Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera
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Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera, a.k.a. "La Quica", was purported to be the chief assassin for the Medellín Cartel of Colombia.
He was responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of people although estimates range in the hundreds, supposedly murdering members of the Medellín Cartel, members of the rival Cali Cartel, police officers and government officials. The United States Government also claims, controversially, that he is responsible for the 1989 bombing of Avianca Flight 203, which killed 110 civilians, which has led to his incarceration in the Federal ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
In 1991, Muñoz Mosquera was arrested in Queens, New York for traveling with a fake passport. He was convicted and sentenced to six years in jail. While he was in jail, federal prosecutors claimed that he was a major player in the Medellín Cartel and the bombing of Avianca Flight 203. Muñoz Mosquera was charged with “conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine, substantive importation of cocaine, participating and conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, various offenses relating to the bombing of a civilian airliner and the extraterritorial murder of two citizens of the United States." His first trial was declared a mistrial. In his second trial, he was convicted on all counts. He is currently serving his sentence of 10 life sentences plus 45 years, all to be served consecutively, at ADX Florence, the Federal ADX prison.
While the United States has indicted Mr. Mosquera of the Avianca bombing, this decision has never been supported or endorsed by the Colombian government, which initially suspected Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha a.k.a. 'The Mexican'. Today, Carlos Maria Alzate is blamed for purportrating the bombing and had actually confessed to the crime before Mosquera was put on trial. Mosquera had verifiable alibis against many allegations made in court by multiple witnesses, most of whom were felons with links to the Medellín and Cali Cartels cooperating with America, in exchange for lenient sentencing. For example, one claimed to have espied him in the presence of Pablo Escabar in 1988, on a date when he is proven to have been in jail, serving a sentence for auto theft. Mosquera appeared genuinely not to recognize any of these prosecution witnesses, and his defense hinged on the insistence that he was a small-time thief and not even a sicario, let alone Escabar's chief assassin. He did not deny that his brother Brance, known as 'Tyson', later shot dead by Colombian forces, was involved in the Cartel (some have claimed him to have been the Medellín 'Chief of Security').
The Colombian attorney general Gustavo de Greiff sent a letter to Judge Sterling Johnson before the final trial, stating: "I felt necessary to inform you...with the intention to avoid the miscarriage of justice in the case you have in your hands. We have no evidence linking Mr. Muñoz Mosquera to that attack." De Greiff, an opponent of the cartels, was accused by United States officials of being involved financially in the cocaine trade.
