Eight Years of Hiding, One Gunshot, and an Arrest in Copacabana

There is a particular symmetry that sometimes attends the downfall of those who live outside the law—a moment when the violence they have built their lives upon returns to find them, and the systems they have spent years evading close in with a precision that feels almost inevitable. For Arash Ebrahimi Far, an Australian-Iranian national who authorities allege was one of Western Australia’s most wanted drug kingpins, that moment arrived in a hospital in Copacabana, Colombia, where he was being treated for a gunshot wound. As he attempted to leave the medical facility, Interpol investigators intercepted him, executing a Red Notice for drug trafficking and money laundering .

The arrest, announced by Colombia’s National Police this week, brings to an end a period of hiding that authorities say began in December 2018, when Ebrahimi Far—known in the underworld by the aliases “Ash” and “The Kid”—fled to South America. From his base in Colombia, according to Colombian police, he continued to coordinate a transnational criminal organization with the capacity to traffic large quantities of narcotics, manage millions in illicit funds, and access arsenals of firearms. The organization, police said, used encrypted communication platforms to evade intelligence agencies .

The operation was carried out by Colombia’s Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol, with support from the Australian Federal Police. According to Colombian authorities, Ebrahimi Far had been admitted to a hospital in Copacabana, in the department of Antioquia, after being wounded by gunfire days earlier. The circumstances of that shooting remain under investigation. When investigators learned he was preparing to leave the hospital—allegedly to evade capture—they moved in .

Colombian police described Ebrahimi Far as a “high-value target” for Australian judicial authorities. Colonel Elver Vicente Alfonso Sanabria, speaking on behalf of the Colombian police, said the organization Ebrahimi Far allegedly led had “the capacity to sell and bring in vast quantities of narcotics, as well as handle millions in cash and arsenals of firearms” . The investigation, according to authorities, established that Ebrahimi Far had been directing criminal operations with international reach from within Colombia, coordinating activities that reached back to Western Australia .

For Western Australian authorities, the arrest represents the culmination of years of investigative work and a measure of frustration finally relieved. WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch, who in 2022 described Ebrahimi Far as a target whose capture was a matter of “finding him” rather than building a case, had publicly expressed impatience with the pace of extradition processes for transnational crime figures . The arrest in Colombia now opens the path to extradition proceedings, though no timeline has been announced. Ebrahimi Far has been handed over to Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office for the administrative and judicial steps required to formalize his transfer to Australian custody .

The circumstances of the gunshot wound that brought Ebrahimi Far into the hospital—and from there, into custody—remain unexplained. Colombian police said the shooting is under investigation . Whether it was the result of a dispute within the criminal network he allegedly led, an unrelated incident, or something else entirely, it was the injury that placed him within reach of the authorities who had sought him for nearly eight years. There is a certain irony in that—the violence that sustains such a life eventually placing its practitioner in the one location where the systems of law could finally find him.

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Sources: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Policía Nacional de Colombia, AP News, 7NEWS, News24