(CNN Spanish) –– Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, who was the leader of the Cali cartel, died Tuesday at a North Carolina medical center, the US Federal Bureau of Prisons reported.
Although the agency did not specify the cause of his death, Rodríguez Orejuela’s family said in a statement that it was a “lymphoma that afflicted him.” “We, the children and wife of Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela allow ourselves to report that unfortunately yesterday, Tuesday, May 31, 2022, at 6:54 in the afternoon, our father and husband died due to a lymphoma that afflicted him.”
Rodríguez Orejuela suffered from several diseases, including colon and prostate cancer, according to his legal team in a motion that sought his release in 2019. The drug trafficker was serving a sentence in a North Carolina prison.
Rodríguez Orejuela was extradited from Colombia to the United States in December 2004 and pleaded guilty to cocaine trafficking before a South Florida court in September 2006. According to the US Department of Justice, Rodríguez Orejuela and the Cali cartel exported more than 200 tons of cocaine to that country over two decades. The charges he acknowledged at the time also included conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela was also known as “The Chess Player” because he ran his drug business “with cold calculation,” according to DEA documentswho described him as responsible for the ‘long-term strategic planning of the Cali cartel.
The Cali cartel led by Rodríguez Orejuela
According to United States authorities, the Cali cartel “was the largest supplier of cocaine to the United States” for many years, led by Rodríguez Orejuela. “The cartel was a sophisticated criminal enterprise, handling all aspects of the cocaine trade, including production, transportation, wholesale distribution and money laundering,” reads a statement. communiqué of the Department of Justice.
And it adds that “at the height of its reign, the cartel used violence to terrorize potential competitors and potential witnesses. It also relied on corruption to influence and gain control of many Colombian institutions.” The criminal organization used Various methods are used to traffic cocaine in the US, according to the investigations, from hiding the drug in concrete poles that were sent first to Venezuela and then to South Florida, to hiding it in ceramic tiles that arrived in Guatemala, where repackaged into boxes of frozen vegetables.
(Credit: PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images)
Although Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela and his brother Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, who also led the Cali cartel, were detained in prison in Colombia, they 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”. Rodríguez-Abadía pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy in Miami in 2006.
“At one point, the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers oversaw one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world, believed to be responsible for approximately 80% of the cocaine supplied to the United States. They were also behind a reign of terror and corruption that impacted governments and people around the world,” then-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Under Secretary Julie Myers said in September 2006.
Money laundering through a pharmacy empire
According to the US Department of Justice, the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers laundered illicit drug money “through a pharmaceutical empire that included more than 400 retail pharmacies in Colombia and laboratories that manufactured the drugs.” Authorities point out that millions of dollars from drug trafficking were invested in these “apparently legitimate” companies to launder money.
early release request
In February 2020, Rodríguez Orejuela had requested early release on the grounds of deteriorating health. At that time, a judge in Miami presided over the first hearing to review the motion that Rodríguez Orejuela’s legal team filed in October 2019. The request argued that Rodríguez Orejuela, 80 years old at the time, suffered from several illnesses, including colon and prostate cancer, which worsened while serving his sentence. His attorneys noted that under these conditions, Rodríguez Orejuela met the requirements for release under the “elderly inmate with medical conditions” program and the “compassionate release” law.
Tina Burnside contributed contributed to this report