Word: calied
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...Nicknamed the "Chess Player" because he runs his business -- and life -- with cold calculation, he parlayed youthful jobs as a drugstore clerk by day and a kidnapper by night into a vast network of enterprises, including a pharmacy chain, office and apartment buildings, banks, car dealerships, radio stations and Cali's talented America soccer team. His handsome younger brother Miguel is a fixture on the local social scene, and their children, educated in the U.S. or Europe, are often compared to young Rockefellers or Kennedys by Colombians...
Then there are Gilberto's cousin Jaime Raul Orjuela Caballero and his three brothers, who are prominent impresarios of concerts and sporting events in ! Cali, travel frequently to New York City and have offices in Los Angeles. Ivan Urdinola Grajales and his younger brother Fabio, cattlemen and landowners from the northern Cauca Valley, are said to be exploring a regional television network. Pacho Herrera, believed to be the son of Benjamin Herrera Zuleta, an Afro-Colombian smuggler known as the "Black Pope," is a wealthy valley rancher with business interests in New York...
...Cali combine produces 70% of the coke reaching the U.S. today, according to the DEA, and 90% of the drug sold in Europe. The Cali godfathers have a virtual lock on the global wholesale market in the most lucrative commodity ever conceived by organized crime. The cartel is the best and brightest of the modern underworld: professional, intelligent, efficient, imaginative and nearly impenetrable. Says Robert Bonner, administrator of the DEA: "The Cali cartel is the most powerful criminal organization in the world. No drug organization rivals them today or perhaps any time in history...
After years of murder and mayhem, the government has succeeded in disrupting one center of drug trafficking only to have an even more powerful and insidious gang emerge in Cali. While security forces concentrated on shutting down operations in Medellin, the confederacy of crime families in the Cauca Valley expanded cocaine production and grabbed the lion's share of the market...
...Cali has insulated itself from government crackdowns through political influence subtly cultivated over many years. By means of legitimate business ventures, the Cali capos have forged contacts with key people in business, politics, the law and the press. Even police officials speak of los caballeros (gentlemen) of Cali in contrast to los hampones (hoodlums) of Medellin. "Cali gangs will kill you if they have to," says Robert Bryden, head of the DEA in New York. "But they prefer to use a lawyer...