Word: deas
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...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...
...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...
...1970s, while Medellin's cocaine cowboys were monopolizing drug sales in Miami, Santacruz was sewing up Manhattan. Today the DEA estimates that Santacruz, the Orjuela Caballero brothers and the Pacho Herrera organization import 4 of every 5 grams of cocaine sold on the streets of New York City. From that base, Cali operatives have fanned out across the U.S. and deep into Mexico. The Rodriguez Orejuelas are generally considered partners in Santacruz ventures, but they sometimes appear to operate independently. Their cousins, the Orjuela Caballero brothers, are also major dealers in Los Angeles. DEA agents say the Urdinola brothers work...
...cornering the market in Europe and Japan. Last year Dutch officials seized 2,658 kg of coke packed in drums of passion-fruit juice from Cali, the biggest single bust in Europe. Santacruz bank accounts have been found across Western Europe and as far afield as Hungary and Israel. DEA informants report that Cali is looking for sales representatives to man branch offices in Japan, where the going wholesale price for cocaine is as high as $65,000 per kg. "If the Cali cartel makes an alliance with the yakuza ((Japan's organized-crime network))," warns a Colombian presidential aide...
These tales filter back to the DEA. Possibly, Don Chepe wants it that way. "He's toying with us," says William Mockler Jr., chief of the New York task force investigating the Cali cartel. He and Kenneth Robinson, a retired New York City policeman who is now a DEA intelligence analyst, have been a step or two behind Santacruz since 1978, when they found out that he was building an air fleet and setting up businesses along the East Coast. Thanks to their efforts, Santacruz was indicted for drug-trafficking conspiracy in 1980, but he fled the country...