US Justice condemns Marta Julia Lorenzana for drug trafficking – 2024-03-16 09:59:42

Guatemalan Marta Julia Lorenzana Cordón was sentenced in the US to 33 years in prison for crimes related to drug trafficking; In addition, the US justice system ordered that US$27 million (regarding Q 216 million) be confiscated, the Department of Justice reported this Thursday, March 14, in a statement.

The document indicates that Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, and Anne Milgram, of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), announced the sentence once morest the Guatemalan woman.

“A leader of the Lorenzana drug trafficking organization was sentenced last week to 33 years in prison and ordered to confiscate $27 million on charges related to international drug trafficking,” the Department of Justice statement details.

The publication highlights that, according to court documents, “from or around 2008 until at least 2019, Marta Julia Lorenzana-Cordón, 47, of Zacapa, Guatemala, was a leader of the Lorenzana drug trafficking organization, one of the cartels of largest and most influential drug dealers in Guatemala, which was mainly made up of family members.”

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly was in charge of handing down the sentence once morest Marta Julia. The same judge sentenced her brothers Eliú and Waldemar to life imprisonment in 2018, following both pleaded “not guilty”; In addition, she sentenced her father Waldemar Lorenzana Lima to 23 years in prison in 2020. The latter was also not a trial and he died in 2021.

The sentence once morest Marta Julia Lorenzana is so far the longest handed down once morest a Guatemalan drug trafficker, outside of the sentence of her brothers. This is followed by the sentence of 31 years in prison once morest Jorge Mario Paredes, 30 years once morest the former mayor of Zacapa Arnoldo Vargas and 12 years once morest Marllory Chacón.

Some background

Marta Julia Lorenzana was captured on April 30, 2021, in Zacapa, at the request of the United States, where she was extradited on December 10 of the same year, along with her brother Haroldo Jeremías Lorenzana Cordón.

According to the US Treasury Department, in 2012, Marta Julia Lorenzana belonged to the drug trafficking network of her brothers and father, associates of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel. In 2014, she married drug trafficker Jairo Orellana, when he was detained in the Matamoros Barracks, prior to his extradition in 2015.

His name does not appear in the files of his brothers and his father in the United States, which includes Ovaldino Lorenzana Cordón, still free, and for whom there is no public information indicating that he has an arrest warrant in Guatemala.

The Prosecutor’s Office affirms that Marta Julia Lorenzana admitted that she trafficked 27 thousand kilos of cocaine between 2008 and 2019.

“The defendant revealed that she earned between US$1,000 and US$2,000 for each kilo she sold to her co-conspirators (…), which was her main source of income,” said a prosecutor.

“Based on her testimony, she received at least US$27 million from her drug trafficking businesses, and knew that most of the cocaine would be transported to the United States,” he added.

“The organization transports large quantities of cocaine from Colombia to Guatemala, where the cocaine is inventoried and stored at the organization’s properties throughout Guatemala. Once prosecuted, the organization worked with the Sinaloa Cartel, among other organizations, to traffic cocaine into Mexico, through Central America and, eventually, into the United States,” the US Department of Justice statement said.

He adds that this investigation is part of “Operation Slipknot”, which has the support of the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF).

It was said that the Bilateral Investigations Unit 959 of the DEA is in charge of the case of Lorenzana Cordón, with the assistance of the DEA Country Office in Guatemala City.

With information from Julie López