Diego Marín, 62, known as ‘Papa Smurf’ or ‘Smurf’, is suspected of leading, since 2023, a gang that was dedicated to smuggling and committing crimes against public administration, bribing employees of different entities.

He was arrested on December 3 in Póvoa de Varzim, Porto district, after escaping from Spain, while he was awaiting, in freedom, the outcome of the extradition request made by the Colombian authorities.

In opposition to the extradition sent to the Porto Court of Appeal (TRP), to which the Lusa agency had access, the man, considered the “biggest smuggler” in Colombia, denies having committed any crime and appeals to the Portuguese authorities not to extradite him to his country of origin, where he says “a death sentence” awaits him.

“The extradition of the defendant [Diego Marín] and the possible refusal of his international protection by the Portuguese State is guaranteed to be equivalent to a death penalty, although there is no accusation against him by Colombia for committing any crime in that territory,” says the document, signed by lawyer Vítor Parente Ribeiro.

Marín, who is in preventive detention in Porto, still has two pending appeals: one related to his asylum request, which was previously denied by the Portuguese authorities, and another at the Constitutional Court on the grounds for his detention, after the Supreme Court of Justice did not admit a first appeal.

Colombian authorities want to charge Diego Marín with smuggling, bribery and participation in a criminal organisation.

On February 1, the Colombian President asked Portugal to extradite Diego Marín.

“I expect Portugal to extradite the biggest smuggler in Colombia’s contemporary history. “Big smuggling is the money laundering of big drug traffickers,” wrote Gustavo Petro on the social network X.

According to the head of state, Marín “infiltrated governments to the core to continue the destruction of national industry and money laundering through smuggling.”

Politics

A few days later, the Colombian president denied any connection or meeting with Diego Marín, who allegedly contributed a large amount of money to his 2022 election campaign.

Gustavo Petro's reaction came after Colombian media reported that 'Smurf' donated 500 million pesos (around 117 thousand euros) to the presidential campaign, highlighting that Petro and the new head of the Presidential Cabinet, former ambassador Armando Benedetti, met with Marín, in Spain, in January 2022.

“In recent times, the Colombian media has spread rumours that the defendant had financially supported the current president’s political campaign. Thus, the President of Colombia himself, with a view to demonstrating that this was not true, also began to persecute the defendant. The defendant is being politically persecuted,” reads the opposition to extradition.

Marín's defense considers that Petro is “exerting all the pressure” for his client to be extradited.

“The President’s intervention in the defendant’s extradition request speaks volumes about the lack of impartiality and impartiality in the extradition process. The falsity of these processes led the Colombian State to put the life, safety and integrity of the defendant and his family at risk, who are subjected to constant threats against their lives”, denounces Vitor Parente Ribeiro.

The lawyer emphasizes that it is his client who “has been denouncing the corruption that exists” in Colombia, which is why “he has become persona ‘non grata’, persecuted by the President of Colombia himself, who considers his arrest to be a personal matter”.