Ex-DEA informant on probation charged in cocaine trafficker extortion scheme

A Florida-based former snitch for the DEA has been charged with extorting major cocaine traffickers from overseas, according to federal court documents.

Jorge Hernandez, a 57-year-old nicknamed “Bowling Ball,” spent the past 25 years helping the feds knock down kingpins, according to The Associated Press, which profiled him for his role as a witness in a DEA corruption trial in 2023.

Beginning in 2020, he allegedly pretended to be a paralegal and solicited payoff money from drug runners hauling in kilos from Colombia and the Dominican Republic.

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Hernandez’s alleged targets were already awaiting extradition to the United States to face criminal charges when the FBI says he approached them with the scheme, claiming that he would bring them “the best legal team in the United States” and land sentences of just a few years in prison for suspects facing 10 years to life.

Part of that time served, he allegedly told them, would be in an apartment.

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As part of the process, he allegedly obtained a legitimate paralegal certification and used it to meet with jailed suspects in unrecorded attorney visits.

Read the criminal complaint:

When they did not receive light sentences, he blamed the FBI and the traffickers’ own lawyers according to the criminal complaint.

He allegedly took bribes in the form of cash, vehicles and real estate and other expensive goods — threatening the drug runners’ family members if they didn’t pay up. He raked in between $4 and $6 million, according to prosecutors.

One of the traffickers offered his mother’s house as collateral, which he told Hernandez was 70% paid off, according to the complaint.

In a dispute over $200,000, Hernandez allegedly told another trafficking suspect that “he should pay because freedom does not have a price.”

Hernandez is currently on federal probation until May 2027 for a money laundering conspiracy, according to court documents.