained fake driver’s licenses for himself, his wife and two children using Miami addresses. He said Falcon and his wife were going under the aliases Luis and Maria Reiss.

“He is the last of the Cocaine Cowboys,” Golden said.

Falcon and his family were renting a house in Kissimmee, which was under surveillance by U.S. Marshals. Golden said discovering that he and his family were still in South Florida surprised investigators because they were under the assumption they had fled to Mexico or Colombia.

Authorities caught a break in their search in 2013 when Falcon was involved in a car accident in Orlando and used a fake ID with a Miami address. The incident helped marshals trace Falcon to the South Florida area.

“We figured this all out a month ago,’’ Golden said. “We pulled his driver’s license and saw it was the same Gustavo Falcon.’’

Augusto “Willie” Falcon and his partner Salvador Magluta were the leaders of the notorious Cocaine Cowboys that helped trafficked tons of cocaine into South Florida in the 1980s. The pair used speed boats to smuggle the drugs from Colombia to the Caribbean and then off to Miami.

In 1991, the Falcon brothers and Magluta were among those charged with smuggling 75 tons of cocaine into the U.S. between 1978 and 1991, according to the Herald. Five years later, Augusto Falcon and Malguta were acquitted of the charges, though it was suspected they had bought off witnesses and one jury member.

Magluta was retried and convicted of money laundering in 2002. He was initially sentenced to 205 years in prison, but it was reduced to 195 years in 2006.

Meanwhile, Augusto Falcon struck a plea deal in 2003 on similar money-laundering charges. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and could be released as early as June.