Word: cartels
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...first victim of last week's political storm was Defense Minister Fernando Botero Zea, 39, who resigned amid accusations that he had received almost $6 million in contributions from the Cali cartel when he was Samper's campaign manager. Botero's accuser was Santiago Medina, campaign treasurer, who was arrested two weeks ago after a police raid turned up a check made out to him by a cartel front company...
...after Cali's bosses. Though the State Department stopped short of suggesting that the U.S. cut off aid to Colombia and veto loans from institutions such as the World Bank, the rebuke apparently rocked Samper, whose presidential campaign was alleged to have been partly financed by the cartel...
...mainframe that contained such information as records of every long-distance call into and out of the city. Old-fashioned, low-tech ruthlessness was not beneath him, however. In addition to allegedly being connected to at least three killings in the U.S., he was the one who established the cartel's draconian methods of policing its own ranks. As insurance, the dealers to whom cocaine is consigned put up not only cash and property, but also human collateral -- the names and addresses of relatives in Colombia...
...system worked so well that Santacruz may be hard to replace. "He has more corporate knowledge in his little finger," says a DEA agent, "than anybody else down there has in his whole body." That's why Santacruz's arrest is seen as wiping out the cartel's trade. "With the capture of Gilberto Rodr?guez Orejuela and Santacruz, the Cali cartel has crumpled," Serrano said. "I think the justice system will give the maximum penalties that a criminal like Santacruz deserves...
Even if his arrest spells the demise of the Cali cartel, few experts believe that this means an end to the business of drug trafficking in Colombia. "The Rodr?guez Orejuelas are going to fall," said William Ram?rez, a political-science professor at the National University in Bogota. "The Scorpions will fall. But there are always going to be others to replace them until you tackle consumption." That, however, is a problem the U.S. must tend to within its own borders...