Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, the everyday chief of Colombia’s Cali Cartel, dies in jail feeble 83.
Published On 2 Jun 20222 Jun 2022
Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, the notorious conventional chief of Colombia’s drug trafficking Cali Cartel, has died in a US jail on the age of 83, his lawyer has talked about.
Rodriguez Orejuela used to be serving time at a federal jail in Butner, North Carolina.
In most cases identified by his alias “the chess player”, he used to be regarded as to be surely one of the most world’s most lifelike possible drug lords following the 1993 loss of life of Pablo Escobar, the chief of the rival Medellin Cartel.
Along with his younger brother Miguel – who shall be imprisoned in the United States – Rodriguez Orejuela ran the Cali Cartel out of the western Colombian metropolis of the identical name.
After his protect in 1995, Rodriguez Orejuela used to be sentenced to 15 years in jail in Colombia, but used to be released after only seven.
He used to be then arrested again in 2003 and held in a Colombian jail till being extradited to the United States in December 2004.
“We possess been very sad to learn his passing closing evening. Our tips and prayers are with his family as we express,” his lawyer David Oscar Markus talked about on Wednesday.
Gigantic criminal enterprise
Rodríguez Orejuela and his brother, Miguel, constructed a mighty criminal enterprise that succeeded the Medellin Cartel once speed by drug lord Pablo Escobar. Each operations ancient violence and killings extensively for intimidation and enforcement.
The Rodríguez Orejuela brothers possess been captured in 1995 and imprisoned in Colombia. At that level, Colombian law prohibited the extradition of its nationals. However below stress from the US, Colombia lifted that ban in 1997.
The brothers possess been learned to possess been continuing to web site traffic from jail and criminal prices possess been filed in Miami and Novel York. In 2004, Gilberto used to be extradited; Miguel used to be extradited the following year.
Under a 2006 plea deal that the brothers reached with federal prosecutors in Miami, bigger than two dozen kinfolk possess been removed from a US Treasury Department list designating them as section of the Cali Cartel. That spared some of them from prosecution for obstruction of justice or cash laundering and likewise allowed legitimate family corporations in Colombia to proceed running.
Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela’s jail initiate date had been scheduled for February 9, 2030. His younger brother is serving his sentence at a Pennsylvania jail.
Possibly the most lifelike possible legacy of the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers used to be their means to quietly irascible Colombian politics, delivering shoeboxes of money to Liberal Accumulate collectively President Ernesto Samper’s campaign prior to his 1994 election as president and procuring off considerable of Congress.
The Cali Cartel once controlled 80 percent of the worldwide cocaine market, in response to a new legend from the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
While painted in the popular press as less violent than Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel, the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers possess been later accused of paying off journalists to suppress recordsdata of Cali Cartel-connected killings.