Fabio Enrique Ochoa-Vasco faces up to life in prison and has agreed to cooperate with U.S. authorities.

Two years ago, the U.S. State Department offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Ochoa, who saved the government the reward money by surrendering in January.

The State Department estimated Ochoa sent 6 to 8 tons of cocaine every month to the United States.

Authorities said he had ties to the Autodefensas Unidades de Colombia, a paramilitary organization that U.S. authorities have identified as a foreign terrorist organization. He was also previously associated with narcotraffickers who worked with the late Pablo Escobar, one of Colombia's most notoriously violent drug lords.

When the U.S. Treasury Department froze Ochoa's U.S. assets in 2007, an official there described him as "the head of one of the most powerful Medellin-based drug trafficking organizations today." His criminal network was said to stretch across Colombia, Belize, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico and Panama.

Ochoa, 48, was born in Colombia and grew up in South Florida. He fled his Miami home 20 years ago after he was first indicted there.

Ochoa pleaded guilty today to charges from that 1989 federal case, a South Florida case in 1990 and an indictment brought in Tampa exactly five years ago.

Asked by U.S. Magistrate Thomas B. McCoun III what he did for a living, Ochoa said, "The last job I had here in the United States is at a Winn-Dixie supermarket. Other times, I've dedicated myself to real estate."

Under a plea agreement, Ochoa agreed to forfeit $15 million in assets to be taken from a long list of properties he purchased with drug proceeds or used to further the drug conspiracy.

Among the assets: the rights to Colombian soccer player Sebastian Hernandez, valued at $200,000; a Colombian island and hotel; two water parks; a soccer club; an airplane; and real estate in the United States, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela.

Summing up the charges, McCoun told Ochoa, "The government says you were a big-time drug smuggler. Is that true?"

Ochoa hesitated and his attorney, Roy Kahn, interjected: "At some point. He was a worker up until 1986-87" and later became a leader.

"You were the boss man or one of the boss men?" McCoun said. "Is that true?"

"Yes, sir," the bespectacled defendant replied.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Ochoa's organization operated and distributed the cocaine through a vast network of "go-fast" and fishing vessels, as well as airplanes and ground transportation. Ochoa used airplanes to fly cocaine into the Bahamas and then transported the drugs by speedboat to the Florida Keys and elsewhere.

His organization had contacts with Colombian politicians and law enforcement and had the ability to obtain favors to assist the smuggling, the plea agreement states. It also had access to intelligence from the U.S. Coast Guard.

U.S. wiretaps captured Ochoa talking to others in the organization about the conspiracy, including a call in 1984 in which he discussed the whereabouts of another conspirator and talked about postponing smuggling operations because of a full moon.

In March 1987, a go-fast boat carrying cocaine for the organization from the Bahamas crashed into another boat, killing that vessel's pilot and throwing the cocaine boat crew into the water. The boat later beached on a Bahamian island.

With Ochoa and others monitoring by radio from a South Florida ranch, conspirators tried to find the crashed boat. By the time they located the vessel, the cocaine had been stolen, according to court documents.

**Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837.