The United States has charged Uruguayan drug lord Sebastián Marset following his capture in Bolivia
When federal agents reached out to Sebastián Marset through his girlfriend in March 2025 to persuade him to surrender, the Uruguayan drug lord who styled himself the “King of the South” mocked them, boasting that he was "smarter than the entire D.E.A. put together."
“I’m not going to surrender,” Marset declared, according to court records. “I’ll be a criminal for the rest of my life.”
Almost a year later, heavily armed Bolivian special forces raided a residential neighborhood in Santa Cruz in the pre-dawn hours, capturing the fugitive who had evaded international law enforcement for years.
By that evening, one of the most powerful drug barons in South America’s Southern Cone - wanted by federal prosecutors for laundering millions of dollars in illicit proceeds through American banks - landed on U.S. soil in handcuffs.
Now held in a federal detention center in Virginia, Marset is mounting an aggressive legal defense. A new series of court filings has laid bare a detailed record of his global operations, missing evidence, and his own cynical view of regional law enforcement.
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Federal prosecutors disclosed last week that agents seized three cellphones from Marset that provided access to $4 million in cryptocurrency. During questioning, Marset confessed to holding financial stakes in 10 tonnes of active cocaine shipments at the time of his arrest.
They charged him with conspiracy and incitement to violence for personal gain. He allegedly ordered the murder of an associate in Paraguay for betraying him.
Prosecutors also maintain that Marset laundered tens of millions of dollars through European banks and their U.S. subsidiaries with the help of financial operatives like Federico Santoro, a Uruguayan broker sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2025.
The filings further illustrate Marset’s disdain for judicial systems. When asked by federal agents about pending charges in Paraguay, Marset reportedly dismissed the threat, stating he would resolve the matter "with money" because "there is no justice."
Defense attorneys, on the other hand, filed motions this week seeking to dismiss individual counts or throw out the indictment entirely. Among their central arguments is a challenge to a 1.6 tonne cocaine shipment that forms the basis of a key charge. The defense contends that the drugs were confiscated by Colombian authorities within national waters - placing them outside U.S. jurisdiction - and were subsequently destroyed by local police, rendering the evidence lost.
Attorneys also challenged efforts to connect Marset to Colombia’s Clan del Golfo and Brazil’s First Capital Command, noting those organizations received official U.S. terrorist designations after the alleged conduct occurred.
Marset’s trial is scheduled for January 2027.