Accused Colombian drug lord Geovany Andres Rojas has been extradited to California to face federal charges that could send him to prison for life.
Rojas, 45, known on the street as “Spider,” arrived in U.S. Custody Thursday afternoon at an undisclosed San Diego location around 4:30 p.m., flanked by DEA and FBI agents. The handoff capped a heavily guarded transfer that began hours earlier at a Colombian National Police air base in Bogota, where Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella personally oversaw the exchange.
“Colombia and the Department of Justice are making a clean sweep of narcoterrorists, starting with Araña,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said, using the Spanish word for spider that matches Rojas’s nickname.
Federal authorities allege Rojas commanded Comandos de la Frontera, a paramilitary force of roughly 1,000 heavily armed members operating in southwestern Colombia. Prosecutors say the organization pulled profits from cocaine cultivation and production while deploying weapons and violence to maintain territorial control in one of Colombia’s primary cocaine-producing zones.
Rojas allegedly cultivated a public image of menace, posting on social media and giving interviews where he posed alongside weapons and fighters. His group, prosecutors contend, supplied Mexican cartels with cocaine that ultimately reached American communities.
“Their cocaine fueled the Mexican cartels pumping poison into our communities,” Gordon said.
Rojas’s path to the top of a drug army traced back to his earlier role as a fighter with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the guerrilla group known as FARC. He signed onto Colombia’s 2016 peace deal that ended decades of civil conflict, only to return to armed violence afterward.
Colombian authorities arrested him in February 2025 on an Interpol warrant connected to narcotics offenses. His extradition won approval following that arrest but stalled as he participated in peace negotiations.
President de la Espriella cut through the delay on August 26, issuing a direct order to send Rojas to the United States.
The federal indictment against Rojas includes two counts: international conspiracy to distribute cocaine and narcoterrorism. The cocaine conspiracy charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life imprisonment. The narcoterrorism charge raises the floor to 20 years, also with life as the ceiling.
Rojas is scheduled to make his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Steve B. Chu at 2 p.m. On September 28.