A U.S. Army sergeant was arrested at Bogota’s Eldorado International Airport trying to smuggle almost two kilograms of cocaine out of Colombia.
The sergeant, Deon Lemar Burton, was arrested trying to board a plane to Paris carrying two backpacks containing 1,999 grams of cocaine.
The U.S. officer, who had been stationed in Italy, spent three days in Bogota before his arrest at the airport on October 12.
According to a report by AFP, a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Colombia said that Sergeant Burton was not engaged in any official duty while in Colombia.
The embassy issued a statement saying that “this person was not part of the official U.S. mission in Colombia. We respect the rule of law in Colombia and the Colombian criminal justice system and believe that due process should be followed, as in all cases.”