---
category: "Organized Crime"
tags:
  - IranContra
  - person
  - colombian
  - contra-war
summary: Jorge Ochoa was a leader of the Medellín Cartel who controlled the Miami cocaine market and was approached by a DEA agent to implicate the Sandinistas in drug trafficking.
born: 1950-09-30
location: "Colombia"
---
Jorge Ochoa was a leader of the [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín Cartel]] who, along with [[Pablo Escobar]] and [[Carlos Lehder]], controlled the [[Miami]] [[Cocaine]] market during the early 1980s. The Ochoa family in [[Colombia]] was one of the primary sources of cocaine for the [[Danilo Blandon|Blandón]]-[[Norwin Meneses|Meneses]] trafficking ring that funded the [[Contras|Contra]] war.[^1]

### DEA Manipulation Attempt

DEA agent James Kible visited Ochoa in a Spanish jail in 1984 and attempted to persuade him to publicly implicate the [[Sandinistas]] in drug trafficking. The approach was part of a broader pattern of the U.S. government using the drug war for political purposes, attempting to manufacture propaganda against the Nicaraguan government while protecting Contra-connected traffickers. Escobar claimed to have a photograph of [[George H.W. Bush]] posing with Ochoa in front of suitcases full of money.[^2]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 5.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 19.