MIAMI – A quarter century after he fled from the law, a man dubbed the last of Miami's "cocaine cowboys" has been sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison for a drug trafficking conviction.
A federal judge ordered the sentence Wednesday for Gustavo Falcon. The 56-year-old disappeared in 1991 when he was indicted, along with his older brother and others, for their roles in a $2 billion cocaine smuggling operation during Florida's violent 1980s "Miami Vice" era.
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Falcon was captured in April 2017 in Kissimmee, where he had been living with his wife under an assumed name.
U.S. marshals discovered Falcon and his wife had obtained fraudulent Florida drivers licenses in 1997, under the names Luis and Maria Reiss, and traced them to a rental property near Orlando, where they were living with their son David and daughter Jennifer. Marshals arrested them as the couple returned from a bicycle ride.
After his capture, Falcon pleaded guilty to a cocaine distribution conspiracy charge and wrote a letter of apology to the judge. In exchange for pleading guilty, Falcon's family won't face charges.
Falcon could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison.