The Cali Cartel (jan 1, 1977 – jan 1, 1995)

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Despite not having been nearly as infamous and well known as their rivals in Medellin, the Cali cartel nonetheless was most likely the most powerful and organised drug cartel Colombia had ever seen, reaching their peak right as Medellin reached its demise. What set the Cali cartel apart and enabled it to reach the heights it reached was its difference in approach. Where Escobar’s Medellin cartel would frequently rely on violence, intimidation and assassinations in order to further their own goals, Cali operated in a much more quiet and discreet manner, preferring bribery to violence. This allowed the cartel to grow and gain influence without attracting too much attention from Colombia or the United States, despite at one point being responsible for 90% of global cocaine production. The rise of the Cali cartel coming during the same time as Escobar’s manhunt and the overall peak of the Medellin cartel’s notoriety. Additionally, the cartel ran like a well oiled machine, every aspect of production, transportation distribution, security and money laundering was meticulously planned out, making it near impossible to intervene with their activities. Despite not using as much violence in order to achieve their goals as their Medellin counterparts, Cali was still extremely brutal, especially when it came to social cleansing, where the cartel would be involved in the murder of street children, homosexuals, prostitutes and the homeless of Cali, who they considered as “discardables”

Originating in the 1970s from a criminal group named los chemas, founded by eventual cartel leaders Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez-Orejuela and Jose Santacruz Londoño, the group began with counterfeiting and kidnapping, the latter of which eventually resulting in a ransom of 700,000 usd, which is believed to have been what laid the foundation for the Cali cartel to emerge from. In the following years, the Cali cartel would slowly grow their operations, similar to the way Medellin had in the years prior, but with a greater emphasis on bribery, corruption and money laundering, having tremendous influence on the internal affairs of Cali while also having a wide network of money laundering methods, from offshore accounts, to real estate investments and even large front companies. However, despite the leniency they were shown from the Colombian and United States governments during the time when the Medellin cartel’s narcoterrorism was a major concern, after the downfall of the Medellin cartel and Pablo Escobar’s death, Cali had become so unfathomably powerful that they could no longer be ignored. Years of operations against the cartel from Colombian and American authorities would gradually weaken the cartel, with seizure of cartel held assets, raids on labs and distribution routes, increased competition from the norte del valle cartel weakening the cartel significantly, until both the Rodriguez-Orejuela brothers would be captured and extradited to the United States, marking the end of the largest and most powerful narco trafficking empire in history

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