NEW YORK (BNO NEWS) – Leader of a Colombian narco-terrorist organization was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison, prosecutors said Friday.

Jorge Enrique Rodriguez Mendieta, also known as “Ivan Vargas”, a high-ranking leader of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), commonly known as FARC, was sentenced to 244 months in prison after pleading guilty of conspiring to import ton-quantities of cocaine into the United States. He was extradited to the U.S. in November 2007, after Colombian authorities arrested him in late 2004.

From approximately 1998 to 2004, Rodriguez Mendieta, 47, served as the Commander of the FARC’s 24th Front and as a member of the FARC’s 27-member Central General Staff, or Estado Mayor, responsible for setting the cocaine policies of the FARC, which is the world’s top cocaine manufacturer, producing more than half of the world’s supply of cocaine and nearly two-thirds of the cocaine imported into the U.S.

As Commander of that Front, Rodriguez Mendieta directed the purchase of hundreds of thousands of kilograms of cocaine paste, transferring billions of Colombian pesos in cocaine proceeds to higher-ranking FARC officials. He also conspired with others to manufacture and distribute thousands of tons of cocaine in Colombia, which would be imported into the United States.

“Jorge Enrique Rodriguez Mendieta for years occupied one of the FARC’s top leadership roles, overseeing the manufacture and distribution of thousands of kilograms of cocaine and participating in the policy-making of the FARC,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.

“Bringing the leadership of the FARC to justice is critical to our fight against narco-terrorism that threatens the safety and security of the United States. This Office will continue to work with its local, state, federal, and international partners to combat criminal organizations that undermine the rule of law,” he added.

The FARC is the most important leftist rebel group in Columbia, and it has been labeled as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department.

At the pinnacle of their organization, the FARC had some 12,000 to 18,000 members, occupying large territories throughout Columbia. The group is geographically organized into 77 different military units, called Fronts, which are in turn grouped into seven “blocs”.

The FARC began participating in the cocaine production business by imposing a “tax” fee on individuals involved in every stage of its production, but in the 1990s, the organization ordered that the FARC become the exclusive buyer of the raw cocaine paste used to make cocaine in all areas under FARC occupation.

Top leaders of the organization, including Rodriguez Mendieta, met in the late 1990s, voting unanimously in favor of several resolutions, including resolutions to expand coca production in areas of Colombia under FARC control, expand the FARC’s international distribution routes, increase the number of crystallization labs, appoint members within each Front to be in charge of coca production, raise prices that the FARC would pay peasant farmers, from whom they purchased cocaine paste, and mandate that better chemicals be used to increase the quality of cocaine paste.

In 2001 and 2002, the FARC, once again decided to expand its regime, increasing cocaine trafficking routes overseas, including to the United States, establish better ways to exchange cocaine and cocaine paste for weapons, and raising the peasant farmers’ pay for cocaine paste.