RTX145FX
Sailors aboard a rigid-hull inflatable boat prepare bales of cocaine for hoisting onto the USS Elrod, after an embarked U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment seized the contraband during a drug interdiction in the Caribbean Sea, in this May 17, 2012 handout. Reuters

The free, remaining member of a legendary cocaine drug ring that trafficked in South Florida during the eighties, was recently arrested.

Gustavo Falcon, 55, was tracked down by police Wednesday and arrested in Kissimmee, Florida, after 26 years of evading the authorities, NBC Miami reported Thursday.

Falcon, who also went by “Tabby,” was arrested while on a bike ride with his wife, Amelia, in Kissimmee. The fugitive was said to have gone willingly and did not resist police when he was arrested. He even confessed to his identity to enforcement, the local news outlet reported.

Read: Drug Bust In Ohio University Airport: Significant Quantity Of Suspected Cocaine Found In Unauthorized Plane

Falcon had been living in the area and was arrested after being tracked by authorities through a rental address. Falcon was found to have fake licenses with dates back to the mid-nineties. The elaborate scheme also included fake licenses and identification for his wife and for his adult children, according to the U.S. Marshals.

The authorities were first tipped off to Falcon’s location after he was in a car accident in 2013 and used his fake identification with his living address.

“We figured this all out a month ago,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service in Miami, Barry Golden, said Wednesday, via the Miami Herald. “We pulled his driver’s license and saw it was the same Gustavo Falcon.”

Falcon will appear in Orlando federal court Thursday before he is transferred to Miami.

The “Cocaine Cowboys” name referred to the drug kingpins that ruled Miami at the height of the drug scene in Florida. Smuggler brothers Gustavo and Augusto “Willie” Falcon operated during the Miami Drug Wars during the ‘70s and ‘80s. The brothers, along with partner Sal Magluta, smuggled 75 tons of cocaine into the U.S. between the years of 1978 and 1991, the year the three were indicted. The 75 tons were said to have been worth more than $2 billion, according to CBS News.

Magluta and Willie Falcon currently reside in federal prison. Gustavo Falcon famously fled before his indictment.

The name “Cocaine Cowboys” evolved from a 2006 documentary that was made on the “infamous cocaine barons” and the Miami Drug Wars.

RELATED STORIES