The Underworld Podcast - The Cartel That Went to War w/Pablo Escobar: The Gentlemen of Cali

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

As Colombia's cocaine industry exploded in the 1980's, Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel became the dominant player, capturing headlines across the world. But there was a second cartel rising up, one that operated more in the shadows and would soon grow more powerful - and more profitable - than even Medellin. The Gentlemen of Cali were slick, sophisticated and always looking for a solution that wouldn't attract headlines. They fancied themselves businessmen and aristocrats, and as Pablo went to war on the state, they invested hundreds of millions into businesses and politicians all over Colombia. Though originally good-natured rivals, the Cali and Medellin cartels maintained decent relations...only they didn't. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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But while the Cali cartel likes to keep a low profile and portray themselves as respected businessmen, Pablo Escobar, the infamous leader of the Medellijian cartel, chooses a different lifestyle. He's flamboyant, he's out and about, and he lives in a ridiculous 7,000-acre estate with 24 artificial lakes and a private zoo with the now infamous hippos. All of this has unfortunately caught the attention of United States law enforcement in a big way, which is not great for business. They're pushing Colombia to start arresting and extraditing some of these Colombian traffickers. Pablo is not happy, and he foolishly starts to wage a war against the state, terrorizing Colombia. But in addition to this war, he has another new idea. He wants to the war. He wants to the

form a super cartel with all Colombian drug traffickers, including his main business rivals in Cali. What could go wrong? You see, up until this point, his cartel and the Cali cartel have been friendly rivals. They socialized together, some even paled around together on European drug scouting vacations, and they sometimes even work together. So when Pablo calls a trafficker summit, the men from Cali are in attendance. The idea is this. Under Pablo's leadership, the traffickers will present a united front. They'll coordinate political and economic strategy for all traffickers in Colombia.

Furthermore, he needs to approve of every shipment made, and the kicker on top, he's going to get 30% of the wholesale value for each shipment. A few years ago, the gentleman of Cali, as they're sometimes called, might have agreed to such a ridiculous demand by the ruthless and powerful Escobar. But this is now, not then, and the Cali cartel has built up its own drug empire and network,

to the point where they can tell Pablo, nope. According to journalist Simon Strong, Pablo's reaction to being turned down is not calm. Quote, almost speechless with rage, Escobar was reported to have simply muttered, but then this is war, before he immediately left the ranch. The Cali cartel haven't met their match in Escobar, though.

In fact, less than a decade later, They'll be shipping 80% of the entire U.S. Coke market and 90% of the European market, changing the way drugs flow into the continent. This is the underworld podcast. Welcome back to the underworld podcast, where we strive to make you our listeners the most interesting person on the line for the bathroom stall. We are two journalists, myself Danny Gold, and my co-host, Reformed Berlin Party Boy, Sean Williams, and we, every week, bring you a new story on global organized

crime. We are. It's official now. The hands down best podcast about organized crime ever, and we will stand victorious over the broken bodies of our competitors. Sean, how's your child? Yeah, reform party boy is a nice way of saying boring father, I guess, or maybe retired rent boy. Yeah, you never guess what my son did the other day. Like, it was so good. We were on this hike through the forest up this hill. And that is just wonderful, bud. Wonderful stuff. As always, We have bonus episodes up at patreon.com slash the underworld podcast for $5 a month

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A bunch of you guys on Instagram have been telling us about some really cool stories we didn't know about. So thank you for that. Also, we have Murphiard. including the don't Instagram your crimes t-shirts on underworldpod.com. Just click on that merch button. There's hoodies, t-shirt, stickers, a bunch of other stuff.

And yeah, all right, let's talk some real narcos. In the late 60s and early 1970s, the DEA was pretty focused on heroin because a lot of veterans were coming back from the Vietnam War and they brought their usage home with them. This, of course, brings a boom in drug use. organized crimes getting involved in the trade, and there's a lot of money, big money. These are the days of the French connection being brought down. Yeah, crazy, crazy stuff.

Anavik Atkinson, Black GI ran a Motown bar in Bangkok. Looking up, we did a show on him like a zillion years ago. This is wild times down in Indochina. And if anyone's going to be in L.A. and is a producer or director and wants to hear a great pitch about exactly that, hit me up. Yeah, I feel like now we're, yeah, definitely hit Sean up, but also I feel like we're just referencing all the time all these old episodes we've done.

It's like 170 episodes by now. And a lot of this stuff, you know, turns up and it's all interconnected, which is, I think, a big point of this podcast. Anyway, because of all that, the focus on heroin, they sort of missed the rise of cocaine usage as it was becoming more mainstream in the 1970s. It had, of course, always been around, but was very expensive, and it was more like a small subset of Hollywood types or creative types using it.

Columbia develops as the main hub for the cocaine trade for a bunch of factors. You got weed, opium, and the coca plant growing there naturally, even though later on Coke would mostly come out of Peru and Bolivia. Plus, Colombia also had a long history of smuggling, things like emeralds and coffee and later weed. It was also a pretty big transportation hub for legitimate goods, so there's lots of opportunity. In this case, a bunch of trafficking families emerged based. basically smuggling consumer goods to evade tariffs. In 1979, 1980, the textile industry

begins to shift from Medellin to Asia because of competition and high tariffs, causing the economy in Medellin to nosedive in a Colombian economy. It was already declining in the late 1970s, and you kind of know what that means, right? It is party time. Yeah, I feel like my Robin Hood reference little buzzers going off. It's like, it's right on my neck. It's throbbing, like, in my in my throat. Is that the Robin Hood reference thing? Or I don't know, maybe I should get that check I think it's more like the Ascabar thing they tried to portray, right? I guess Cali did it too, but we'll get to Callie and their shenanigans. The Cali cartel origin story starts off in the late 60s with two brothers, Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez, and their pal Jose Santa Cruz, better known as

Chepa. Actual information about these guys' childhoods and their backgrounds, it's really scarce and a lot of what is known is contradicting information in various conflicting accounts. Some people say the brothers came from the streets. Others say they were from a solidly middle class family. These guys always are going to keep things very low key. But we think they were born in a poor barrio and collie and that as youngsters, the Rodriguez brothers worked for a drugstore pharmacy, ironically delivering legal drugs and running errands and stuff like that. I mean, who's the real criminal here? The Cali Cartel or a big farmer, am I right? Yeah, yeah. Not. Bad, not bad.

But by the time they're teenagers, they're involved in all sorts of petty crimes. They're actually arrested for counterfearing money, which I guess isn't that petty. But the judge presiding over the case received so many death threats that she lets the statute of limitations pass before doing anything. So, you know, petty criminals, but already not messing around if you're threatening judges. And the third guy in the original Cali Trinity, Jose Santa Cruz, Chepa, is a childhood friend of the brothers. and they all grow up together as pals, you know, buds, mates even. And just to make sure we properly credit where a lot of this information comes from, it's the book Drug Lords, The Rise and Fall of the Cali Cartel by Ron Chepe Seok.

That's kind of interesting. Chepesioch. Oh, Chepesioch. Yeah, yeah. He's done a bunch of, like, really cool books on the drug industry. Yeah, so he wrote kind of the go-to book on the Cali Cartel, which there isn't that much, you know, long form. I think there was another book, too, that I read for a bit but didn't use a ton of it. Ron did a book on I, like, Atkins.

He's like, I think we had him on the show a while back, or maybe at the very start. I know I, I know I spoke to him for a story years ago, but maybe we should get him on again. He's cool. Yeah, but if you guys want to read the book on the Cali Cartel, it's his. In their teenage years, the three also started kidnapping ransom ring. You know, the usual hold someone hostage, get paid a ransom for them to be released, usually small businessmen, things like that, as one does. They're soon implicated in the kidnapping of a fisherman, but managed to avoid getting convicted,

and Chepé is then allegedly involved in the kidnapping of a university student and an industrialist according to a local Colombian paper. I kind of like when people are called industrialists. You know, it's a very old school, like real 20th century type shit. Like, do they still have industrialists? I think I think I could be an industrialist. Yeah, I mean, with your views on sweatshops and developing world, I reckon you could definitely do it.

Hey, hey, people need jobs, man, you know? They actually use the profits. Yeah, they actually use the profits from the, kidnappings to buy a fleet of three taxis. This is already like, it's clear these guys are on a different level, right? Most teenagers get a big score. They're out there buying clothes and chains or some other dumb stuff. These guys are on the passive income wave way before Instagram reels or hustle culture

even exists and they're doing it the right way with taxable income. I mean, did anyone even pay taxes in Cali back then? Probably not. But these guys are still making it work. By 1969, the Rodriguez brothers in Chepa are members of a kidnapping organization called Las Chema's that was run by like a season older veteran criminal. The gang successfully kidnaps two Swiss guys, one a diplomat, the other student, and their cut from the ransoms is $700,000. They want active income now, so they're going to use this money as their seed capital to get into drug trafficking. By the early 1970s, the crew are small timers getting further and further into the drug trafficking.

drug trade that's popping off in their part of Columbia. The original pioneer of the Cali drug trade is a guy named Benjamin Herrera Zoleta, aka the Black Pope of Cocaine, called this because of his Afro-Colombian heritage. Black Pope of Cocaine is just like an incredible, incredible nickname. And as for nicknames, Santa Cruz, aka Cheppe. He's eventually known as El Gordo, the Fat Man, which is just the classic in a staple of the genre. The Black Pope is one of the leading traffickers out of Columbia at the time.

time and he's the guy who sets up the original trafficking routes to the states that later traffickers like our three protagonists would come to use. I think there's even some stuff that says that Escobar used his routes as well. He was that much of a of an originator. The Pope doesn't last too long though. He gets arrested in 1975, smuggling a massive load, but he's released in 1976 and he sort of disappears before later being arrested in the States in the late 80s. No, that's such a shame. Like, Fatty and the Black Pope would have been such a a good normal layer show, don't you think? Like, Sean, that's a...

One's fat, the others are Black Pope, but now they've got to live together in this dingy, one-bed apartment. That's a solid, solid reference, solid joke. I mean, you're doing... There we go. You get better every episode. The Cali guys initially start smuggling weed,

but they soon train just in a Coke. It just makes more sense. It's a lot more money. And back then, you know, smuggling weed, you'd be arrested, I think, and probably face a very similar amount of time, if not more. They start by buying a light plane

to transfer the drug. but they get off to a pretty bumpy start. Guberto gets arrested in November of 1975 with 180 kilos of cocoa paste. Cocoa paste. He released a short time later. Yeah, it was black market chocolate. They were smuggling here from Colombia. He's then re-arrested in New York City in 1977 when he comes to check out the market there to

kind of set something up. Yeah, I mean, the area, like big, big picture here. Get ready for a big thought of the day. Like, wheat actually is a gateway drug, right? but only for the guys selling it. Really, that really makes you think, didn't it? You had it and you just lost it. Santa Cruz, Chepa, he's arrested in 1976,

traveling from New York City to Costa Rica, and again in 1977 for a gun charge in Queens. But it's not all bad because there's a list made in 1975 of the top 113 traffickers in the Colombian underworld. I don't know why they chose 113. And the two brothers were ranked 58th and 62nd on the list. You know, but in those days, I feel like making a couple million bucks a year would get you on one of those lists because the market was just getting going kind of small. And Escobar's guys were dominating.

Also, pay attention to the New York City thing. Escobar and his crew were so focused on Miami and the Cali Boys recognize they're going to look like New York City is a huge market and they're going to look into that for distribution. 113. That's so weird. I guess they got called up by like 13 other guys, right? Because you don't want to be leaving the 101st guy off the list. you're going to be in trouble then. Do you think if you're the 114th top guy back in those days, you're mad you didn't make the list or you're happy you didn't make the list that like no one knows your name.

I mean, I mean, I am now. But yeah, I guess, I don't know. I don't want to be the journalist right in that list. Was it a journalist or something? Was it just a random list? It's just, it was in the book. So it was just a source from the book. I didn't find out exactly where the list was.

So weird. Goberto Rodriguez, not his brother Miguel, soon emerges as the cartoon. He's known as the chess player because he thinks very strategically, which kind of a lame nickname, but you know, what can you do? He takes a more sort of macro view of things, but he's also known to underlings as the quote, unquote, fun uncle, as opposed to my co-host, Sean Williams, who has been referred to as the uncle whose lap you're not allowed to sit on. Younger brother Miguel is more of a micromanager who likes to get involved in the minutia of day-to-day operations of the cartel. He also terrifies everyone working under him. Definitely not fun uncle vibes. Yeah, I love how I've gone from, what, recovering drug addicts and rent boy to, to paedophile

in the course of, what, 15 minutes? Hey, your words, not mine, bud. What's the real gateway drug? Yeah, as the late 70s become the early 80s, the Cali cartel becomes more organized and more sophisticated. They work closely with the Burgeon and Colombian immigrant community in the States, getting connected with relatives of everyone, cousins, you know, all that sort of stuff, setting up their networks and operations that way.

Cali's always really been a family affair also at the top echelon, cousins, siblings, uncles, everything like that. So this is pre-crack, and the U.S. government position at this time is that heroin is the real problem, and cocaine is kind of like this Mickey Mouse drug. You even had government officials saying that cocaine was the least worst of the recreational drugs compared to heroin, amphetamines, and barbiturates. Then in 1979, there's this big bust in New York City of a Cali cartel stash house where they find millions of dollars in unreal amount of weapons and a fair amount of cocaine.

All of a sudden, New York law enforcement, they're starting to realize they probably have a problem here. The bust also produces a bunch of documentation that a task force later uses to identify the three leaders of the Cali cartel. After the bus, law enforcement, they're clued in, but, you know, they're trying to increase the pressure, but it's not coming easy. For one, no one who got arrested talks. See, when these types in New York or the U.S. in general start working, with Cali, they ought to give a list of their relatives back home in Columbia for obvious reasons. And even if they did talk, they also don't have much to say because each of the smuggling and distribution cells operate independently of each other and would deal with like one other guy.

It's sort of similar to how some, you know, jihadi or domestic terrorist groups have operated, or maybe I'm just confusing real life with the incredible 1998 Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis movie, The Siege, which is just, you know, incredible. But, uh, yeah, autonomous cell. Interestingly that movie Written by New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright Bonjour, Compaire. It's the

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you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now. at Bloomberg.com. What? So he's like pivoting from what, 50,000 words features to trashy thrillers?

I think he's my hero. First of all, have you seen that movie? It is not a trashy thriller. It is incredibly. No, no, no, no. I'm being very unfair. Yeah, that is an awesome movie.

Incredibly prescient for like what, what was going to happen over the next 25 years. But yeah, autonomous sales, Cali was well known for that. It's a sharp tactic. The last thing is,

when these guys eventually make bail, they don't stick around, right? They just get back on a plane to Columbia for good. We don't have, like, the databases and the biometric systems and all that set up. It was, you know, they all have forged passports. So, like, why talk if you can just flee? Also in the late 70s, Gilberto sent Santa Cruz Chepa to New York City to oversee the market there, and the Cali cartel establishes New York City as its cocaine beachfront.

And later, moving to three other major markets, Houston, L.A., and of course, Miami. The cops, and this is basing it on finding. financial analysis of old drug ledgers that they seized, so not like a random guess, like it usually is with these. They estimate that Cali was pulling down one million a week in each major market by the early 1980s. So that's what, like 200 million revenue in the major markets in the 80s money, which is, you know, doesn't come close to their peak at the time, which I think was in the early 90s.

And it's not billions like it is now, but it's halfway decent. It's probably like, you know, triple us or what, half a Hulk tour or something. I don't know what the podcast is now. and getting a job with the Cali cartel back then was not easy. Once Snitch said that he had to first have a phone interview with someone based back in Cali as part of his vetting process. And after that's done, he was faxed a list of rules. A fax machine is what we...

How do you even describe a fax machine? How we sent emails... I don't know, but the Germans are going to know because they still use them. Do they really? Yeah, it's insane. They still use them for official documents. It's there. Yeah, they're strange people, as we know.

Faxed a list of rules and some of the major stipulations were to live modestly and avoid attracting attention to yourself. And if you worked at a stash house, you were expected to show up at night and leave in the morning basically like a nine to five. Yeah, I mean, did they ever consider creating a podcast? I mean, we do like nothing, yeah, and we're making bank. I mean, I'm sure if it was now, they'd have a studio in one of the stash house apartments so they could kind of like, you know, record their thoughts on what's going on. with, I don't know, what's the culture or issue? Kelly Cartel with James English or some shit like that. Cats in Ohio, whatever that is.

Santa Cruz also brings up a group of hitmen from Columbia to work in the States, known as the Palestinians after their leader, Julio Palestino. A New York cop described the group as being legendary for their capacity for violence. They kill numerous people in Chicago, New York, and Miami. Santa Cruz is also a pretty brutal boss who had zero issues killing people. For example, he had his mistress, who was the mother of several of his children, killed for basically threatening to move away with his kids. So, you know, not exactly a stand-up, stand-up guy. There's another Colombian trafficker who was hustling in New York City at this time named Paco Herrera, who if you guys have watched Narcos, he's got a sizable role in that.

He gets arrested in 75 and 79 for trafficking in small amounts of cocaine. He might actually be the son of the Black Pope we mentioned earlier. There's a couple reports of that, but nothing's confirmed. he's operating independently during this time, but he heads back to Cali in 1983 after a short prison term and ends up licking up with the Cali cartel to discuss smuggling routes and work together. Over the next few years,

he rises up to be a part of the Cali leadership, basically being fourth after the brothers and Santa Cruz Jepa. Another interesting thing about Paco is that he's gay, which is less unique now in the Colombian trafficking world. We've discussed this, I think, with Toby Mews a bunch. But back then, let's just say the Cali Cartel was very progressive, for what was going on. So business is booming for Colombian traffickers,

and there are basically two main organizations in Colombia, one in Cali and the other in Medellin. And that's Pablo Escobar with the Ochoa brothers and others in their leadership. I mean, there's been so much done on Pablo, like how many TV shows, documentaries, whatever, it's overkill. So I'm going to try not to go into a ton of details, but the two groups have very different styles.

Pablo's guys are way more thuggish and less sophisticated than the Cali guys. Now, did this mean the Cali guys weren't violent? They didn't kill people? Of course they did. But you know, where Pablo's guys wanted to kill someone, they might spray a restaurant and kill 30 civilians to get their guy, whereas the Cali cartel would invite the person to Paco's ranch outside the city and take care of the person quietly. There's another actually pretty genius way they dealt with some of these traitors and screw-ups.

If they were from out of town, they would invite them to Cali. They'd fly them in and they would disappear them. And then the Cali guys would find someone who looked. enough like the dude to fly back to where he came from. So they could be like, oh, hey, you know, he didn't go missing in Cali. He went back home, which is like, you know, A for effort right there. Yeah, and then they could get a guy who looked like that guy to get on a plane back to Cali and a guy who looked like the guy who looked like the guy

to head back to his hometown, which would be like, you know, that's kind of like double gold standard. But yeah, I guess this is cool. You're kind of foreshouting a bit. They actually get brought down because 90% of their time and effort was. spent towards getting a guy who looked like a guy, who looked like a guy. Eventually, it was just all they were doing pretty much. So they had to like stop trafficking. Oh man. It sounds like journalism. Yeah. When dealing with, with politicians, the Cali guys kind of looked to corrupt them to behind

the scenes with money, while Pablo was more into threats of violence and assassinating people. Escobar being loud and violent, it also plays right into the Cali cartel's hands. They'd started portraying themselves as the gentleman of Cali. That was the nickname they went with, which, very nice. You know, they're the good guys, the respectful guys. They're actually just really businessmen, which made them way easier to deal with and less psychotic than Pablo and his crew. And that was kind of what they went for. In 1981, Marta Ochoa, who's the sister of the Ochoa brothers, who are top-level players in Pablo's cartel, gets kidnapped by one of the leftist guerrilla groups in Colombia, M19, who demand like a huge $15 million ransom. In response, both cartels have a landmark meeting to discuss how to retaliate.

They form a group called Death to Kidnappers, aka MAS. I think it's fair to say that we can ascertain what they were about. And this MAS meeting is like a who's who of Colombian traffickers. All the big dogs are there. And they decide to drop leaflets in Cali where this group is saying that they're going to kill everyone in M19. And the message is received pretty quickly and MRA is released. Then there's a second MAS meeting where the cartels decide to divide up territory in the U.S. so they aren't fighting over it.

Cali gets New York, Pablo gets South Florida, and they share California, though eventually Cali kind of starts to dominate California. And yeah, from the 1970s to the mid-80s, the two cartels kind of get along pretty well. They mingle together, their friendly competitors. They even work together on some joint shipments and processing labs. It turns out Jorge Ochoa, one of the Ochoa brothers,

actually grew up in Cali for a time, him and Gilberto Rodriguez, the leader of Cali. They're kind of boyhood friends growing up. So, you know, they get along. In the late 1970s, they even become business partners when they co-found a bank together called First Inter-America's Bank in Panama. And in 1984, due to pressure from the government, they actually go to Spain together to get away for a bit and just explore the European cocaine market. So, you know, it's kind of nice. They were pals. But, you know, Pablo being Pablo and a full-on lunatic, it really helps out the Cali cartel because during the 80s, the U.S. government and the Colombian government, a lot of their attention is on Pablo.

When asked why the U.S. didn't focus on Cali in the 80s, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Latin America from 87 to 89 replies, quote, Our sense was that the thugs from Medellin were more insidious. Escobar was your typical gold chain, fancy car gangster who liked the flamboyant lifestyle. The traffickers from Cali, on the other hand, were low-key and manipulators. We called them criminals with Gucci slippers. Wasn't that a title of that rock album you made back in the day in high school? I'm sorry, did you say rap rock album? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You keep sending me all these links on Spotify to like old rap rock, but I don't know, man. It's just not that cool anymore. I mean, I had to return the favor of you sending me all those links from your ska band that existed in the late 90s. You know, I think... Yeah, that was cool.

I think seven trombones on a track is awesome, dude, so I don't know why you're embarrassed about it, like why you're hiding it from people. We could put it up on the Patreon. Yeah, you get paid even less. Back in Cali, the cartel creates quite an economic boom by spreading around their drug money. I mean, how many cities did cocaine actually build? We know Miami, we know Cali, I'm assuming Medellin, like what other ones are out there?

Palermo, that got built entirely by cocaine in. Yeah. I mean, they were involved in other organized crime, I think, before it really came up. You do got to hand it to the Sicilian mafia, yeah. They've diversified. All the Albanian coast right now that's become like the hottest tourist destination in Europe. Yeah. I'm sure.

I'm sure there's a hotbed. Yeah. A bunch of sky rises come up in Cali. Thousands of jobs are created, if not more. And their plan in Cali is to buy Columbia, not terrorize it. And they gain control of a big Colombian bank. Gilberto becomes the chairman. And they not only launder money through it, but also give shares to local leaders to help foster these relationships.

in addition to granting loans and allowing overdrafts on their checking accounts, which is just a nice thing to do. They also own a massive drugstore chain with 250 stores in Colombia, and they own the lab that's the producer of Alka-Seltzer there too, whose annual sales are $4 billion in 1987, and a bunch of real estate. And finally, of course, they own a soccer team, the Cali-based Club America, because, of course, they did.

Yeah, I mean, like this is the best way of laundering cash back then, and today, I guess, with all the Gulf states getting into it, but I think Escobar had Athletical Nacional but like as far as I can tell pretty much every team in the Colombian team like League had drug money going through it including the perfectly named

Millionarios but we got into this a bunch with our show on the death of Colombian National Star and this Escobar in 1994 that was a crazy story at the time I remember and he actually made his debut this year in 1987 for Nacional so I guess he was anti-Cali cartel at the time Yeah, too bad.

It didn't do them any good. Public relations-wise, but he got killed. He got killed, yeah, fair enough. You know, I did some documentary research for the guys who made the two Escobars, not on that movie, but on a couple of other ones. Those were the guys, the same guys who made the two Escobars, which was 30 for 30, the Zimla's brothers. They also made that doc on Netflix series I worked on,

which one of the episodes was about who killed Jamestor J, which I think they solved that murder last year or two years ago. And then the other one, what was, the other one was about the attempted assassination of Bob Marley, which we mentioned a lot in our episode, which are two-part episodes on the Jamaican gangs that start in Jamaica,

you know, in the 60s and 70s, and then flow into America, New York, D.C., Miami in the 80s, in the crack wars and are just insanely violence. And, I mean, those are two of our best episodes, but the reason I was tuned into that story

because I did a ton of research and called a bunch of people that were involved for that documentary series. Anyway, public relations-wise... There we go. We're actual journalists. We do stuff. Public relations-wise, the Cali guys, they portray themselves as these gentlemen. They hobnob with the wealthy Colombian business owner class, which they are now, even without the cocaine. They control a bunch of radio stations as well. And whenever the press would question their money sources, they had a high-price crew of lawyers on retainers to go after them. and they pay off journalists too and even hire some SPR, which, you know, hello, dream job for me and Sean.

They really work hard to portray themselves as businessmen while Pablo was bombing airplanes and declaring war in the state. So, you know, it's pretty obvious why Columbia and the U.S. go after Pablo first. And it's also just a testament to like how smart the Cali guys were. They had it, you know, legitimate businesses, lawyers, business. Like, they were tapped in to everything. They were sort of like your, I don't know, prestige cartel. guys, if you want to call it that. They were a cut above, a cut above that anything else we've seen. With so much blow coming into the U.S. by the mid-80s, it actually leads to weak prices.

So the Cali guys now set their sights on Europe where it's four times as expensive. I mentioned earlier how Gilberto and one of the Ochoa brothers go to Spain in 1984 to look at the European drug market and also get some breathing room from government pressure. The Cali cartel while there, they link up with a Camorra crime boss named Pasquale Locatelli, which fun fact, this dude got arrested sometime in the late 80s, but in 1989, he broke out of a prison in France by breaking his own arm, then having his men intercept the prison transport van to slip out back to Spain, which is like straight from Gamora.

And this dude stayed on the run being a massive coke broker until getting arrested again 20 years later in 2010. The Camorra, they already have these logistics in place all over Europe because they were moving heroin. So Cali gets them the product and they actually handle the wholesale distribution because they're so tapped in. And the Cali guys and the Camor guys, they get along very well. They respect each other and they bond over what else soccer. They also eventually link up with Curtis Warren to move weight in the UK who Sean did a full episode on a ways back.

But it's there if you search for it. But anyway, before all that, Guilberto and Ochoa, they actually get arrested in Spain in 84, 85 when they're there. the U.S. requests their extradition, but they have their fancy lawyers come to Spain and end up getting sent back to Colombia instead of the U.S. Meanwhile, Cali is spreading out their cocaine production and storage operations all over Latin America, in addition to their home base of Colombia. In Venezuela, they work with the Contrera family, who longtime listeners of the pod might remember were extremely close associates of the risutoes of Montreal. When the American authorities start to crack down on the Caribbean route in the mid-80s, Callie shifts to working with Miguel on Hel Felix in Mexico and all the traffickers under him, who we've talked about a million times too.

In addition to Felix, the Cali cartel also works closely with the Gulf Cartel, but the closest lines that Cali has with a Mexican trafficker is with Amado Cario Fuentes, aka the Lord of the Skies and leader of the Juarez cartel, who we also did an episode on. I felt, yeah, this might be the leader for the amount of times that you've said that in an episode now. Sorry, guys. Was there like six or seven? but if you want to, you know, if you want to know more, they are all there.

In the middle of late 80s, that's when Pablo essentially starts his war against Colombia because the country is talking extradition with the U.S. He's having judges assassinated, you know, an attorney general, a justice minister. He pays militias to do a violent takeover of the Supreme Court building and burn some files and kill a bunch of people. And on and on it goes. But at the same time, this is starting to pop off. Another violent battle is about to start.

the war between Escobar and Cali. And this picks up right before the super cartel summit we talk about in the cold open. The main Cali cartel guy, who was the go between with Escobar's people, he actually tips off the police during that summit on the exact location of one of the Ochoa brothers that's wanted by the police, as he's on his way to the meeting. He's one of Escobar's top-level guys. He ends up being pulled over because of the tip and tries to bribe his way out, but is denied. And even though the arrest is in Cali, Gilberto, who runs,

He runs everything there doesn't help get him out, which is suspicious. The Ochoa brother eventually gets transferred to Bogota and later released, but the damage is done. And the Ochoa brothers become extremely suspicious of the Cali cartel, while Pablo is pissed because they turned down his offer to form that super cartel. It's almost like you can't trust these guys, eh? Yeah, I think it was over a woman, too. I think that's why the tip off happened, which, you know, those hot-blooded Colombians, you know, passionate. They're a passionate people. There's a couple of other events that precipitate open war.

There's a back and forth involving someone sleeping with the wrong person and a brewing battle over Pablo's people wanting to move into the New York City market. But yeah, things kick off in a huge way on January 13, 1988. That's when a big-ass bomb explodes outside an eight-story apartment building where Pablo's family is staying. It kills a few people and it partially, I think, ruins Escobar's daughter's hearing. The attempted hit shocks him, and he sends a team of Sikarios to take out the Cali cartel leadership, and the Cali guys send their own shooters out to take out the Sicario's. Bodies are starting to pile up.

Soon, it's 60 members of the Cali cartel and 18 members of Escobar's cartel that have been wiped out. The DEA notes that the intelligence they have against each other is really good, especially Medellin against Cali. Soon enough, the two cartels realize the feud is bad for business and try to negotiate a tree, But by this point, there's just too much bad blood, so the war continues. It's so intense that it spreads to the U.S. And dozens of bombs and hits are happening in New York and Miami, which is absolutely nuts when you think about it.

Even the currently most deranged Mexican cartel, Halisco, New Generation, would never start doing multiple bombings in the States. Though I think there have been a couple hits in L.A. I'm sure there's been a couple small ones here and there. But the rival cartels, they even start tipping off the police about each other's shipments. Back in Colombia, Pablo gets even more enraged when he gets clued in that the Colombian government is focused almost entirely on him. And he's kind of right.

He loses it and decides to terrorize the country even more. And this really comes to head when he assassinations the leading presidential candidate. This, of course, backfires and leads to the government reinstating the Columbia U.S. extradition treaty. How many discounts does USA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount? New vehicle discount. Storage discount.

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Pack your bags and come on through. Texas, Ohio, Alaska, we're up there too. Comfort Inn. It's calling your name. Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to do. claim, well, I hope you like my little song, book direct at sourcehiltails.com. Between mid-August and mid-December, 1989, the government arrests 500 people and

extradites nine to America. I think it's 500 of from the cartels. And in retaliation, Pablo kills 187 government officials and civilians, carries out 205 bombings and causes half a billion dollars in damage. The most shocking attack being when he blows up a plane and kills 107 people. Yeah, the bombing of Abiyanka 203. We could do an entire show on that. It's absolutely insane. Like the Medellin cartel, they killed what? Yeah, 107 people trying to get one presidential candidate, Cizadez, and he wasn't even on the plane. I guess there's like an argument that there was a point years before this where Escobar might have actually strong armed the government into giving him what he wanted. I mean, he kind of had it anyway, but he just lost the plot. Are you sure? I mean, the Avianca, uh, 203 bombing,

I thought, you know, there are theories that it was to kill two informants. And there's another that he just wanted to kill the girlfriend of one of the Cali leaders. Is it a fact that? I did not. I didn't know. I didn't know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's theories, you know. Um, I'm not sure what exactly, uh,

the, the, um, winning one is. In late 1989, Cali scores their first big win in this cartel war. They hire a guy to infiltrate the cartel war. They hire a guy to infiltrate the cartels.

the Medellian cartel, and he's able to work his way up very close to the top and basically send the police after a top-level Escobar lieutenant who was then killed in a shootout with the cops. But like, think about how insane in undercover operation, like, and not as a cop as like a rival cartel guy must be just like roaming. That is just, I mean, the balls on that dude. Just insane. Then in 1990, Columbia elects a new president and he makes a generous offer to the drug lords. Turn yourself in, do a few years and no extradition.

Whereas Pablo views this as a sign of weakness and ups his attacks, the three Ochoa brothers all accept it. They end up each doing five years in medium security prisons, and with how corrupt Columbia was at the time, I'm sure it was not that bad. Just to wrap them up real quick, two of the Ochoa brothers never get in trouble again, but one of them, I guess, couldn't resist,

gets back in the game and gets arrested in 1999 and is sent to the U.S. to do a 30-year sentence. The other two brothers, They do their five years. They keep most of their money, if not all of it, and they retire. And that's about as sweetest deal as you can get for a drug lord right there. Yeah. The president of Columbia continues to Sweden, is offered to surrender.

Pablo finally accepts and on June 19, 1991, he turns himself in to do his time in a private prison that he builds. Meanwhile, the Cali cartel has been steady building their businesses. At this point, U.S. officials estimate that they're actually the number one traffickers in the U.S. market. that in 1991, Time Magazine does this big cover story called The Cali Cartel, The New Kings of Coke. And in the same issue, they separately have an interview with Gilberto Rodriguez himself. I mean, this is a gigantic deal. It's like a dream story for a journalist. He's basically the most powerful drug lord in the world at the time. The head of the Cali Cartel, which he won't admit, but he is and he sits for an interview with two time reporters.

Yeah, that's a great scoop. Might get you 40 cents a word on substack today. I don't know, man. I think that's still like the kind of thing. But now they won't even do it, right? Because you can just make your own videos or have your own Instagram account. During the interview,

he portrays himself as an innocent businessman that was unfairly targeted by the psychopathic Escobar. He's a victim of Escobar's war of terror. He says Escobar is, quote, sick, a psycho, a lunatic. He knows he's lost the war against the state. He lives now only to destroy. He also says, you think one person,

in one baron, as you Americans call him, can control all the cocaine being sent from Cali? There are kids out there on the streets 20 or 25 years old, shipping 10 kilos, becoming millionaires. You think one man can control that? I mean, I have a bunch of excerpts here. It's just that good. Hold on. Sean, can you read them so I can rest my throat for one second?

Yeah, I can do it in my greatest time magazine journal, like received pronunciation. Question, tell us about your cocaine empire, Mr. Moody. given the kind of question you're asking, I gather you have this image of Hilberto Rodriguez, chief of a drug cartel. You'll be disappointed. I am not a narco trafficker, let alone the chief of a drug cartel.

Neither am I a megalomaniac. Therefore, I am not pleased when people try to portray me as an evil, intelligent, powerful man who has an unlimited fortune. He doesn't like it when people call him clever. Question, you're saying, you are not and have never been involved

in trafficking narcotics? that's exactly what I'm saying. You mentioned your well-known differences with Pavel Escobar. Tell us about them. And he laughs. Yes, it is true. This is like straight out of like an 80s Superman movie. Yes, it is true that I have differences with Mr. Escobar.

All this started when Mr. Escobar called me and asked me to help him commit violent acts to get the Colombian government to abrogate the 1979 extradition treaty with the US. Mr. Escobar thinks that one must tuck justice into one's own hands. I don't agree. He thinks that a criminal can win a war against the state. I think that is absurd. The crimes he is committed in Colombia on the pretext of narco trafficking have been very grave mistakes. Yeah, I'm like, I'm just thinking about this in Max von Siddell's voice or something. This is incredible. Yeah, he like speaks so well, actually. I kind of like him. Anyway, there are question. There are two possibilities. One, that you're a smart criminal who never got caught. And two, it is always possible to bring

the authorities. Answer, brackets, smiling. A man brought up in a family like mine could never be a good criminal. And the Colombian authorities are not as corrupt as you think. You've never seen a mayor in Colombia being acquitted after buying and consuming cocaine like

Washington's mayor, Marion Barry was. Yeah, that is good. Yeah, it's hilarious. It's just well played. You know, the Marion Barry references is terrific stuff. Yeah, that reminds me of that Bukele thing that he did recently when the Massachusetts congressman was griping about some

painting hanging in the South Salvador airport. I mean, imagine, like he did that on Twitter, right? Imagine if these 19th article's at Twitter, the threads you would be reading would be insane. They might even make money. Hey, you know, sometimes it's easier than starting a podcast. So yeah, Pablo's locked up, while behind bars. He keeps running the cartel, but he's also, you know, being a sick psycho lunatic. He's trying to tax all his lieutenants.

Then he ends up killing like two of them in prison when they come visit. Then there's a scandal where the news of his private prison hits the media and they plan on sending him to a maximum security one. Meanwhile, the Calais Cartel offers a British mercenary $10 million to drop a bomb on the prison. But the Merck ends up being caught in the sting operation in Miami trying to buy a plane. Yeah, that guy, he's like a Scottish ex-SAS violent domestic abuser, basically sighted. I think he served as a mercenary in like apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia. Handle my mustache, of course. And he died earlier this year.

He called him, he called himself a quote, dirty lowdown scum bag of a man. Yeah, I feel like there was a job open for him in media. But interesting guy. Might make for an episode. I didn't even know that you knew who this specific person was. Yeah, I remember that being on the news. Then I looked at it when I saw you were doing his show. and yeah maybe we should do an episode on him.

We don't do much on mercenaries. He's like a complete villain. Yeah, I mean, if he's a mercenary working for a cartel, I feel like that's in our wheelhouse. You know what I'm saying? Just about. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, Pablo decides to dip out, just leave prison, which he does, but his cartel isn't what it once was, and this is like 1992, 1993. Still, he gets back to business and starts running wild again. But by now, a new powerful collective forms called Los Pepe's, which stands for those persecuted by Pablo Escobar. It's a collection of groups whose only connection is a hatred of Pablo. You got some people from the search block, which is a combined 1,500 group of soldiers and

police officers dedicated towards fighting the cartels and specially trained. You got the two families of the two lieutenants Pablo killed in jail, and their people, you got the Cali cartel, and you got right-wing paramilitaries. They go all out on Pablo, you know, killing his lawyers even, anyone associated with him is being targeted. They're destroying all of his infrastructure too, and the Colombian government seemingly, like, let this go on,

while the Americans also turn a blonde eye. The Cali cartel is a key element in providing intelligence for the group, and sources in the Colombian government said that Cali's intel apparatus was so good, they took to calling it the Cali KGB. Escobar has finally gunned down on December 2nd, 1993. While the Cali leadership is initially thrilled

and relieved that Escobar is taken down, they don't particularly like being labeled the new kings of cocaine and all of the focus then shifting on them. And back in the states, the authorities are dismantling their distribution network. High up guys are getting arrested. Shipments are being seized. They try to work out a deal with the Colombian government and the U.S., but at that point there's no takers and everyone is now gunning for Cali.

But it's not going to be easy, especially if they stay on their home turf. They've got 5,000 taxi drivers operating as their eyes and ears in their room. region. They've got the airport people on the payroll so they know who's coming in and out. They also have people at the public phone company monitoring and recording phone calls throughout the city. They're even able to monitor calls to and from the American embassy in Bogota. Also, they have the son of a general in the Colombian army and a military man himself running their intel ops. Originally, the guy had signed up only to help take down Escobar, who he saw as like a cancer to Colombia, but after Escobar was killed, they refused to let him

resign. Oh man, I guess this guy was lying to that Time magazine journalist all those years before as well. It was pretty, pretty shocking. He was not being truthful. Search block though, that group of military and police, they've turned their attention to Cali and are conducting raids against them. This is like 1995-ish, but the Cali boss has always seemed to be one step ahead. There's deep corruption in the Colombian security services, and so many of their phones are illegally tapped by Cali that Columbia has to declare a state of emergency for the national phone lines. The four bosses of Cali also have safe houses all across the region, with special hiding spots hidden inside all of them.

Eventually, though, the heat is just too hot. And in July of 1995, Gilberto Rodriguez, head of the Cali cartel, is finally arrested with help from a confidential informant. Right away, he gets an army of high-powered lawyers to go to work, trying to stop his extradition to the states. He's still locked up, though, not outside. and the hunt is now on for his brother, Miguel Rodriguez. Remember that guy handling the security who they wouldn't let retire?

He starts informing to the DEA. And as the hunt for Miguel gets going, something else starts happening. High-ranking members of the Cali cartel start to turn themselves in. What happens is all these guys, they're shocked that Gilberto is brought in alive, right? They assumed he'd be killed on the spot like Pablo. And they start to think maybe, you know, it's better just to turn yourself in, negotiate, do a short sentence, medium sentence, and go free. Chepi Santa Cruz is then caught and arrested at a restaurant in Bogota.

Some say he turned himself in. Others say he's double-crossed by police. He had on the take who wanted the reward for catching him, which was like $600,000. And just a month later, Miguel is arrested, and pretty soon, six of the top seven members of the Cali leadership are locked up. Paco is the only guy on the outside, and he's actually trying to negotiate his surrender. And Cali seems like it's pretty much finished. Chepa Santa Cruz actually escapes from the Colombian prison he's in a few months later in January of 1996, but he's killed shortly after, allegedly by the police, probably by one of the many militias.

Paco ends up surrendering in September of 1996. He turns informant and gets hit with only seven years and a million dollar fine, but then in 1998, he's gunned down while in a maximum security prison while playing soccer when a dude dressed up as a lawyer goes up to him and shoots him in the head six times. Yeah, Narcos, I don't know. That's not quite how it goes down on the show. There's no lawyer stick, which is a shame because that's like way more interesting than just some rando gangbanger doing him in. But yeah, I mean, I just watched that scene.

I watched it last night actually when I knew you're going to do this. And Paco cannot kick a ball. He is very, very bad at football. It's almost like he is an actor who has never learned to play football like a cool guy. Anyway, the, yeah, that show is a great man. I think they go through a lot of this. I don't remember because my memory is shot in general. Like Chipper gets done, like he gets batted over the head with a with a spade and then shot by, I think, some of the militia guys.

Yeah, it's a brutal show, but I think they did a pretty solid job. Okay. Finally, the Rodriguez brothers, though, the original founders, they end up living it up in prison, bribing their way to a good time, think like good fellas, but 10 times better as their cells were more like upscale luxury apartments with cable TV, fancy food, unlimited visits. Gerberto actually gets released on November 7th, 2002. Shocking. This episode is brought to you by Redfin.

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on a Ouija board. They weren't guessing. They were asking the victim who killed them. Sounds unbelievable, right? But it happened. And that's just one of thousands of stories waiting for you on Morning Cup of Murder. Hi, I'm Karina B. Minas Durfer. And every single day on Morning Cup of Murder, I bring you a real, chilling, true crime story connected to that exact day in history. From Killer, Cannibal brothers, to the Boy Scout who was obsessed with the occult, and the strange story of the bloody hammer in the frozen cabin. These aren't the cases you've heard a hundred times. They're the ones that make you stop and think, how have I never heard this before? With over 2,500 episodes and a brand new story each and every single day, Morning Cup of Murder becomes part of your routine

fast. If you like your coffee hot but your bones chilled, then sit back and start your day with a Morning Cup of Murder. Go listen to Morning Cup of Murder wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay safe. Colombian and U.S. officials, many suspect a bribe is paid, but there's no actual proof, but I mean, come on. He gets arrested again, though, in March of 2003 on some old charges. And then a few years later, both brothers are extradited to the U.S. on money laundering

charges. Guberto dies in May 22, and Miguel is still locked up but expected to go free in 2028 if he's alive then. And that is the rise and fall of the gentlemen of Cali. Ooh, epic, man. That was very well researched and interesting. And yeah, if anyone has any questions about stuff they disagree with it in any of those other shows that we mentioned, please do what some rando guy did on Twitter and tell me he's going to go through all of our back catalog and check for mistakes because that would be good for us. Yeah, but that was awesome. Did someone do that? Someone say that?

He was like, he pointed something out and I was like, no, man, that's, that's completely wrong. He's like, I'm going to go back through all those episodes and check that you got this wrong. Like, please, please do that. And get all your friends to check that we made that mistake as well. What was it? Oh, he was complaining that we don't call enough different gangs terror groups or something. And I, like, looked through all of the scripts with the word terror.

And it was like 25 different groups over the years that we've called that. So, yeah, but please listen to 25 episodes, man. You went through that, you went through that many scripts. Jesus. I, you know, I had someone try to point something out wrong in one of the Canadian motorcycle gang ones about, yeah, but I like, well, I could I go through scripts, but I was able to find that I was correct with like a couple Google searches, you know? So that's always, they never respond after that.

Like, there's no response when you're like, oh, actually, here is evidence of that and evidence of this. Do you have, which doesn't say we don't get things wrong. We do. but we only care if you subscribe at patreon.com slash anewa podcast in which we will just pledge filthy to you no matter what you're always right we are always wrong until next week thank you for listening security program on spreadsheets new regulations piling up and audit dread it's time for

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