United States of America v. Jorge Rubén Camargo-Clarke

Los Angeles, California, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine for the purpose of unlawful importation.

Jorge Rubén Camargo-Clarke, 46, a.k.a. “Cool nene,” was the head of the Bagdad syndicate, the largest drug trafficking organization in Panama. From that position, Camargo directed the actions of approximately 4,000 narcotraffickers in Panama and Colombia, all working in service of his drug trafficking enterprise.

Camargo and the Bagdad syndicate controlled the importation and exportation of cocaine along the majority of Panama’s Pacific coast. In 2017 alone, Panama’s national security forces seized approximately 7.9 tons of cocaine from areas in Panama under Camargo’s control.

Camargo communicated via Blackberry Messenger with various co-conspirators, including Colombian cocaine sources of supply, to move thousands of kilograms of cocaine north from their source in Colombia to Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and elsewhere. Camargo personally coordinated numerous large-scale cocaine shipments by boat out of Colombia for the purpose of distribution in the United States and elsewhere, and instructed co-conspirators where to deliver, hide, and then transfer cocaine along his supply routes for purposes of moving the cocaine north, for ultimate importation into the United States.

Among other seizures, in November 2017, law enforcement in Panama seized more than 200 kilograms (441 pounds) of cocaine from an earth trap in the Rio Caimito area of Panama that Camargo had personally ordered shipped from Colombia to Panama, and that he intended to traffic to the United States.

United States District Judge André Birotte Jr. scheduled a June 12 sentencing hearing, at which time Camargo will face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison and a statutory maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

This investigation was led by the Southern California Drug Task Force (SCDTF), a Drug Enforcement Administration-led multi-agency task force within the Los Angeles High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Program. Substantial assistance was also provided by DEA Panama City Panama, Panama’s Servicio Nacional Aeronaval (SENAN), Panamá Nacional Policia Dirección de Investigación Judicial (PNP DIJ), Panama’s Instituto de Medicina Legal y Ciencias (IMELCF), and Procuraduria General de la Nación, Ministerio Público de Panamá. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs worked with the Government of Costa Rica to secure the arrest and March 2023 extradition from Costa Rica of Camargo-Clarke.

Assistant United States Attorneys Declan T. Conroy and Jehan Pernas Kim of the Transnational Organized Crime Section are prosecuting this case.

This prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States.

This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.

The Defendant was found guilty.