Cocaine, crypto, soccer: Accused kingpin from Uruguay fights U.S. case

Prior to his seize this 12 months, Sebastian Marset was reputed to be one of many international stage’s most prolific drug traffickers, allegedly sending mountains of cocaine — 10 tons or extra per cargo — from South America to Europe.

A local of Uruguay, the place authorities say he proclaimed himself “King of the South” and led a prison community dubbed “Primer Cartel Uruguayo,” or the primary Uruguayan cartel, Marset, 35, has been described in some media reports as his nation’s model of Pablo Escobar.

But in contrast to the notorious Colombian kingpin, who flooded American cities with cocaine within the Seventies and ‘80s, there may be little proof to indicate Marset ever moved any product to the United States.

And but for six months, Marset has been jailed in Alexandria, Va., going through an inventory of federal expenses that has grown longer since his arrival. Initially indicted just for alleged cash laundering, he has since been accused by federal prosecutors of conspiring to smuggle cocaine on the excessive seas and narco-terrorism.

The case, Marset’s legal professionals and a few authorized specialists say, displays the diploma to which the Trump administration has stretched the purview of the Department of Justice when combating its warfare on medicine.

Beyond blowing up dozens of boats suspected of carrying cocaine — a marketing campaign critics denounce as each merciless and ineffective at staunching the move of medicine — the White House has taken to labeling cartels as terrorist organizations and pushed international locations handy over suspected traffickers with out going by way of the usual extradition course of.

Marset’s prosecution provides a brand new twist, with the U.S. legal professional’s workplace within the Eastern District of Virginia pursuing expenses towards him regardless of few indications his alleged prison actions had any influence on Americans.

Marset’s legal professionals have identified in courtroom filings that he’s not “alleged to have ever despatched even a gram of cocaine to the United States,” arguing there isn’t a jurisdiction to prosecute him in Virginia.

Even the cost that he laundered cash by way of the U.S. monetary system, his legal professionals say, is flimsy, hanging on a single transaction — out of greater than 200 recognized by prosecutors — that the feds say was routed by way of a financial institution server in Richmond, Va.

In a telephone name with The Times from jail, his first interview since his arrest, Marset fumed in regards to the case.

“I don’t owe the United States something,” he mentioned in Spanish. “I nonetheless don’t know what I’m doing right here.”

It was round 3 a.m. on March 13 when Bolivian intelligence brokers got here for Marset.

He claims they stormed his residence with weapons blazing, firing indiscriminately into the room the place he lay sleeping together with his companion and their youngsters.

“They dragged me out bare as a result of I used to be in mattress,” he mentioned. “They rushed me right into a automobile and took me straight to the airport.”

For years, Marset had slipped by way of the fingers of regulation enforcement in a number of international locations. He was jailed for a time in Dubai, however managed to safe his launch and vanish simply as authorities resumed their manhunt for him.

To construct his trafficking community, U.S. prosecutors cost that Marset partnered with the Primeiro Comando da Capital, Brazil’s largest prison group, and the Clan del Golfo, a paramilitary group that controls cocaine manufacturing and smuggling routes in Colombia. Both had been just lately designated by the Trump administration as overseas terrorist organizations.

He amassed a fortune, a lot of it held in cryptocurrency, U.S. courtroom data present, and lived a lifetime of luxurious whereas on the run, generally hiding in plain sight. Lanky, with sleeves of tattoos that reach to his neck and wrists, he cuts a putting determine. He allegedly used his illicit wealth to fulfill his dreams of playing professional soccer, shopping for himself a spot within the beginning lineup for groups he bankrolled.

He’s additionally been accused of ruthless violence, together with allegations — which Marset denies — that he ordered the detonation of a grenade on the headquarters of Uruguay’s federal anti-narcotics police, killed members of his group he suspected of betrayal, and directed the assassination of a Paraguayan prosecutor who was gunned down whereas on his honeymoon at a personal seashore resort in Colombia.

His pursuers managed to trace Marset to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia’s financial hub, by planting a GPS tracker in his girlfriend’s baggage as she traveled by way of Brazil, in accordance with U.S. courtroom filings.

The Bolivians promptly handed Marset over to brokers from the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration, who flew him to Peru after which Washington.

The justification for prosecuting Marset in Virginia is that one wire switch for $31,800, despatched from a financial institution in Portugal to a financial institution in China on Feb. 18, 2021, allegedly handed by way of a Bank of America laptop server.

Marset, his attorneys keep in courtroom filings, “didn’t personally take any motion to conduct the wire switch,” including that there’s proof it truly occurred in Pennsylvania, not Virginia. The transaction’s hyperlink to the United States, they are saying, was each “ephemeral and unforeseeable.”

Even if Marset was smuggling medicine as prosecutors allege, his attorneys argue that his “conduct had no connection to this nation in any way.”

After Marset’s legal professionals identified that the charging paperwork allege he solely smuggled medicine to Europe, prosecutors filed a response that mentioned if the case went to trial, they might introduce proof that he did, in actual fact, ship cocaine shipments to the United States. They have provided no rationalization as to why Marset is just not already charged with that crime. The U.S. legal professional’s workplace within the Eastern District of Virginia didn’t reply to questions in regards to the case.

The authorities’s assets, Marset’s authorized staff asserts, would have been higher spent pursuing different targets.

In his telephone name from jail, Marset echoed that sentiment. “I by no means even talked in regards to the United States,” he mentioned. “I didn’t even wish to know the place on the map it was. I wasn’t within the United States in any respect.”

Marset hails from a neighborhood on the outskirts of Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo.

His father labored for a manufacturing facility that manufactured plastics — “trays, baggage, and all that form of stuff,” he mentioned — and as a truck driver. His mother and father cut up up when Marset was 8, leaving him to be raised by his mom.

“It’s been a tough life,” he mentioned. “I grew up very humbly.” His first severe run-in with the regulation got here in 2012, when he was reportedly caught receiving a big cargo of marijuana. Marset was imprisoned from 2013 to 2018 in Uruguay, however maintains there was by no means any arduous proof of his involvement within the drug commerce.

“To today, all they’ve accomplished is name me a suspected drug trafficker,” Marset mentioned. “Because no nation has been in a position to show the drug trafficking everybody’s speaking about.”

Despite his efforts to keep away from incurring the wrath of Uncle Sam, Marset finally got here into the crosshairs of the DEA.

On March 27, 2025, in accordance with courtroom filings, DEA agent Michael Greisen tried a direct strategy: He messaged Marset on WhatsApp, warning that he was underneath indictment and will flip himself in.

“We wished to tell you and clarify how you may resolve your points with the United States discreetly and professionally,” Greisen wrote, in accordance with a translation offered by prosecutors. “You have the possibility to set issues proper. Otherwise, you might be merely ready for the day of your imminent seize.”

Marset didn’t take kindly to the admonition.

“Justice doesn’t exist,” he responded in a single message, in accordance with U.S. prosecutors.

“I’m smarter than the whole DEA put collectively,” he allegedly mentioned in one other.

Marset’s legal professionals declare the alternate so enraged the DEA that it got down to seize and prosecute him by any means obligatory. They assert that the DEA orchestrated the raid on Marset’s dwelling in Bolivia, arranging for him to be turned over instantly to keep away from the standard extradition course of.

Federal prosecutors mentioned in courtroom filings that, though DEA brokers had been “briefed on the operation earlier than and after it occurred,” they had been “not concerned” in planning or executing the raid. They dispute that the Bolivian brokers shot up Marset’s dwelling, stating he was “arrested with out incident.”

The DEA’s dealing with of Marset after he arrived within the U.S. has additionally been some extent of rivalry.

While being transported from the airport to jail, Marset’s legal professionals say, the DEA brokers requested him to “donate” $4 million in cryptocurrency that was held in varied accounts.

Marset, his attorneys say, “believed that the request for a ‘donation’ was the equal of an extortion try.”

“In each nation, it’s develop into clear to me that every one they need is my cash,” Marset advised The Times. “I believed it wouldn’t be like that within the United States.”

Prosecutors mentioned the brokers by no means requested for a “donation” from Marset and allege that he has sought to “deliberately mischaracterize as unscrupulous what are in actual fact customary regulation enforcement practices.”

Some former federal prosecutors mentioned the federal government could have overplayed its hand with the case. They questioned why the narco-terrorism expenses towards Marset had been added solely after he started combating his case.

“This is a attain, as far as I can inform,” mentioned Bonnie Klapper, a former federal narcotics prosecutor within the Eastern District of New York. “They’re actually making an attempt to bootstrap one statute on prime of one other.”

David Weinstein, a protection legal professional not concerned in Marset’s case, who beforehand labored as a narcotics prosecutor in Miami, echoed that evaluation. He instructed the narco-terrorism expenses had been in all probability dropped at ramp up the stress on Marset to make a plea deal.

“It offers a extra salacious nature to what was initially only a cash laundering conspiracy case,” he mentioned.

The choose presiding over the case ordered a listening to on Wednesday, the place each side will argue why the fees ought to stand or be dismissed.

Meanwhile, Marset has been biding his time in jail. He mentioned he passes the times by watching soccer on TV, although he has been unable to play since struggling a knee harm previous to his seize.

He known as the narco-terrorism cost towards him “completely ridiculous” and claimed that his efforts to fight the fees had made issues private with the U.S. legal professional’s workplace.

“The justice system right now, worldwide, is rotten to the core,” he mentioned. “The prosecutor doesn’t wish to do justice. The prosecutor needs to beat me.”