Switzerland and the United States have split $9 million dollars in confiscated Colombian drug money, the federal police authorities said on Wednesday.

Switzerland and the United States have split $9 million dollars in confiscated Colombian drug money, the federal police authorities said on Wednesday.

Canton Vaud investigative judge Jacques Antenen said the funds were confiscated from various accounts at the former Union Bank of Switzerland as part of a joint money laundering investigation against Sheila Arana de Nasser.

She was arrested in Switzerland in 1994 and extradited to the United States the following year. In 1996, she pleaded guilty in Miami to charges that she and her husband had smuggled $755 million worth of cocaine and marijuana into the United States, and was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

She agreed to forfeit the $150 million in her Swiss accounts. It was the biggest money-laundering case in Swiss history, and the largest sum ever seized by the United States.

The U.S. and Switzerland agreed in December 1998 to divide the money equally between the two governments, but the pay-out was delayed until September, when the Swiss government and cantons cooperating in the investigation finally agreed on how to split the money.

Under the agreement, the federal government gets 20 percent and cantons Vaud and Zürich the remaining 80 percent.

Antenen said Arana’s brother, Jairo de Nasser, is believed to be in Colombia, which has no extradition treaty with the United States.

Arana's husband, Julio Nasser David, who has been indicted but never brought to trial, is also thought to be in Colombia.

From staff and wire reports.

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