The Narco-Candidate?

A newly elected President is hit with charges that Cali drug lords helped finance his campaign

The electronic eavesdropper was taping an explosive conversation. "What a funny thing, the presidency is in your hands," journalist Alberto Giraldo Lopez is heard to say to Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, a leader of the Cali cartel, which controls 80% of the world's cocaine trade.

The conversation, recorded sometime during the run-up to last week's presidential election in Colombia, moves on to a casual discussion of providing candidate Ernesto Samper Pizano with 3 billion pesos, or $3.7 million, in campaign funds. "We've already talked to Medina," Rodriguez says, apparently referring to Samper's campaign manager, Santiago Medina. "We'll send around some money on...

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