A Colombian man has been sentenced to 41 months in prison for conspiring to smuggle firearms from Florida to Colombia, announced Roger B. Handberg, U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of Florida.
Jorge Giovanny Gonzalez-Lopez, 42, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release. Gonzalez-Lopez was extradited from Colombia to the United States in February 2024, and has been in custody since that time. The Colombian national pleaded guilty back in July.
According to court documents, Gonzalez-Lopez is a citizen of Colombia who traveled to Florida in late 2017 and again in early 2018. With the assistance of other individuals, he acquired firearms, including several types of assault rifles.
Gonzalez-Lopez then illegally exported them from Clearwater, Tampa and Kissimmee, Florida, to Colombia. Authorities say he attempted to obliterate the serial numbers on some of the firearms so that they could not be traced. None of the parties involved had secured the licenses necessary for the legal export of these defense articles, a clear violation of federal law.
His arrest and conviction was a result of a multi-agency effort led by Homeland Security Investigations. U.S. authorities worked with the National Police of Colombia to secure his arrest and extradition.
According to Open Democracy, drug traffickers and criminal gangs are the main recipients of the multimillion-dollar trafficking business in arms, ammunition and explosives which get into Colombia. A leaked military intelligence report obtained by newspaper El Espectador, revealed most of the arms that were seized by Colombian authorities between 2021 and 2022 were fabricated legally by American arms manufacturers.
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