Colombia-Cali Cocaine Cartel's Home City
12-11-1993
^Drug Traffickers Have Run of Colombia's Third-Largest City AP Photo BOG101
^By ANDREW SELSKY-
^Associated Press Writer-
CALI, Colombia (AP) _ Cali was once called charming by a guidebook because of its friendly inhabitants and salsa music.
Now it's mostly dangerous.
While the government battled the more violent Medellin cocaine cartel over the past four years, a Cali gang quietly built the world's biggest cocaine distribution network, drawing a deadly infusion of guns, drugs and money into this city nestled against the lush green foothills of the Andes.
The killing of Medellin cartel leader Pablo Escobar by security forces Dec. 2 was trumpeted as a demonstration of the government's will to fight traffickers. However, Escobar was hunted not so much for trafficking cocaine but for killing hundreds of innocent Colombians in bombings and assassinations.
The real test of whether Colombia is Washington's partner in its war against drugs will be if Bogota vigorously fights the Cali cartel, a loose alliance of dozens of drug gangs that run this city like a fiefdom.
Drug traffickers in their 20s - who have made millions sending cocaine to the United States and Europe - speed down Cali's boulevards in luxury cars or jeeps with tinted glass. They are followed by one or two other jeeps, their windows rolled down so the hard-eyed bodyguards inside can open fire if needed.
At night, the young dealers - called traquetos (pronounced tra-KEH-tohs), in imitation of the sound of a submachine gun firing - saunter into discos filled with throbbing salsa and disco music and flashing lights.
As young men and women wearing scant clothing dance themselves into a sweat, muscular bodyguards - who are allowed to keep pistols in their belts by bouncers who frisk everybody else - closely watch the crowd.
Sometimes gunfights break out. An average of 50 people are killed every weekend in this city of 1.5 million. Many deaths are drug-related.
Cartel hit men have murdered hundreds of rivals and others who got in their way, including a crusading anti-drug journalist in New York in 1992. But unlike Escobar's group, they don't use violence indiscriminately.
"Cali cartel hit men kill only the person they're after. If the target is in a restaurant, they'll go after just him. The Medellin cartel would drive in a car bomb and take out the whole restaurant," said a top U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official in New York. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
Even Cali's championship soccer team is owned by the cartel. Inside the stadium, signs advertise a drug store and a car dealership, both cartel-owned.
A cartel member, who works for a traqueto, gave a reporter and photographer a trafficker's-eye view of the city Thursday on condition he not be identified. The man's information has been reliable in the past.
He said the older, established drug dealers have bought office towers, hotels, shopping centers, hardware stores and even a hospital in Cali, using a variety of fronts.
There are rumors the four cartel leaders - wanted for drug trafficking, illegal profiteering and weapons charges - may turn themselves in because of a new law that offers leniency to criminals who surrender, disclose details of their operations and turn their ill-gotten gains over to the state.
Lawyers for the cartel have reopened surrender talks with the government, Federal Prosecutor-General Gustavo de Greiff said, according to news reports Saturday.
The day after Escobar was killed, U.S. Ambassador Morris Busby told a news conference he would like to see the Colombian government swing the spotlight over to Cali.
But while a 3,000-member force composed of soldiers and police was dispatched to hunt Escobar full-time, there are no plans to mount a similar operation in Cali, said Defense Ministry spokesman Jaime Vasquez.
Hampering police operations is the cartel's intelligence branch, which has infiltrated the highest levels of government.
De Greiff said in a recent interview that law officers in Cali are so corrupted by cartel payoffs they are kept in the dark about police raids planned in Bogota so they can't warn the cartel.
In September, the nation's top judicial officer overseeing police, Guillermo Villa, was fired for allegedly working for the cartel. In June, retired national police Capt. Jorge Rojas - the suspected chief of security for the cartel - was arrested by de Greiff's agents.
Rojas escaped from jail after another man pretended to be him. Jailers said they didn't notice the switch for days, even though Rojas was a familiar face among Cali lawmen.
^Drug Traffickers Have Run of Colombia's Third-Largest City AP Photo BOG101
^By ANDREW SELSKY-
^Associated Press Writer-
CALI, Colombia (AP) _ Cali was once called charming by a guidebook because of its friendly inhabitants and salsa music.
Now it's mostly dangerous.
While the government battled the more violent Medellin cocaine cartel over the past four years, a Cali gang quietly built the world's biggest cocaine distribution network, drawing a deadly infusion of guns, drugs and money into this city nestled against the lush green foothills of the Andes.
The killing of Medellin cartel leader Pablo Escobar by security forces Dec. 2 was trumpeted as a demonstration of the government's will to fight traffickers. However, Escobar was hunted not so much for trafficking cocaine but for killing hundreds of innocent Colombians in bombings and assassinations.
The real test of whether Colombia is Washington's partner in its war against drugs will be if Bogota vigorously fights the Cali cartel, a loose alliance of dozens of drug gangs that run this city like a fiefdom.
Drug traffickers in their 20s - who have made millions sending cocaine to the United States and Europe - speed down Cali's boulevards in luxury cars or jeeps with tinted glass. They are followed by one or two other jeeps, their windows rolled down so the hard-eyed bodyguards inside can open fire if needed.
At night, the young dealers - called traquetos (pronounced tra-KEH-tohs), in imitation of the sound of a submachine gun firing - saunter into discos filled with throbbing salsa and disco music and flashing lights.
As young men and women wearing scant clothing dance themselves into a sweat, muscular bodyguards - who are allowed to keep pistols in their belts by bouncers who frisk everybody else - closely watch the crowd.
Sometimes gunfights break out. An average of 50 people are killed every weekend in this city of 1.5 million. Many deaths are drug-related.
Cartel hit men have murdered hundreds of rivals and others who got in their way, including a crusading anti-drug journalist in New York in 1992. But unlike Escobar's group, they don't use violence indiscriminately.
"Cali cartel hit men kill only the person they're after. If the target is in a restaurant, they'll go after just him. The Medellin cartel would drive in a car bomb and take out the whole restaurant," said a top U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official in New York. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
Even Cali's championship soccer team is owned by the cartel. Inside the stadium, signs advertise a drug store and a car dealership, both cartel-owned.
A cartel member, who works for a traqueto, gave a reporter and photographer a trafficker's-eye view of the city Thursday on condition he not be identified. The man's information has been reliable in the past.
He said the older, established drug dealers have bought office towers, hotels, shopping centers, hardware stores and even a hospital in Cali, using a variety of fronts.
There are rumors the four cartel leaders - wanted for drug trafficking, illegal profiteering and weapons charges - may turn themselves in because of a new law that offers leniency to criminals who surrender, disclose details of their operations and turn their ill-gotten gains over to the state.
Lawyers for the cartel have reopened surrender talks with the government, Federal Prosecutor-General Gustavo de Greiff said, according to news reports Saturday.
The day after Escobar was killed, U.S. Ambassador Morris Busby told a news conference he would like to see the Colombian government swing the spotlight over to Cali.
But while a 3,000-member force composed of soldiers and police was dispatched to hunt Escobar full-time, there are no plans to mount a similar operation in Cali, said Defense Ministry spokesman Jaime Vasquez.
Hampering police operations is the cartel's intelligence branch, which has infiltrated the highest levels of government.
De Greiff said in a recent interview that law officers in Cali are so corrupted by cartel payoffs they are kept in the dark about police raids planned in Bogota so they can't warn the cartel.
In September, the nation's top judicial officer overseeing police, Guillermo Villa, was fired for allegedly working for the cartel. In June, retired national police Capt. Jorge Rojas - the suspected chief of security for the cartel - was arrested by de Greiff's agents.
Rojas escaped from jail after another man pretended to be him. Jailers said they didn't notice the switch for days, even though Rojas was a familiar face among Cali lawmen.
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