‘Cocaine cowboy’ who was on lam 26 years set to be arraigned
MIAMI — After 26 years on the lam, a man dubbed by investigators as one of Miami’s last “cocaine cowboys” is set to enter a plea to drug trafficking charges.
An arraignment hearing is set Friday for 55-year-old Gustavo Falcon. He’s expected to plead not guilty to a 1991 indictment charging him with taking part in a major cocaine smuggling operation during the 1980s.
Falcon vanished in 1991 when he, his older brother Augusto “Willie” Falcon, Salvador “Sal” Magluta and others were originally charged. The gang purportedly smuggled at least 75 tons of cocaine into the U.S. and made some $2 billion during the hyper-violent “Miami Vice” era.
Falcon was arrested by U.S. Marshals in April near Orlando, where he lived under an assumed name with his wife.
