Cali Cartel Londoño and the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers formed the
Cali Cartel in the 1970s. They were primarily involved in
marijuana trafficking. In the 1980s, they branched out into
cocaine trafficking. At some point, the cartel supplied 80% of the United States' cocaine supply. The Cali Cartel was less violent than its rival, the
Medellín Cartel. While the Medellín Cartel was involved in a brutal campaign of violence against the
Colombian government, the Cali Cartel grew. The cartel was much more inclined toward bribery than violence. After the demise of the Medellín Cartel, the
DEA and Colombian authorities turned their attention toward Cali. The campaign began in the summer of 1995.
Capture and escape Several Cali Cartel leaders were arrested during the summer of 1995; Gilberto was arrested on June 9, Londoño on July 4 in a restaurant at north of Bogotá, and Miguel on August 6. However, Londoño escaped on January 11, 1996, from La Picota prison in
Bogotá, after bribing several people, Londoño escaped through security glass from a faceless prosecutor's interrogation room and fled in a van. The government offered a reward for his capture. He was in charge of consolidating the network of hitmen and armed men of the cartel, for which he established an alliance with old members of the Medellín Cartel; he was to exert more control over some of the smuggling networks, which had begun acting more independently after the cartel's leaders were incarcerated; and he coordinated the assassination of about 27 potential witnesses against him and some of the other capos of the cartel, and apparently was arranging for the assassination of important figures of the government.
Death Being at war against the
Norte del Valle Cartel, the leaders of this organization contacted the corrupt Colonel Danilo González for the eventual capture of him. They allied themselves with the paramilitary chief
Carlos Castaño Gil and after the news that Santacruz was allying with the
FARC to rebuild the Cali Cartel and form urban militias, Castaño and González set a trap for him and killed him along with a companion, pretending that Santacruz had eluded a police checkpoint. == In popular culture ==