Longtime cocaine smuggler gets 30-year term

MIAMI -- A man who admitted smuggling more than 24 tons of cocaine into the United States from 1984 to 2000 has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

Alex Decubas, a Cuban-born naturalized American citizen, admitted helping run a small fleet of ships and boats, including a 236-foot Danish freighter, to carry cocaine into south Florida. He also allegedly built two submarines, one that was seized in Colombia and another that sank in a test off Colombia in 2002.

"It's obvious when this defendant puts his mind to something, he's very good at it," prosecutor Paul Pelletier said Wednesday. "Unfortunately, he put his mind to drug trafficking."

In guilty pleas entered in five indictments, Decubas also admitted laundering $6.3 million in drug profits. He could have been sentenced to life in prison.

After working for the Julio Nasser David smuggling ring, which was dismantled in 1994 after $189 million was seized in Swiss banks, Decubas worked with Colombia's North Coast cartel until his arrest last year.

As part of his plea bargain, he testified before grand juries in pending investigations, Pelletier said.

Defense attorney Robert Dunlap described "a life that was abandoned so thoroughly and given over to criminal activity." Decubas had nothing to say to the judge, but more than a dozen friends and relatives offered their support.

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