Ex-drug lord Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, who was long considered one of the world’s biggest drug traffickers following the death of Pablo Escobar, has died aged 83 in a US prison, his lawyer has confirmed Wednesday at AFP.
“We mourn Gilberto’s death last night,” his attorney David Oscar Markus said in an email that did not specify the cause of death.
Until his capture in 1995, Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, nicknamed “the Chess Player”, led the powerful Cali cartel in Colombia with an iron fist with his brother Miguel, 78, also incarcerated in a prison. in the USA.
This rival organization to the Medellín Cartel, led by Pablo Escobar, took over the white powder market following the charismatic “king of cocaine” was shot dead by local police in 1993.
Sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1995 in Colombia, Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela was released following seven years in detention. Arrested once more in 2003, he was imprisoned in Colombia until his extradition to the United States in December 2004.
He had been sentenced with his brother to 30 years in prison each for importing 200 tons of cocaine into the United States. The two brothers finally achieved planetary fame with the Netflix series “Narcos”, which notably featured their rivalry with Pablo Escobar
According to US authorities, the Cali Cartel controlled up to 80% of cocaine trafficking to the United States at its peak. It was dismantled in the mid-1990s.
Gilberto and his brother had made a place for themselves among the economic and political elites in Colombia. Unlike Pablo Escobar, who offered a reward for every policeman killed, the Cali Cartel brothers preferred bribes.
The Rodríguez family controlled America de Cali, the football club with the most victories at the time, as well as horse-breeding businesses and beauty queen contests.
In the last years of his life, “the chess player”, from a modest family, who had started life on his bicycle as a home delivery man, was seriously ill.
He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and colon cancer. He also suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. His family had unsuccessfully tried several remedies so that the drug trafficker might spend his last days in Colombia.
Colombia remains by far the world’s largest producer of cocaine, with the US market as the primary export destination.