Three Brothers Sentenced To Federal Prison In Colombian International Cocaine Smuggling Conspiracy

 Tampa, FL – U.S. Senior District Judge Susan C. Bucklew has sentenced Mario Mitchell Pereira (43), Olario Mitchell Palacio (49), and Mike Mitchell Palacio (52), for conspiring to distribute cocaine on board a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. In October 2020, Mario Mitchell Pereira was sentenced to 19 years and 7 months’ imprisonment. On February 11, 2021, Olario Mitchell Palacio was sentenced to 17 years and 6 months in federal prison. In November 2020, Mike Mitchell Palacio was sentenced to 21 years and 10 months in federal prison. Senior District Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington also sentenced Mike Mitchell Palacio to an additional consecutive sentence of two years’ imprisonment for violation of his federal supervised release.

According to court records, in November 2015 the brothers, all Colombian nationals, conspired to have 1,280 kilograms of cocaine smuggled from La Guajira, Colombia via a go-fast vessel. They arranged this venture after a previous trip that Mario Mitchell Pereira had organized but ultimately had to be aborted due to the suspected presence of a patrol aircraft in the Caribbean Sea. Olario Mitchell Palacio and Mike Mitchell Palacio forced co-conspirators to work without payment in sending the second shipment to its destination. However, a Dutch vessel carrying a law enforcement detachment of U.S. Coast Guard personnel stopped the vessel and its crewmen while in international waters approximately 60 miles north of the coast of Colombia. The Coast Guard personnel recovered 1,280 kilograms of cocaine.

The three men were arrested in Colombia in November 2017, following the return of the indictment in this case. They were subsequently extradited to the United States. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs provided critical assistance in securing the defendants’ extradition from Colombia.  

This case was investigated by the Panama Express Strike Force, a standing Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) comprised of agents and analysts from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the U.S. Southern Command's Joint Interagency Task Force South. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and those primarily responsible for the nation’s drug supply. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Dan Baeza.