After 26 years on the lam, a man dubbed by investigators as one of Miami's last "cocaine cowboys'' has pleaded not guilty to decades-old drug trafficking charges.
The plea was entered at a hearing Friday by the attorney for 55-year-old Gustavo Falcon, who stood nearby in shackles.
Falcon is charged in a 1991 indictment claiming he was part of a major cocaine smuggling operation during the 1980s. Falcon vanished in 1991 when he, his older brother Augusto "Willie'' Falcon, Salvador "Sal'' Magluta and others were originally charged.
The gang purportedly smuggled at least 75 tons of cocaine into the U.S., earning some $2 billion during the hyper-violent "Miami Vice'' era.
Falcon was arrested by U.S. Marshals in April near Orlando, where he lived under an assumed name with his wife.