MIAMI – A South Florida fugitive who had been on the run for 26 years was arrested Wednesday in central Florida.
Gustavo Falcon was arrested by U.S. marshals as he and his wife were leaving their Kissimmee home on their bicycles, U.S. Marshals Service spokesman Barry Golden told Local 10 News.
"They literally cornered him at an intersection and blocked him in with vehicles," Golden said.
Falcon was indicted in 1991 for trafficking cocaine from Colombia to South Florida.
Records show that an arrest warrant was issued on April 10, 1991 for Falcon and his brother Augusto "Willie" Falcon, along with eight others.
File: Indictment for Gustavo Falcon
According to the indictment, the defendants trafficked drugs from at least as early as January 1978.
Golden said deputy marshals discovered that Falcon, his wife and children were living in Kissimmee and using fraudulent driver's licenses. He said they traced Falcon's home to Kissimmee after Falcon was involved in a car crash in 2013.
Golden said Falcon had been using the name Louis Reiss.
"We delegated every resource we had to tracking down that address, trying to find out exactly where he was living and bring him back to justice," Golden said.
He said a team of federal agents from South Florida traveled to the Orlando area to make the arrest.
The 1991 indictment tells the story of the "Cocaine Cowboys," which was led by Falcon's brother, Willie, and his high school buddy Sal Magluta.
Authorities said 75 tons of cocaine was smuggled into the U.S. over 13 years, generating more than $2 billion in cash and assets for the defendants.
Authorities said they were living the high-life while Miami deteriorated into violent drug wars. Their eventual road to justice included money laundering, witness murders and jury tampering, authorities said.
Filmmaker Billy Corben is responsible for the Cocaine Cowboys documentary, and is currently shooting a third docuseries, "Los Muchachos," about Willie Falcon and Magluta.
"I think when the documentary came out, it not only became a household term, but people also had accepted the thesis of the movie, which was (that) narco dollars generated in that era helped essentially t build the foundation of Miami as we know it and love it today," Corben said.
Gustavo Falcon made his first appearance in federal court in Orlando and is expected to be transferred to a jail in South Florida.