The fall of Sebastián Marset, the Uruguayan kingpin on the DEA’s most‑wanted list

Bolivia’s Special Force for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking (FELCN) captured Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset early Friday morning in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. The criminal leader is considered Uruguay’s most dangerous criminal and is one of the five most wanted individuals by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). According to local media reports, the U.S. Agency has already transferred Marset from Viru Viru Airport to the United States.

Marset — the leader of the First Uruguayan Cartel (PCU) — was arrested in the Las Palmas neighborhood, located about a few miles from the center of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. He had been a fugitive for more than three years, evading various Bolivian and international operations, including those by Interpol.

Marset rose to public prominence when he was arrested in 2013 for transporting more than 450 kilos of marijuana to the Northern Hemisphere. After serving five years in prison, he allegedly began coordinating a cocaine‑shipping network from Bolivia through Paraguay, with Europe as the final destination, according to Insight Crime.

His name resurfaced in the public eye in 2022 when he was linked to the murder in Colombia of Paraguayan anti-drug prosecutor Marcelo Pecci. A year later, he was tracked down using a false name in Bolivia, where a failed operation to capture him ended with the kidnapping of two police officers and the drug trafficker’s escape. During the raid, however, weapons, luxury vehicles, and large sums of money were found in a mansion located in an upscale neighborhood, where he had lived for years with his Paraguayan wife and their three children.

During Friday’s police operation, four other people allegedly linked to the PCU were arrested. Marset’s name resurfaced in the media last week after Paraguay’s Minister of the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD), Jalil Rachid, claimed he was in Bolivian territory. However, this information was almost immediately denied by Bolivia’s Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo. “To date, there is no official confirmation of Marset’s presence in Bolivian territory,” he said on March 6.

The criminal leader had upset Bolivian authorities for years by publicly taunting them in videos shared on social media. Before the failed 2023 attempt to capture him, he even recorded a video accusing the the then-head of the FELCN, Ismael Vilca, of tipping him off about an arrest order in exchange for money. “Thanks to the help of the director of the FELCN, I managed to leave, because he warned me that the minister had issued an arrest warrant against me,” Marset said in the recording. “And, well, he took some money and told me to leave.” The police and the government backed Vilca and argued the video was meant as a distraction.

In May 2025, the U.S. State Department formally charged Marset with money laundering for using U.S. Banks to move drug money. Washington also offered a $2 million reward for information leading to his capture.

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