The U.S. Department of Justice has expanded its indictment against Uruguayan national Sebastián Marset, identified as the leader of the so-called First Uruguayan Cartel, to include serious federal charges, among them narco-terrorism and international cocaine trafficking. The information was released by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
The expanded charges came just days after Marset sent a letter to a federal judge in which he alleged that U.S. agents had pressured his mother into handing over passwords to access his cryptocurrency wallet. The Department of Justice maintains that he manufactured and distributed narcotics while providing material support to an organization designated as a terrorist group — in this case, the very drug trafficking network he led.
According to the document filed by the prosecution, between 2018 and March 2026 Marset allegedly coordinated with a member of Colombia's Clan del Golfo the shipment of 1,700 kilograms of cocaine on a speedboat bound for Costa Rica. The operation was intercepted by the Colombian Navy in the Caribbean Sea, and 1,653 kilograms of the drug were recovered after the crew threw the cargo overboard.
The indictment also reinforces the role of Paraguayan national Federico Santoro Vassallo in the group's financial operations. He pleaded guilty in the United States in March of this year and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. According to the investigation, Santoro and another financial operator based in Paraguay moved Marset's illicit proceeds through large-scale cash deliveries, cryptocurrencies, and international bank transfers, including a $31,800 transfer linked to drug trafficking, sent from Portugal to a logistics supplier in China and processed by a Bank of America correspondent bank in Virginia.
The defense, represented by attorney Robert Feitel, moved to dismiss the money laundering conspiracy charge, arguing that the prosecution failed to demonstrate a sufficient jurisdictional connection between the financial movements and the Eastern District of Virginia, where the case is being heard.
Marset, for whom the U.S. government had offered a reward of up to $2 million, was captured in Bolivia in March after years of international pursuit and was extradited to the United States. The expansion of the charges under anti-terrorism statutes raises the legal stakes of the case and could result in a harsher sentence.