Colombian Drug Cartel Founder Is Jailed in Fla.
MIAMI -- A founder of a Colombian drug cartel that became the world's chief supplier of cocaine in the 1990s was transported to a Florida jail on Saturday after being extradited from Colombia.
Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, 65, is to appear in court Monday on charges of running, along with his brother, Miguel, a drug network responsible for producing 80 percent of the U.S. cocaine supply in the 1990s. The brothers have been jailed in Colombia for nearly a decade.
Eleven others also face charges in the conspiracy, but Rodriguez Orejuela is the first defendant to be extradited to the United States. He would face life in prison if convicted.
The cartel became renowned for its ingenious methods of hiding tons of cocaine in everything from hollow lumber and concrete fence posts to chlorine cylinders, frozen broccoli and okra. Investigators believe a 15-ton seizure of cocaine-stuffed fence posts in Miami in 1991 followed more than 20 similar shipments that passed through undetected.
Prosecutors said Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela was the brains behind the concealment techniques, while Gilberto, nicknamed "the Chess Player," ran the family's financial empire, which included 400 discount drugstores in Colombia and a fence-post plant and lumber mill.
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-- From News Services
