By Danny Fenster
ticklethewire.com
The third and final defendant in a DEA operation targeting three Colombian drug runners tied to a Colombian drug cartel has been sentenced in Seattle, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Hector Fabio Zapata was slapped with 30 years in prison on Monday, the last to face sentencing in the cocaine-trafficking probe. Like his partner in crime, Miguel Antonio Jimenez Torres, Zapata never was not charged with sending cocaine to the US, but the prosecution successfully argued that they and others paid an undercover DEA agent to smuggle cocaine in the states by the tons, a plan that never came to fruition, the online newspaper reported.
The long-running sting was targeted at purported drug lord Jose Riascos, the father of codefendant Nivaldo Riascos. Jose killed himself as Colombian police raided his jungle compound, accord to the Post-Intelligencer.
Jimenez, Zapata and Riascos Jr. all received sentences in the multi-decades range.
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