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After years of murder and mayhem, the government has succeeded in disrupting one center of drug trafficking only to have an even more powerful and insidious gang emerge in Cali. While security forces concentrated on shutting down operations in Medellin, the confederacy of crime families in the Cauca Valley expanded cocaine production and grabbed the lion's share of the market.
Cali has insulated itself from government crackdowns through political influence subtly cultivated over many years. By means of legitimate business ventures, the Cali capos have forged contacts with key people in business, politics, the law and the press. Even police officials speak of los caballeros (gentlemen) of Cali in contrast to los hampones (hoodlums) of Medellin. "Cali gangs will kill you if they have to," says Robert Bryden, head of the DEA in New York. "But they prefer to use a lawyer."
Drug-enforcement agents believe the architects of Cali's takeover are Santacruz, 47, and Gilberto Rodriguez, 52. Santacruz was the hands-on designer of worldwide trafficking networks; Gilberto Rodriguez handled the finances.
In the mid-1970s, while Medellin's cocaine cowboys were monopolizing drug sales in Miami, Santacruz was sewing up Manhattan. Today the DEA estimates that Santacruz, the Orjuela Caballero brothers and the Pacho Herrera organization import 4 of every 5 grams of cocaine sold on the streets of New York City. From that base, Cali operatives have fanned out across the U.S. and deep into Mexico. The Rodriguez Orejuelas are generally considered partners in Santacruz ventures, but they sometimes appear to operate independently. Their cousins, the Orjuela Caballero brothers, are also major dealers in Los Angeles. DEA agents say the Urdinola brothers work somewhat independently from the rest of the Cali consortium, with their own trafficking and money- laundering organizations across the U.S. They are linked to large lab operations in the northern Cauca Valley and, according to DEA intelligence, are suspected of assassinating a number of Colombians.
The Cali families are now focusing their efforts on cornering the market in Europe and Japan. Last year Dutch officials seized 2,658 kg of coke packed in drums of passion-fruit juice from Cali, the biggest single bust in Europe. Santacruz bank accounts have been found across Western Europe and as far afield as Hungary and Israel. DEA informants report that Cali is looking for sales representatives to man branch offices in Japan, where the going wholesale price for cocaine is as high as $65,000 per kg. "If the Cali cartel makes an alliance with the yakuza ((Japan's organized-crime network))," warns a Colombian presidential aide, "watch out!"
"El Gordo" (the Fat Man), as Santacruz is known, is a legend in the New York Latin underworld. The word making the rounds is that every so often he materializes in the middle of a drug deal and exchanges a few pleasantries with the customer. Then, as suddenly as he appeared, he is gone again.