OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
8:28 AM – Saturday, March 14, 2026
Suspected Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset, 34, one of South America’s and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) most wanted criminals, has been arrested in Bolivia.
Marset, who was added to the U.S.’s most wanted fugitives list last May, was handed over to the DEA at an airport in Santa Cruz after his arrest on Friday, as seen on Bolivia’s state television.
“The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the U.S. justice system,” Marco Antonio Oviedo, a Bolivian senior minister, told reporters.
The U.S. DEA was involved with Marset’s transfer to the U.S., but not his arrest.
Marset was indicted in the U.S. for money laundering, according to the State Department, as he is accused of leading the First Uruguayan Cartel. He is also wanted in Paraguay and Bolivia on charges of organized crime related to cocaine trafficking across South America and Europe.
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz Pereira praised Marset’s arrest as a milestone development for the region.
“One of the drug traffickers and criminals considered among the four biggest on the continent has fallen,” Paz said during a press conference in La Paz. “The capture of Mr. Marset marks a turning point in the fight against organized crime, and it also reaffirms the government’s determination to confront international and domestic mafias.”
The suspect was first arrested for drug trafficking in 2013 and spent years in a Uruguay prison before being released in 2019.
Marset was briefly detained in Dubai in 2021 due to traveling with a forged Paraguayan passport, though he was issued a new passport to legally exit the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In 2022. Marset was linked to the assassination of Marcelo Pecci, a leading prosecutor in Paraguay, who was fatally shot on a beach in Colombia while on his honeymoon, though Marset has not been charged for the case.
Friday’s arrest is expected to end his criminal career as the self-described “King of the South,” which was stamped onto bricks of cocaine.
“Sebastian Marset’s reign of terror and chaos is over,” the DEA announced on Friday, thanking Bolivia’s leadership and law enforcement for their cooperation.
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