Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela

A phalanx of helmeted police armed with assault rifles escorted the leader of the once-feared Cali drug cartel from La Picota prison to the plane at a military airfield on the edge of Bogota.

Rodriguez Orejuela, who has spent the last nine years in a Colombian prison, faces trial in federal courts in Miami and New York for trafficking cocaine and laundering money.

Nicknamed "The Chess Player" for his shrewdness, he and his brother, Miguel, founded and headed the notorious Cali cartel. In the 1990s, the cartel controlled 80 percent of the world's cocaine trade, earning $8 billion in annual profits, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has said.

Even in jail Rodriguez Orejuela continued to run his empire after his 1995 arrest and it was for crimes he allegedly committed while in prison from 1999 to 2002 that led to the extradition. According to Colombian law, those accused of trafficking drugs before December 1997 are not subject to extradition.

The Japan Times Weekly: Dec. 11, 2004
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