Colombian Gilberto José Rodríguez Orejuela, founder and former head of the Cali cartel, died this Wednesday at Butner prison in North Carolina at the age of 83, according to his lawyer David Markus.
The Chess Player, as he was known, had been serving a sentence in the United States since 2006, when he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for drug trafficking, after being arrested in his country and extradited in 2004. Rodríguez Orejuela, another man forged himself in the underworld, maintained his rivalry to the death with Pablo Escobar, the media chief of the Medellin cartel.
Contrary to Escobar's notoriety and desire for exhibition, including the zoo, the Cali zoo, no less sinister, was characterized by maintaining a discreet criminal life behind the network of banks and a chain of pharmacies. That was his camouflage to make massive exports of cocaine. The business was managed together with his brother Miguel
In 2020, the lawyer Markus requested his freedom because his client was a person of a certain age, with several chronic diseases, and who was at risk of dying at a time when covid was spreading rapidly and there was no antidote against that pandemic. , even less in a prison "in appalling conditions."
The defender assured in his petition that the inmate suffered from colon and prostate cancer and appealed for a law to reduce sentences. He also recovered from a heart attack. US prison authorities refused that request and kept her at Butner. In addition, the Trump administration even denied visas to relatives so they could travel and visit him.
Born on January 30, 1939, the former capo had a difficult childhood. He had to take care of his mother, Ana Orejuela, and his brothers. At the age of ten, while he was selling flowers on the street, he kicked his father, Carlos Rodríguez, out of the home, fed up with the mistreatment of his mother and the rest of him.
According to information from the South American media, Rodríguez Orejuela managed to work for a pharmacy, where he worked as a messenger. This allowed him to have control of the street and understand the needs of people, as well as the role played by painkillers, drugs in short. In this way he started his own business, which consisted of illegally selling drugs to those who did not have medical prescriptions.
And this led him to the world of drug trafficking, at the hands of José Santacruz Londoño. They understood that there was a huge market for the white powder: the United States. And so began his enrichment.
Things went wrong for his brother Miguel, who had not wanted to join the organization, so Gilberto signed him. Since then they became inseparable. At the end of the seventies they had managed to build a business emporium (Banco de los Trabajadores, pharmacies, Kressford laboratories). Behind that facade, the real source of wealth was the production and sale of cocaine.
Camilo Chaparro, author of the book 'Historia del cartel de Cali', explained to Infobae that Gilberto, unlike the impulsive Miguel, was calm, thoughtful - hence the nickname of the Chess Player -, more a lover of negotiation than of violent action. His role model was 'The Godfather', the protagonist of Mario Puzo's book brought to the screen by Francis Ford Coppola, which made one of the greatest films in cinema history.
The Rodríguez Orejuela brothers kept a low profile, with a comfortable life, which did not prevent them from entering the radar of the DEA, the US agency that fights drug trafficking. In part, they noticed them because of the rebound effect caused by the more ostentatious Pablo Escobar.
That the head of Medellin wanted to get into politics was an affront to the bosses of other organizations by putting them in the window. A war broke out. Gilberto announced around him that he was taking a vacation. In November 1984 he was arrested in Madrid. The United States requested his extradition, but Miguel managed to get his brother to return to Cali, after two years of legal struggle. Once in his country, in a few months he was released, without President Belisario Betancur signing his extradition to the US.
The war with Escobar intensified. Colombia entered a period of violence and crime. They say that various personalities in the country asked for the collaboration of the Cali cartel to put an end to Escobar. It took a long period, arrest and escape included, but finally the capo of Medellin died.
Despite enjoying that victory, the United States insisted on the extradition of the two brothers. If required by power, they became outlaws. Gilberto was arrested on June 9, 1995. On August 6, Miguel fell.
Like his brother, and after seven and a half years in prison, Gilberto was released. It was short-lived as the United States used his cause against him. They arrested him again in 2003 and this time his extradition was consumed. He died in North Carolina. He is survived by his brother Miguel, extradited in 2005, in a South Carolina prison.
