This is what the Most Wanted cartel in Colombia looked like in the 1990s. US$1.5 million was offered for each of the Orejuela brothers, from the Cali Cartel.
(CNN Spanish) --
The Cali cartel was at one time the largest supplier of cocaine in the world: according to US estimates, the powerful criminal group based in Cali, one of the main Colombian cities, generated US $ 8,000 million a year.
In 2014, the Treasury Department declared victory over the Cali cartel.
The leaders of the cartel, Miguel and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, were arrested in the 1990s and served prison time in the US after pleading guilty in 2006 in Miami on drug charges.
Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela died this Tuesday, June 1, in a North Carolina medical center, reported the US Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, former leader of the Cali cartel, dies
Here's what you need to know about the leaders, members, and history of the Cali cartel, which was known for some years as the largest drug trafficking organization in the world.
History of the Cali cartel
The 1980s and 1990s in Colombia were the heyday of the Cali cartel.
Coexisted with the Medellin cartel, which fractured in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Medellin Cartel leader Pablo Escobar—perhaps the world's most notorious drug lord—was killed in a manhunt with police in 1993 .
Casa de Pablo Escobar will be the space of a monument in memory of the victims
After the breakup of the Medellin Cartel, the Cali Cartel became the cocaine kingpin.
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The Cali Cartel was born as an "informal association of five major independent drug trafficking organizations that operated out of Cali, Colombia. The Cali Cartel grew out of a small Cali-based criminal gang known as "Los Chemas." This gang was founded by early 1970s by Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela and José Santacruz Londoño," explains a report by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from 1994.
In 1995, then-President Bill Clinton dealt the cartel a heavy blow, explains Insight Crime.
"He signed an executive order that approved economic sanctions directed at a series of alleged drug traffickers, including the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers, creating an extensive list of people and companies that became known as the "Clinton List".
The United States declares victory over the Cali cartel
That same year, in June, Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela was captured by a group of Colombian police.
In August, his brother Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, also a leader of the Cartel, was captured.
During the time they were detained in Colombia, the Orejuela brothers continued to direct the organization's operations "through Miguel's son, William Rodríguez-Abadía, and others who supervised various aspects of the cartel using new routes and new methods," explains the DEA.
Gilberto was extradited to the United States in 2004. Miguel in 2005.
In 2006, in Miami, both Rodríguez Orejuela brothers pleaded guilty to drug charges and were sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Rodríguez-Abadía pleaded guilty to drug trafficking conspiracy.
In 2014, the Treasury Department announced that the Cali Cartel was considered defunct.
At that time, it removed 308 individuals and entities from its financial sanctions list, the largest removal ever.
The move impacted 78 people and 230 companies, real estate and other entities that the United States says were used for money laundering during the cartel's heyday.
In 2020, Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela requested his early release from a prison in the United States due to his deteriorating health.
In June 2022, Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela died in a North Carolina medical center.
Rodríguez Orejuela suffered from various illnesses, including colon and prostate cancer, according to his legal team in a motion seeking his release in 2019.
Relevant data of the Cali cartel
“During the height of its operations in the 1980s and 1990s, the Cali Cartel trafficked hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States and Europe, amassing a fortune of some $12 billion,” Insight Crime states.
As part of their plea deal, the Orejuela brothers handed over $2.1 billion in assets worldwide.
The cartel transported cocaine from the Amazon jungles, where coca leaves are harvested and processed in open-air laboratories, to the streets of cities around the world.
After the brothers' guilty plea in 2006, "28 of the members of the Rodríguez-Orejuela family accepted the confiscation of all their assets, anywhere in the world, that have been obtained directly or indirectly with profits from drug trafficking," according to the US State Department
The Cali cartel "used violence to terrorize potential competitors and potential witnesses," says the 1994 DEA report. "It relied on corruption to influence and gain control of many Colombian institutions," it adds.
The criminal organization used various methods to traffic cocaine in the US, according to the investigations.
From hiding the drug in concrete poles that were shipped first to Venezuela and then to South Florida, to hiding it in ceramic tiles that arrived in Guatemala, where it was repackaged in boxes of frozen vegetables.
This is how the Rodríguez Orejuela and José Santacruz Londoño were captured
Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela ran the cartel until 1994. The brothers and their associate José Santacruz Londoño eluded the police through a wide network of informants and sophisticated security measures.
It would take the combined efforts of the DEA, the CIA, the Colombian Navy, undercover agents and the director of the Colombian Police to capture the three men.
The agents captured the cartel leaders one by one, taking advantage of their human weaknesses to catch them off guard.
The dangerous confessions of the heir to the Cali Cartel
In the case of Gilberto Rodríguez, it was his carelessness in removing his security earpiece just as the police approached him.
Female anti-drug agents posing as athletes found the drug lord's lair by following the scent of his assistant's cologne to an apartment.
Gilberto's brother, Miguel, was more elusive.
When the police raided his house, he hid in a secret compartment under the bathroom sink.
Police drilled holes in the compartment but found nothing.
Officers later found a bloody towel in the compartment, leading police to believe Rodriguez had gone silent while officers put a small hole in his shoulder.
Intelligence teams from the Navy and Police, including a CIA unit, returned for Rodríguez in a raid that caught his security team by surprise.
Rodríguez was caught as he ran to his hideout, a compartment stocked with food and water, an oxygen tank and a copy of Colombia's penal code.
Cali cartel man number three, Santacruz, also proved difficult to find.
Ultimately, it was his weakness for good food that exposed him.
The agents monitored dozens of restaurants in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia.
When Santacruz entered a restaurant for dinner, an agent identified him and called the then director of the Colombian Police, General Rosso José Serrano, who ordered his personal security guards to arrest the drug trafficker.
With information from Brian Barger and Evan Pérez of CNN and Ana Melgar and María Camila Rincón of CNN en Español.