(Aliases: Jairo Lopez Roque, El Viejo, El Ingeniero, Tocayo, Rueda de Silla)
DOB: February 14, 1951
Alt. DOB: January 11, 1961
POB: Colombia
Nationality: Colombian
Citizenship: Colombia
Height: 5 feet 11 inches
Weight: 200 pounds
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Brown
Diego Leon Montoya-Sanchez was one of the most powerful cocaine traffickers in Colombia, operating in the North Valley with other major Colombian traffickers. Montoya-Sanchez is believed to have supplied cocaine to major Mexican traffickers, including Ignacio Coronel-Villareal. He was captured on September 10, 2007 by Colombian authorities.
Montoya-Sanchez has a reputation for violence. In January 2003, major Colombian trafficker Miguel Solano was murdered in Cartagena, Colombia followed by the murder of another major drug trafficker, Julio Fabio Urdinola. According to source information, both murders were carried out by Muerte a Sapos Americanos (Death to American Snitches, or MASA), a group of assassins sponsored by associates of Montoya-Sanchez.
On April 15, 2004, Colombian authorities conducted a nation-wide enforcement operation under Operation Resplandor against Montoya-Sanchez seizing $73 million and real estate assets belonging to Montoya-Sanchez.
Judicial Status: Montoya was indicted by a Washington D.C. Federal Grand Jury on Drug Trafficking and Rico Charges stemming from his leadership of the North Valle Cartel. That indictment was unsealed in May, 2004. Montoya also faces drug trafficking charges in the Southern District of Florida as a result of a superceding indictment on Montoya-Sanchez announced on May 9, 2000. According to the indictment, the North Valley Cartel exported approximately 500 metric tons of cocaine worth in excess of $10 Billion from Colombia to the U.S. between 1990 and 2004. A provisional arrest warrant was issued and sent to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.