Colombian 'Kingpins' Face NYC Trial For Crazy Spanish Navy Drug-Smuggling Scheme

NEW YORK, NY — El Chapo has barely had time to get comfortable in his Lower Manhattan isolation cell, and already local law enforcement have announced the arrival of another storied Latin American drug kingpin to the city.

Jorge Siado-Alvarez, one half of the Columbian duo allegedly behind an infamous Spring 2014 drug-smuggling scheme involving a Royal Spanish Navy ship and a crew of corrupt Spanish sailors, was extradited to NYC this week. He'll be tried longside his alleged accomplice, Jorge Luis Hoayeck, for "operating as a major trafficker" under the state’s special drug-kingpin statute.

If found guilty, the two notorious Colombian kingpins could be jailed in NYC for life.

“This elaborate scheme, spanning oceans, enabled high-end Colombian drugs to be smuggled aboard Spanish military ships, deep into the bowels of New York City," former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said last year, when the kingpins were caught.

Investigators from multiple agencies across multiple nations have accused Hoayeck and Siado of running a "major international drug operation" from their home base in Cartagena, Colombia, for years.

However, the NYC trial will focus on one alleged shipment in particular: Eight kilograms of drugs, four of cocaine and four of heroin, smuggled into a Hell's Kitchen harbor aboard the famed Royal Spanish Navy ship "Juan Sebastian de Elcano" by at least two crooked officers-in-training. (The ship's cook is also believed to have been in on the scheme.)

Once the government ship had returned to Spain, local law enforcement said they discovered 127 additional kilos of cocaine in a storeroom on the ship for reserve sails. However, Hoayeck and Siado have not been charged with supplying the full load.

Here's what U.S. prosecutors do believe they can prove in court:

On April 16, 2014, the team of Spanish crooks aboard the Juan Sebastian de Elcano allegedly loaded Hoayeck and Siado's drugs onto the ship at its scheduled stop in Colombia.

The ship then made a quick stop in the Dominican Republic before traveling to NYC, where it was ceremoniously docked in the Port of New York on Manhattan’s West Side, not far from another famed vessel: the U.S.S. Intrepid.

It was there in the busy Port of New York that this team of Spaniards allegedly handed off eight kilos of Colombian coke and heroin to a crew of local, NYC-based drug traffickers on May 14 — a meeting that was captured on tape, according to investigators. The drugs were then allegedly transported to the Bronx for distribution.

Hoayeck and Siado "communicated with one another and with the New York City-based narcotics traffickers by cellular phones using coded, cryptic language," investigators said.

The elaborate scheme blew up in their faces, though, when a joint task force of DEA agents, NYPD detectives and New York State Police officers said they stopped and searched three different vehicles tied to the NYC traffickers — two on their way to Connecticut, and one parked in the Bronx. Inside the cars, investigators said they found the eight kilos of Colombian drugs delivered by the Spaniards, in addition to a bunch of other drugs, drug paraphernalia, weapons and cash.

Colombian authorities finally managed to track down and arrest Hoayeck and Siado in January of last year.

Hoayeck was extradited to NYC in November, and Siado this week. Their trial will play out in the coming months in Manhattan Supreme Court at 100 Centre St.

Lead photo of Jorge Siado-Alvarez courtesy of the NYC Special Narcotics Prosecutor