by Ran
At 15-years-old, Gilberto began working as a clerk in a Mariquita pharmacy. The high school drop-out worked his way up to manager within five years. At the age of 25, he quit to open his own drugstore.
Gilberto and Miguel's criminal careers began in their teens. They were both charged with counterfeiting but the statute of limitations ran out before the two could be convicted -- allegedly owing to the judge presiding over the case receiving death threats. The brothers were also suspected of kidnapping, for which Gilberto spent a day in jail.
In 1969, Gilberto co-founded the Los Chemas gang with Jose "Chepe" Santacruz-Londono, with whom he and Miguel attended high school. That same year, he was suspected of leading the seven-member gang in the kidnapping of two Swiss citizens -- a student, Werner Jose Straessel and diplomat Herman Buff -- for $700,000 ransom. Initially engaging in counterfeiting kidnapping-for-ransom and marijuana trafficking, Los Chemas eventually became involved in drug trafficking, smuggling Bolivian and Peruvian coca paste into Colombia for processing into cocaine.
In the early 1970s, Helmer "Pacho" Herrera was dispatched to New York City to establish a distribution network. He created nearly-independent cells, each overseen by a "celeno" (cell manager). Each celeno reported to cartel-associate Jorge Alberto Rodriguez, who answered to the cartel leaders.
In 1975, Gilberto was arrested in Peru in possession of 180 kilograms of coca paste aboard a plane. He was arrested in New York two years later. Initially sending his childhood friend Giraldo Soto to New York City in 1975 in order to strengthen the distribution networks, Santacruz-Londono took over New York operations when Soto was arrested in 1978.
Miguel made his mistress, Miss Colombia 1974, Martha Lucia Echeverry, his third wife.
The group later recruited other organizations and marshaled them under one umbrella, which became known as the Cali drug cartel --- named for the Colombian city in which it was based. The cartel, an alliance of five separate and distinct drug trafficking organizations, was comprised of: the Rodriguez-Orejuela brothers organization; the Jose Santacruz-Londono organization; the Helmer "Pacho" Herrera Buitrago organization; the Urdinola-Grajales brothers organization; and the Grajales-Lemos and Grajales-Posso organization. Eventually, Miguel took over as head of the daily operations of the organization while Santacruz-Londono managed the international transportation networks.
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| Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela |
The cartel used thousands of telephone calls and faxes each month to conduct business and routinely concealed cocaine in shipments of items as diverse as hollow lumber, chlorine cylinders, lye and frozen foods such as broccoli and okra.
By 1981, the Cali cartel and their biggest competitors the Medellin cartel had agreed to divvy up distribution points in the U.S. Where the former chose New York City, the latter agreed to utilize Miami, leaving Los Angeles free for either organization.
Cali's transport methods contrasted sharply with the rival Medellin cartel's preference for light planes and speedboats, instead opting for hidden shipments aboard ocean-freighters. The Cali cartel also enlisted Mexican criminal organizations to transport the cocaine from Central America into the U.S.
The Cali cartel also differed from their Medellin competitors in that they employed the use of cells, which served to prevent potential informants from identifying many cartel members because they were only aware of the few with whom they interacted. This policy also served to diminish the leaders' vulnerability to prosecution for the group's illegal activities.
Using their cocaine proceeds, the Rodriguez Orejuelas established Drogas La Rebaja, a chain of 400 discount pharmacies in 28 cities and employing 4200 people, valued at $216 million. They also owned several Colombian banks, a Colombian soccer team, Club America, run by Miguel, and a fleet of taxis.
Gilberto served as the Banco de Trabajadores' Chairman of the Board. Gilberto later established the First InterAmericias Bank in Panama, which primarily functioned as a laundry for both the Cali and Medellin cartel's drug money. Miguel is alleged to have paid for a law degree from San Buenaventura University in Cali.
Gilberto garnered the nickname, "The Chess Player" for his shrewd business tactics. For instance, his security measures included the requirement that would-be buyers post an insurance bond after traveling to the cartel's base of operations to be vetted in person. Potential employees were also required to divulge the names and addresses of Colombian family members -- family members who'd be killed if the employee became an informant.
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| Cali, Colombia |
Both Gilberto and his childhood friend, high-ranking Medellin cartel leader Jorge Ochoa, who was travelling with him, were arrested in Spain in November of 1984. That same year, both Gilberto and Santacruz were indicted in Brooklyn for importing cocaine into the U.S. for distribution in New York between 1978 and 1984. While both the U.S. and Colombian governments requested to have both men extradited, Colombia won out, amidst suspicions that the Spanish judge who approved the extradition had accepted a bribe.
While Ochoa was released without being tried by the Colombian court, Gilberto, who'd been caught with a Venezuelan passport in Spain, was put on trial with Santacruz Londono in Cali. However, the presiding judge refused to admit evidence submitted by the DEA in connection with U.S. indictments in LA and New York City and the two were acquitted due to insufficient evidence.
In 1985, the U.S. government pressured Panamanian leader General Manuel Antonio Noriega to shutter the First InterAmericas Bank.
In 1987, the Rodriguez brothers were indicted in New Orleans, based on wiretapped phone calls, on charges of importing 1,200 pounds of cocaine in the summer of 1982.
In April of 1988, Customs officials seized 3,270 kilograms of the cartel's cocaine hidden in lumber planks, in Tarpon Springs, FL. That same year, Customs agents discovered 2,270 kilograms of cocaine concealed in blocks of chocolate exported from Ecuador. In 1989, Customs agents police in New York uncovered 5,000 kilograms of coke belonging to Santacruz-Londono-associate Luis "Leto" Delio Lopez in 252 drums of powdered lye. That same year, the FBI and New York police unearthed hundreds of vehicles tied to the cartel with false registrations obtained from Department of Motor Vehicles workers. DMV employees were paid $100 for each registration for vehicles equipped with hidden compartments used to ship cocaine and cash.
While the Cali cartel's main rival, the Medellin cartel, routinely engaged in narco-terrorism, the Rodriguez Orejuelas preferred bribing government officials to killing them. The two organizations also dominated different markets in the U.S. While the Medellin cartel controlled Miami, Cali held sway over New York and Washington, D.C. as distribution hubs.
However, in June of 1989, the two cartels began to war with one another to determine which would rule New York as a cocaine distrubution point. That same year, Gilberto's chief of security was shot to death on a street in downtown Cali. At least 47 of the Drogas La Rebaja drugstores were dynamited by Medellin cartel operatives and six of the Rodriguez Orejuela's radio stations were bombed, after which they sold the entire 30-station chain of "Grupo Radial Colombiano".
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| Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela |
In January of 1990, Gilberto sent a letter to Bogota's El Tiempo newspaper declaring his willingness to surrender to the authorities, provided any U.S. extradition request be reviewed by Colombian legal standards.
On May 2, a bomb in a car parked outside of a Cali supermarket reportedly owned by Gilberto, detonated and killed four people. Four days later, 220 pounds of explosives inside a fruit truck went off near Cali. This time no one was killed.
In September of 1990, Medellin sicarios (assassins) killed 19 Cali cartel workers at a Cali ranch.
That same year, Herrera, who initially managed cocaine distribution and money laundering for the Rodriguez-Orejuelas in New York, branched out and established his own organization.
In 1991, the DEA's Miami branch seized a 15-ton shipment of cocaine hidden in concrete fence posts after a drug-sniffing dog detected the narcotics at the Port of Miami. On June 18, police seized 4,444 pounds of cocaine from a lab in Cali. By this time, the cartel had labs, with more than 20 employees each, producing over 250 kilograms of cocaine each week.
That same year, Colombia implemented measures to better ensure the safety of judges for fear of reprisals and pre-emptive attacks by cartel triggermen. The courts began employing two-way mirrors, screens and devices to distort the voices of judges during trial proceedings in order to conceal their identities.
In June of 1991, Gilberto wrote to DEA Director Robert Bonner, "it is unfair to point to the Cauca Valley as the epicenter of drug trafficking in Colombia, and it is even more unfair when you pick out, without proof, Gilbert and Miguel Rodriguez as heads of the Cali cartel." The letter, published in Colombia's El Tiempo newspaper, also read, "It would be ingenuous on my part to deny there is narcotrafico in this region..." "I am absolutely sure that your anti-drug department does not have one single piece of evidence (against me) different from what the American government already put forward..." Gilberto once directed a group of armed cartel-associates to purchase every copy of a local paper than named him as a drug trafficker. By mid-1991, the cartel had grown to 5,000 employees.
Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela
On July 12, Colombia's President Cesar Gaviria stated during an interview conducted in Bogota, "We have the same policy toward the Cali cartel as toward the Medellin cartel." "Simply because the Medellin cartel bore the greatest responsibility for narco-terrorism, we concentrated the largest amount of our efforts there. But our policy is the same. "But while the Colombian government's war against the Medellin cartel dealt a tremendous blow to its business, the Cali cartel saw its own share of Colombia's cocaine exports to the U.S. rise from 30 to 60% from mid-1989 to mid-1991. During this time the Cali cartel made significant inroads into the European market -- specifically, England, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands -- via ports in Spain and the Netherlands. The group also encroached on the Medellin cartel-controlled distribution centers of Los Angeles and Miami.
Not satisfied with simply horning in on the Medellin cartel's territory, the Cali bosses also made plans to eliminate its leader, Pablo Escobar. Miguel Rodriguez ordered former Colombian military operative Jorge Salcedo to bomb Escobar's prison, La Catedral, from above. The plan was to drop four 500-pound bombs, bought for $500,000 in El Salvador, from a private jet. However, authorities learned of the plot before it could be carried out. Shortly afterward, Salcedo became the Rodriguez's new security chief. Salcedo, who was recruited by the Cali decision-makers in January of 1989, earned degrees in industrial economics and mechanical engineering long before his dealings with the cartel. He'd also followed in his father's footsteps, a retired Colombian army general, and joined Colombia's army reserves as an officer, eventually specializing in electronic surveillance. After the Cali leaders learned of his involvement in a cancelled operation to take down mountain guerrillas, Salcedo was called to Miguel Rodriguez's home in Cali and tasked with killing Escobar.
The proposed bombing, however, was the cartel's third Salcedo-led scheme to take out Escobar. The first involved an attack that was aborted when one of the two Hughes 500 helicopters carrying part of the 12-member mercenary team to the kingpin's compound crashed into a mountain. Salcedo's second attempt on Don Pablo's life was called off when the mercenaries he'd recruited for the mission drew too much attention to the Panamanian hotels in which they resided during the two-month planning stage.
While the Cali cartel generally eschewed the narco-terrorism employed by their Medellin rivals, the Cali leaders did initiate a campaign of murder aimed at ridding their hometown of those they labeled "desechables" (Spanish for "disposables") -- the homeless, prostitutes and homosexuals. The cartel's "grupos de limpieza social" ("social-cleansing groups") left signs on the corpses of some of their victims reading: "Cali limpia, Cali linda" ("Clean Cali, beautiful Cali"). But most of the corpses were thrown into the central Cauca River, which consequently came to be known as "The River of Death" by locals.
In April of 1992, the DEA seized $1.6 million and nearly 15,000 pounds of the cartel's cocaine that had been concealed in a shipment of frozen broccoli to Miami. Ten cartel associates were arrested for smuggling as a result, including Luis Fernando Murcillo, one of Miguel's chief lieutenants. Murcillo was taken into custody as he attempted to board a flight bound for Cali. DEA agents learned of the shipment via wiretaps used during the government's far-reaching Operation Cornerstone investigation.
In late 1992, at the conclusion of the DEA's three-year investigation, Operation Green Ice, the Cali cartel's global network was so thoroughly infiltrated that investigators arrested 165 members of a drug trafficking and money-laundering conspiracy and seized $47 million from associated bank accounts. In an uncharacteristic show of violence, cartel leaders ordered suspected informants immersed in barrels filled with acid. In order to shield itself from money-laundering prosecutions, the cartel resorted to transporting the vast amounts of cash generated from cocaine sales back to Colombia via container ships and cargo planes. Some of the cash was converted into money orders and travelers checks.
That same year, Miguel Rodriguez was indicted in Miami following the seizure of 21 tons of cocaine. The following year, Colombian native Harold Ackerman, who allegedly oversaw the cartel's south Florida cell, was convicted on charges related to the importation of the 21 tons of cocaine into the U.S. and eventually received six life sentences. Ackerman, who used the alias Mario Robertson to operate various Florida businesses, lived in a $650,000 home, in which he kept $400,000 in cash. The seizure of his two home computers, containing data related to cartel personnel and bookkeeping, provided investigators with insight into the organization's inner-workings.
During this time, Gilberto spent the bulk of his time in his fortified mansion in Ciudad Jardin, home of Colombia's wealthiest citizens. By this time he'd developed a reputation for having a passion for poetry and Colombian football (soccer). In keeping with his upper-class lifestyle, Gilberto sent his seven children to schools in Europe and the U.S. to obtain secondary educations. Notably, his son Jaime Fernando earned a degree in international commerce from France's Grenoble Alps University.
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| Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela's 2004 extradition |
In light of what the U.S. viewed as a passive response to the Cali cartel's activities by the Colombian government, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jesse Helms urged ending economic aid to Colombia until the country's government took more steps to stifle narcotics trafficking.
In 1994, the Rodriguez brothers were indicted in Miami on charges of overseeing a continuing criminal enterprise that imported over 16,000 pounds of cocaine hidden in coffee shipments.
Miguel also reportedly sent $40 million in cash to Mexico in the spring and summer of 1994 in two shipments. It has been speculated that the money was a contribution to the campaign of Mexican presidential candidate Ernesto Zedillo.
That same year, Jorge Salcedo called the CIA's main switchboard from a public telephone after witnessing a cartel assassin strangle four cartel-associates, three Panamanian men and a woman, deemed security risks, to death. He offered his assisstance in capturing his bosses but wasn't taken seriously, initially.
In February of 1995, Miguel was tried on drug trafficking charges in absentia by an anonymous judge in Colombia. He faced a potential sentence of 24 years if convicted. By that year, the cartel's annual profits were estimated at $2 billion to $6 billion.
That April, Colombian authorities offered rewards totaling $1.25 million for information leading to the arrests of Gilberto and Miguel. In May, President Samper bolstered police and military forces dedicated to eradicating drug trafficking by hiring 1,600 new officers and troops.
Michael Abbell, former head of the international affairs office of the Justice Department's criminal division, who took Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela on as a client after leaving his government post, was one of three U.S. attorneys indicted as part of a narcotics conspiracy on June 5, 1995. He was accused of intimidating witnesses and fabricating evidence for the Cali cartel. Another defendant, attorney William Moran, was charged with revealing the identity of a confidential informant, who was subsequently murdered, to the cartel. The indictments were a result of a widespread investigation, nicknamed Operation Cornerstone, into the cartel. Ironically, Abbell was charged with extraditing drug traffickers to the U.S. when he worked for the Justice Department. Operation Cornerstone resulted in over 60 indictments, including charges for the Rodriguez-Orejuela brothers, Jose Santacruz-Londono and the cartel's fourth-in-command, Helmer "Pacho" Herrera Buitrago. The investigation concluded that since 1983, the cartel had shipped 200,000 kilograms of cocaine to the U.S.
On June 9, 1995, Gilberto was once again arrested on drug trafficking charges after female narcotics agents posing as joggers tracked one of his associates to his boss' apartment. Gilberto was apprehended at about 3:30 p.m. by police in his Santa Monica apartment in northern Cali, who found him in a hidden compartment in a bedroom. According to police, he told them, "Easy boys. Don't kill me. I am a man of peace." Police, led by General Rosso Jose Serrano, leader of the Colombia National Police Force, discovered Rodriguez Orequela guarded by four armed bodyguards who were also arrested. He was subsequently flown to Bogota on a military plane and taken to National Police headquarters. The day after Gilberto's arrest, a bombing at a street festival killed 29 people. On June 12, police conducted more raids in search of Miguel.
After the Rodriguez brothers had gone into hiding, Jorge Salcedo was ordered to kill the organization's Chilean head of accounting, Guillermo Pallomari, whose nationality put him at risk of being extradited to the U.S. if arrested. Unwilling to murder Pallomari, Salcedo used a public telephone to contact a Miami attorney, who put him in touch with DEA agent Edward J. Kacerosky. About a week later, Salcedo notified the Colombian National Police of Miguel's whereabouts.
Miguel was nowhere to be found when police conducted a raid on his house with two DEA agents. A secret compartment was even discovered under a bathroom sink. A search also yielded a record of payoffs to police, journalists and 150 politicians. Though he was advised to enter protective custody immediately afterward, Salcedo insisted on continuing to work as an informant from July to August, meeting DEA agents in wooded areas far from urban centers so as not to be discovered. During a second raid executed by 500 police officers working with CIA and Naval intelligence agents on August 6, investigators caught Miguel heading to a vault hidden in a wall in the master bedroom closet of his 10th-floor apartment. They found that it contained food, water, an oxygen tank and a copy of Colombia's penal code. Investigators realized that Miguel had been home during the first raid when they discovered a bloody towel in the secret compartment and surmised that he must have been struck when police drilled into it in an attempt to gain entry. Like his brother, Miguel was flown to Bogota following his arrest.
In January of 1996, Santacruz Londono, aided by seven guards, casually walked out of the maximum-security prison in which he was held.
Gilberto and Miguel were convicted and given 15 and 17-year sentences, respectively. While the two continued to run the cartel from prison, Gilberto's son, William Rodriguez Abadia, stepped in to oversee the organization's daily operations. The DEA estimated that the cartel directed 80% of the global cocaine trade in the 1990s and earned profits in excess of $8 billion in 1995.
On February 20, 1996, Colombia's Committee of Accusations of the House of Representatives announced that it had reopened an investigation into claims that President Ernesto Stamper's 1994 presidential campaign had received $6 million from the Cali cartel. The 15-member committee, the only group authorized to hear evidence against the chief of state, had initially opened the investigation in December of 1995, following the arrests of Stamper's campaign manager, campaign administrator and campaign treasurer, Santiago Medina, who alleged that Stamper secretly met with cartel associates in Spain to secure funding.
The cartel's bribery initiative was so extensive that upwards of 5,000 taxi drivers were on the payroll acting as the organization's eyes and ears, reporting on the arrivals, departures and places of residence of nearly every VIP, law enforcement official, politician and rival cartel member in Cali.
On March 5, Santacruz Londono was shot to death by police. While his death was initially reported as the result of a shootout, it was later revealed that he was re-apprehended, tortured and killed while in custody.
Juan Carlos "Chupeta" Ramirez, who'd assumed a leadership position in the cartel, directing 200 of the organization's members, since the convictions of the Rodriguez Orequelas, surrendered to Colombian police on March 15, 1996. Ramirez turned himself in following a two-day campaign of 54 raids carried out by 500 members of the police and military on cartel homes and businesses.
On May 3, Colombia's Attorney General Orlando Vasquez turned himself in to Metropolitan Police commander at a church outside of Bogota. A day earlier, Colombia's chief prosecutor had announced that the Supreme Court had issued a warrant for his arrest on charges that he'd accepted thousands of dollars from the Cali cartel. That same month, the congressional committee investigating President Stamper, comprised of 10 members of his own political party, voted 10 to 3 against recommending that the president be accused of criminal conduct before the Chamber of Representatives.
On May 26, eight men opened fire on Miguel's son, William Rodriguez, as he was dining in Cali's Rio de Enero restaurant. Rodriguez suffered gunshots to an arm, a leg and the throat. Though the 32-year-old managed to survive, five of his bodyguards and his uncle, Oscar Echeverry, were killed. After the shooters fled the scene by car, Rodriguez, an attorney and vice president of the Club America soccer team, was taken to the hospital.
In 1998, Colombia's constitutional court voted 5-4 to uphold a law enacted in December of 1997 which lifted the 1991 ban on extradition, with the stipulation that crimes committed prior to the '97 law couldn't be applied to extradition cases.
Miguel's son William Rodriguez Abadia
In October of 2002, both Gilberto and Miguel were transferred to a detention facility in Bocayo, Colombia. Gilberto was released for good behavior a little after 10 p.m. on November 7 amid tremendous controversy. After Judge Pedro Jose Suarez approved both Gilberto and Miguel for early release, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe ordered an investigation into the ruling and attempted to have it overturned. Four luxury cars were reportedly parked in front of the prison on November 1 in anticipation of the duo's release. Miguel, however, was sentenced to an additional four years in prison that same week following a bribery conviction. Gilberto was re-arrested in Cali in March of 2003 when both he and Miguel were charged with shipping 150 kilograms of cocaine to the U.S. by way of Costa Rica in 1995.
On December 3, 2004, Gilberto was transported from Bogota's La Picota prison and placed in the custody of U.S. Marshals wearing a bulletproof vest in the hangar used by police at the Catam airbase in Bogota in preparation for his extradition to the U.S. Gilberto's extradition, initially approved on November 8, was delayed pending an appeal filed by his attorneys. The order was signed by both Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe Velez and Minister of the Interior and Justice Sabas Pretelt De la Vega. Miguel's conviction for bribery prevented his extradition.
Arriving in Miami via U.S. government plane early the following day, Gilberto was taken to a downtown jail in the city.
He was represented by Jose Quinon during his trial in Miami where he faced charges of conspiring to import drugs into the U.S., conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute and money-laundering -- all filed on January 22, 2004 by the Southern District Court of Miami and the Southern District Court of New York. In accordance with the extradition agreement, Rodriguez Orejuela was barred from being tried in the U.S. for any criminal acts dating back to before December 17, 1997 -- the date that the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Colombia was reinstated.
Miguel was extradited to the U.S. in March of 2005. The following year, Gilberto's son, William Rodriguez Abadia, was given a 20-year prison term following his plea of guilty to a single cocaine-smuggling charge. His plea deal included his agreement to cooperate against Miguel and Gilberto and to forfeit $300 million. Abadia had been a fugitive since 2001 until he turned himself in to U.S. federal agents in Panama early 2006.
The brothers were held in solitary confinement in the Miami Federal Detention Center while awaiting trial. In September of 2006, both Gilberto and Miguel entered guilty pleas in a Miami federal court to charges of conspiring to import 441,000 pounds of cocaine into the U.S. The brothers pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal that required them to forfeit $2.1 billion in exchange for the government dropping obstruction and money-laundering charges on six other Rodriguez-Orejuela family members and allowing another 28 relatives to retain their assets. Judge Federico A. Moreno of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida sentenced each of the them, dressed in pin-striped suits and wearing ankle shackles, to 360 months in federal prison.
On November 16, the brothers pleaded guilty to money-laundering before Judge Moreno. The government charged that the pair had removed their names from their various corporate holdings since October 21, 1995 in an attempt to conceal the true ownership of the businesses. Among other things, they acknowledged transferring upwards of $1.5 million controlled by pharmaceutical drug companies through New York City bank accounts between March of 2002 and January of 2003 -- for most of which time the two were imprisoned. That same day, Judge Moreno sentenced both to 87-month prison terms to run concurrently with their previous sentences for drug-trafficking. The investigation into the brothers' money-laundering activities was a joint effort involving the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the DEA, OFAC (the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control), the CNP (Colombian National Police), and the Colombian Fiscalia Money Laundering Section.
Jorge Salcedo eventually pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering before U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler in court in Miami and after the Rodriguez brothers were apprehended, collected $1.7 million in reward money. Salcedo, who has been in the federal witness protection program since 1995, now lives under an assumed name in a small town in the U.S. working as an engineer.
The Cali cartel is estimated to have shipped in excess of 250 tons to the U.S. between the 1970s and 2002.
Related:
Jose Santacruz Londono and the Cali Cartel
The Infamous...Pablo Escobar
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