A former Florida DEA informant has been accused of blackmailing leading cocaine smugglers from abroad, as per federal court filings.
Jorge Hernandez, a 57-year-old with the nickname “Bowling Ball,” reportedly spent 25 years assisting the government in taking down drug lords, as reported by The Associated Press, which highlighted him for his involvement as a witness in a 2023 DEA corruption case.
Reportedly starting in 2020, he posed as a paralegal and demanded bribe money from drug traffickers bringing in kilograms from Colombia and the Dominican Republic.
As part of the process, he allegedly obtained a legitimate paralegal certification and used it to meet with jailed suspects in unrecorded attorney visits.
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.
A note that allegedly shows payment details as part of Hernandez’s scheme to extort cocaine traffickers. (Southern District of Florida)
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.”
Drug Enforcement Administration agents on June 13, 2016, in Florida. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP, File)
Hernandez is currently on federal probation until May 2027 for a money laundering conspiracy, according to court documents.
