the assassination of a Paraguayan prosecutor<\/a> who was gunned down while on his honeymoon at a private beach resort in Colombia.<\/p>\nHis pursuers managed to track Marset to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia\u2019s economic hub, by planting a GPS tracker in his girlfriend\u2019s luggage as she traveled through Brazil, according to U.S. court filings.<\/p>\n
The Bolivians promptly handed Marset over to agents from the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration, who flew him to Peru and then Washington.<\/p>\n
The justification for prosecuting Marset in Virginia is that one wire transfer for $31,800, sent from a bank in Portugal to a bank in China on Feb. 18, 2021, allegedly passed through a Bank of America computer server.<\/p>\n
Marset, his attorneys maintain in court filings, \u201cdid not personally take any action to conduct the wire transfer,\u201d adding that there\u2019s evidence it actually occurred in Pennsylvania, not Virginia. The transaction\u2019s link to the United States, they say, was both \u201cephemeral and unforeseeable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if Marset was smuggling drugs as prosecutors allege, his attorneys argue that his \u201cconduct had no connection to this country whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Marset\u2019s lawyers pointed out that the charging documents allege he only smuggled drugs to Europe, prosecutors filed a response that said if the case went to trial, they would introduce evidence that he did, in fact, send cocaine shipments to the United States. They have offered no explanation as to why Marset is not already charged with that crime. The U.S. attorney\u2019s office in the Eastern District of Virginia did not respond to questions about the case.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s resources, Marset\u2019s legal team asserts, would have been better spent pursuing other targets.<\/p>\n
In his phone call from jail, Marset echoed that sentiment. \u201cI never even talked about the United States,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t even want to know where on the map it was. I wasn\u2019t interested in the United States at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marset hails from a neighborhood on the outskirts of Uruguay\u2019s capital, Montevideo.<\/p>\n
His father worked for a factory that manufactured plastics \u2014 \u201ctrays, bags, and all that kind of stuff,\u201d he said \u2014 and as a truck driver. His parents split up when Marset was 8, leaving him to be raised by his mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a hard life,\u201d he said. \u201cI grew up very humbly.\u201d His first serious run-in with the law came in 2012, when he was reportedly caught receiving a large shipment of marijuana. Marset was imprisoned from 2013 to 2018 in Uruguay, but maintains there was never any hard proof of his involvement in the drug trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo this day, all they\u2019ve done is call me a suspected drug trafficker,\u201d Marset said. \u201cBecause no country has been able to prove the drug trafficking everyone\u2019s talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his efforts to avoid incurring the wrath of Uncle Sam, Marset eventually came into the crosshairs of the DEA.<\/p>\n
On March 27, 2025, according to court filings, DEA agent Michael Greisen tried a direct approach: He messaged Marset on WhatsApp, warning that he was under indictment and should turn himself in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to inform you and explain how you could resolve your issues with the United States discreetly and professionally,\u201d Greisen wrote, according to a translation provided by prosecutors. \u201cYou have the chance to set things right. Otherwise, you are simply waiting for the day of your imminent capture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marset did not take kindly to the admonition.<\/p>\n
\u201cJustice doesn\u2019t exist,\u201d he responded in one message, according to U.S. prosecutors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am smarter than the entire DEA put together,\u201d he allegedly said in another.<\/p>\n
Marset\u2019s lawyers claim the exchange so enraged the DEA that it set out to capture and prosecute him by any means necessary. They assert that the DEA orchestrated the raid on Marset\u2019s home in Bolivia, arranging for him to be turned over immediately to avoid the usual extradition process.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors said in court filings that, although DEA agents were \u201cbriefed on the operation before and after it occurred,\u201d they were \u201cnot involved\u201d in planning or executing the raid. They dispute that the Bolivian agents shot up Marset\u2019s home, stating he was \u201carrested without incident.\u201d <\/p>\n
The DEA\u2019s handling of Marset after he arrived in the U.S. has also been a point of contention. <\/p>\n
While being transported from the airport to jail, Marset\u2019s lawyers say, the DEA agents asked him to \u201cdonate\u201d $4 million in cryptocurrency that was held in various accounts.<\/p>\n
Marset, his attorneys say, \u201cbelieved that the request for a \u2018donation\u2019 was the equivalent of an extortion attempt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn every country, it\u2019s become clear to me that all they want is my money,\u201d Marset told The Times. \u201cI thought it wouldn\u2019t be like that in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said the agents never asked for a \u201cdonation\u201d from Marset and allege that he has sought to \u201cintentionally mischaracterize as unscrupulous what are in fact standard law enforcement practices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some former federal prosecutors said the government may have overplayed its hand with the case. They questioned why the narco-terrorism charges against Marset were added only after he began fighting his case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a reach, so far as I can tell,\u201d said Bonnie Klapper, a former federal narcotics prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York. \u201cThey\u2019re really trying to bootstrap one statute on top of another.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Weinstein, a defense attorney not involved in Marset\u2019s case, who previously worked as a narcotics prosecutor in Miami, echoed that assessment. He suggested the narco-terrorism charges were probably brought to ramp up the pressure on Marset to make a plea deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives a more salacious nature to what was originally just a money laundering conspiracy case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The judge presiding over the case ordered a hearing on Wednesday, where both sides will argue why the charges should stand or be dismissed.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Marset has been biding his time in jail. He said he passes the days by watching soccer on TV, though he has been unable to play since suffering a knee injury prior to his capture.<\/p>\n
He called the narco-terrorism charge against him \u201cabsolutely ridiculous\u201d and claimed that his efforts to combat the charges had made things personal with the U.S. attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe justice system today, worldwide, is rotten to the core,\u201d he said. \u201cThe prosecutor doesn\u2019t want to do justice. The prosecutor wants to beat me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prior to his capture this year, Sebastian Marset was reputed to be one of the world\u2019s most prolific…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[186084,1436,7268,7363,42165,1789,6874,51724,48,52,51,1429,47,50,49,7214,186083,5783,435,57440,14424],"class_list":["post-473048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bank-server","tag-case","tag-cocaine","tag-country","tag-court-filing","tag-dea","tag-drug","tag-eastern-district","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lawyer","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-prosecutor","tag-sebastian-marset","tag-u-s-attorney","tag-united-states","tag-uruguay","tag-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}