Noriega was indicted in Miami in 1988, along with his personal secretary named Del Cid. Here's the story of how he got to the U.S., from a court opinion in his case denying his motion to dismiss the Indictment.

In the interval between the time the indictment was issued and Defendants were arrested, relations between the United States and General Noriega deteriorated considerably. Shortly after charges against Noriega were brought, the General delivered a widely publicized speech in which he brought a machete crashing down on a podium while denouncing the United States.

On December 15, 1989, Noriega declared that a "state of war" existed between Panama and the United States. Tensions between the two countries further increased the next day, when U.S. military forces in Panama were put on alert after Panamanian troops shot and killed an American soldier, wounded another, and beat a Navy couple.

Three days later, on December 20, 1989, President Bush ordered U.S. troops into combat in Panama City on a mission whose stated goals were to safeguard American lives, restore democracy, preserve the Panama Canal treaties, and seize General Noriega to face federal drug charges in the United States.

Before U.S. troops were engaged, American officials arranged a ceremony in which Guillermo Endara was sworn in as president and recognized by the United States as the legitimate head of the government of Panama. Endara was reported to have won the Panamanian presidential election held several months earlier, the results of which were nullified and disregarded by General Noriega.

Del Cid surrendered. General Noriega at first did not. Here's how they got him to surrender:

The apprehension of General Noriega was not quite so easy. He successfully eluded American forces for several days, prompting the United States government to offer a one million dollar bounty for his capture. Eventually, the General took sanctuary in the Papal Nunciature in Panama City, where he apparently hoped to be granted political asylum. Noriega's presence in the Papal Nunciature touched off a diplomatic impasse and a round of intense negotiations involving several countries. Vatican officials initially refused to turn Noriega over to the United States. While he was still ensconced in the nunciature, American troops stationed outside pelted the building with loud rock-and-roll music blasted through loudspeakers. The music was played continuously for three days until church authorities protested the action as offensive. After an eleven-day standoff, Noriega finally surrendered to American forces, apparently under pressure from the papal nuncio and influenced by a threatening crowd of about 15,000 angry Panamanian citizens who had gathered outside the residence. On January 3, 1990, two weeks after the invasion began, Noriega walked out of the Papal Nunciature and surrendered himself to U.S. military officials waiting outside. He was flown by helicopter to Howard Air Force Base, where he was ushered into a plane bound for Florida and formally arrested by agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

In another section, the court describes what Noriega was alleged to have done:

Specifically, the indictment charges that General Noriega protected cocaine shipments from Colombia through Panama to the United States; arranged for the transshipment and sale to the Medellin Cartel of ether and acetone, including such chemicals previously seized by the Panamanian Defense Forces; provided refuge and a base for continued operations for the members of the Medellin Cartel after the Colombian government's crackdown on drug traffickers following the murder of the Colombian Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara-Bonilla; agreed to protect a cocaine laboratory in Darien Province, Panama; and assured the safe passage of millions of dollars of narcotic proceeds from the United States into Panamanian banks.

Noriega also allegedly traveled to Havana, Cuba and met with Cuban president Fidel Castro, who, according to the indictment, mediated a dispute between Noriega and the Cartel caused by the Panamanian troops' seizure of a drug laboratory that Noriega was paid to protect. All of these activities were allegedly undertaken for General Noriega's own personal profit.

In 1992, the Court ruled Noriega was indeed a prisoner of war.

The Defendant Noriega is plainly a prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention III. He is, and will be, entitled to the full range of rights under the treaty, which has been incorporated into U.S. law.

After his sentence was up, in 2010, he was extradited to France on charges that he used $3 million in drug proceeds from the Medellin cartel to purchase property in France. He had been convicted in absentia in France in 1999, received a new trial after he was extradited, and was convicted again, and sentenced to 7 years.

In 2011, France granted Panama's request he be returned there to serve a sentence imposed after being convicted in absentia of murder, corruption and embezzlement. In 2012, he was diagnosed with a small brain tumor. In 2016, the tumor progressed rapidly, and in January, 2017, he was granted house arrest to prepare for surgery. He had two surgeries in March, resulting in him being placed in an induced coma. . A month later, he was still in the hospital in a coma. He remained in the coma until his death yesterday.

Noriega worked both sides of the fence. He was a U.S. informant, who also worked with the traffickers.

Noriega played a double game, apparently protecting some favored smugglers while earning Washington’s gratitude for helping the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) target the vital financial infrastructure of the major drug cartels.[vi] This was a matter of the highest importance to U.S. law enforcement.

...One of the high points of Noriega’s cooperation was Operation Pisces, a three-year undercover probe that Attorney General Edwin Meese called “the largest and most successful undercover investigation in federal drug law enforcement history.” Among those indicted were Medellin Cartel kingpins Pablo Escobar and Fabio Ochoa. Panama contributed 40 arrests and seized $12 million from accounts in 18 local banks.

...With the knowledge of US officials, Noriega formed “the hemisphere’s first narcokleptocracy,” a US Senate subcommittee report said, calling him, “the best example in recent US foreign policy of how a foreign leader is able to manipulate the United States to the detriment of our own interests.”

The Cali cartel (successor to the Medellin cartel) wanted him ousted.

Major cartel leaders also wanted Noriega ousted, viewing him as an “obstacle to the functioning” of their money laundering operations in Panama. A lawyer for the bosses of the Cali Cartel complained that his clients were “frustrated by the problems” Noriega created for them in Panama.

....Cali leaders later got their revenge when they provided $1.25 million to bribe a trafficker associated with the Medelli­n cartel to become a key witness against Noriega in his Miami trial.

Here is the 1997 court decision affirming his conviction.

Lots of drug traffickers lined up to testify against Noriega in exchange for reduced sentences for their own crimes. One of them was Carlos Lehder, the first leader of the Medellin cartel to be extradited. He had been sentenced to 135 years plus life without parole after a trial in Jacksonville, FL.. On how he went from a notorious criminal to a government buddy:

During his own trial four years ago, Lehder was considered such a dangerous narco-terrorist that he sat shackled in the courtroom in Jacksonville, Fla. But proving that yesterday's villain can become today's hero in the criminal justice system, he wore no shackles Tuesday and was dressed smartly in a gray suit and red figured necktie.

At recess in the heavily guarded courtroom, an associate prosecutor who was not involved in questioning Lehder came over to introduce himself and shake hands with the smiling witness.

Lehder's testimony helped the prosecution underline some major points that it wants the jury to keep in mind: That Pablo Escobar, Colombia's chief narcotics trafficker of the 1980s, arranged an agreement with Noriega; that the Medellin cartel needed "security and protection" for its U.S.-bound shipments through Panama and that Noriega received a cash commission for every kilo of cocaine shipped through his country and every drug dollar laundered in Panama's banks.

Here's a Frontline interview with a pilot for Carlos Lehder. And an interview with George Jung (the trafficker played by Johnny Depp in the movie "Blow") who cooperated against Lehder. (After being released, Jung went back into the business and got caught, for which he served 20 years. He was released in 2014.

But Lehder got the short end of the stick. As I wrote in 2015:

[Lehder] was promised his sentence would be reduced to 30 years, and he would in no event serve more time than Noriega. He testified, and then went into the witness protection program (as an incarcerated witness.) His sentence was only reduced to 55 years.

Lehder has now served 30 years in prison, and is still there. The chief prosecutor of his case justifies the sentence by saying Lehder ratted down when testifying against Noriega -- i.e. he claims Lehder was a bigger crook than Noriega:

"First of all, Lehder's testimony was entirely gratuitous and unnecessary for a conviction of Noriega. Secondly, they gave a deal to the guy who was directing the bad activities to convict someone who was following directions.

In the very well-sourced 2013 article, Unjust Aftermath: Post-Noriega Panama, the author notes that Noriega's capture and trial had zero effect on reducing the flow of drugs into the U.S. (just the opposite occurred):

Popular depictions of Operation Just Cause at the time resembled some 1950s Westerns, with their depictions of virtuous lawmen bringing murderous villains to justice (usually at the end of a noose, not in an air conditioned jail cell). Just as that era’s audiences left theaters comforted that law and order had been restored to Dodge City, so most North Americans in 1990 likely assumed that President Bush’s timely intervention had saved Panama from the grip of evil drug lords.

But even as the United States was congratulating itself on winning the war on drugs in Panama, cocaine continued pouring through the country toward North America. In retrospect, Just Cause was a hollow victory for law enforcement.

A year and a half after Noriega’s arrest, unnamed “U.S. experts” told Time magazine that “the unexpected result . . . is that the rival Cali cartel established a base in Panama and has since inundated the country, along with Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean, with vast quantities of cocaine destined for the U.S. and Europe.”

...This dismal record puts the lie, once again, to the “kingpin” theory of drug crime, popularized by some politicians, law enforcement officials and reporters seeking headlines. Serious law enforcement professionals and students of drug policy know that the arrest of “kingpins” like Noriega creates high drama but never has any lasting effect on the supply of drugs....The world drug market is far too pluralistic to be shut down in the face of strong market demand.

One other quote from the article on Noriega:

Noriega might have survived for many more years had he not been caught up in the anti-crack hysteria stoked by the U.S. media in mid-1980s. This public alarm was channeled against Noriega by an unlikely pair of allies on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: the right-wing Sen. Jesse Helms, who deplored Noriega’s cozy relations with Cuba and plans to take control of the canal, and the liberal Sen. John Kerry, who relished exposing the hypocrisy of the Reagan administration’s war on drugs.

Testimony against Noriega before that committee convinced reporters and the general public of his guilt. With each juicy revelation, Noriega turned increasingly from an administration asset into a liability. His 1988 indictments in Miami and Tampa sealed Noriega’s fate. They silenced most of his remaining allies in the Pentagon and CIA and all but forced presidential candidate George Bush, who had been Noriega’s paymaster while director of the CIA, to demand that Noriega leave power. The Latin strongman’s cocky and bombastic refusal posed an intolerable challenge to the administration’s authority and credibility, a miscalculation that cost both his career and his freedom.(my emphasis).

The DEA agent who arrested Noriega was later convicted of pocketing $760,000 during a money laundering sting in Fort Lauderdale. He surrendered in Panama and was sentenced to two years in prison. By pleading guilty, his wife, also a federal drug agent, avoided prosecution.

One last quote, from the movie The Tailor of Panama:

When they took Noriega out, I said to myself, Harry, they got Ali Baba, but they missed the forty thieves.

So Noriega is gone. It some ways, it's the end of an era. But so long as some of the drug traffickers he worked with remain in prison, some serving decades more than he did, and the U.S. maintains its failed war on drugs policy, it's really not.