CALI PLEAS 15 YEARS IN THE MAKING

MIAMI -- The guilty pleas by the two highest-ranking Colombian
cocaine traffickers ever to appear in a U.S. courtroom had their
roots in a hot summer morning 15 years ago when a drug-sniffing dog
named Iowa found something suspicious.

The dog's alert Aug. 26, 1991, led to the discovery at the Port of
Miami of more than 12 tons of cocaine. The shipment served notice to
federal investigators that the Cali cartel had surpassed the better-
known -- and much more violent -- Medellin cartel in controlling
Colombia's cocaine trade and was employing ingenious new smuggling methods.

"It was electric, the atmosphere at the time," recalled Eddie Ryan, a
federal prosecutor who worked the case until leaving Miami for
Charlotte three years ago. "It was a huge load. This was a new game
and they were better at it than anybody had ever been."

The investigation spawned by the big find would take many twists and
turns and break new legal ground.

It culminated in the Sept. 26 guilty pleas to U.S. drug trafficking
charges by brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, the Cali
cartel kingpins nicknamed "The Chess Player" and "The Master" who are
now serving

30-year prison sentences. A total of 141 cartel members have been
convicted or pleaded guilty for their roles in an organization once
responsible for 80 percent of the world's cocaine.

For Ed Kacerosky, the Customs agent who led the investigation from
its inception, that moment in a Miami courtroom wasn't his biggest in the case.

Far better, he said, came after a midlevel defendant briefly
mentioned links between the Cali smugglers and operations in
Guatemala. That would lead to a Miami frozen vegetable warehouse used
as a front to smuggle cocaine and to a lawyer who ran the cartel's
South Florida operations.

"You need to catch a break," said Kacerosky, 50, now a U.S. Customs
and Immigration Enforcement supervisory special agent. "You could be
the greatest detective, but you need to have a little bit of luck."

One of those breaks came after one of a dozen Cali associates waited
a bit too late to throw his cell phone into the Miami River.

Kacerosky had identified the Miami-based operatives by decoding phone
numbers seized from a man arrested for involvement in the load hidden
in concrete posts. When he called the numbers, all of them were dead
except one -- and that one had called the replacement numbers for all
his confederates.

"That was the first big success. That's what turned the tide in this
whole case," Kacerosky said.

Information from that cell phone led to the frozen vegetable
operation that got weekly shipments from Guatemala -- "I said,
'Bingo,' " recalled Kacerosky -- and to a lawyer named Harold
Ackerman, who lived in a Miami Beach mansion. A wiretap was placed on
his phone and investigators monitored 186 phone calls over a six-day
period discussing Cali cocaine shipments, money laundering and so forth.

There were 24 employees listed in Ackerman's coded address book. All
had fled Miami after Ackerman's 1992 arrest except a new hire named
Raul Marti, who worked at the Taino Coffee Co. Investigators
discovered that Taino was getting three or four shipping containers
of "coffee" per month from Panama, which seemed suspiciously high.

Marti had no cell phone and didn't make many calls from his office.
But four times a day, Marti would go to one of several banks of pay
phones in Miami and use a prepaid phone debit card -- cutting-edge
technology in those days -- to call numbers in Cali, Colombia.

Kacerosky was able to trace the cards' access numbers to a switching
service in Miami that specialized in Colombian phone debit cards. So
rather than trying to obtain difficult-to-get wiretap orders for
dozens of pay phones, Customs investigators got warrants for the card
numbers and monitored the calls through the switching service.

Eventually, other Miami-based lawyers would join Ackerman in prison
for convictions on preparing false affidavits, paying hush money and
relaying threats from cartel kingpins.

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TIMELINE

Key developments in the 15-year U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement investigation into Colombia's Cali cocaine cartel:

1991 -- Drug-sniffing dog alerts to 12-ton shipment of cocaine hidden
in concrete posts at Port of Miami. Agents decipher coded telephone
records leading them to lawyer Harold Ackerman, cartel point man in
Miami, and a frozen vegetable importer used as a front for drug shipments.

1992 -- A wiretap on Ackerman's cell phone confirms 7-ton shipment of
cocaine in shipment of frozen broccoli. Ackerman and seven others
arrested, with 20 other cartel members identified and money
laundering ledgers seized.

1993 -- Ackerman associates flee country except for Raul Marti, who
agents link to shipments of "coffee" from Panama that turn out to be
multi-ton loads of cocaine. Cali cartel begins to route drugs through
Mexico to avoid U.S. investigators in Miami.

1994 -- First wiretap orders in history approved for prepaid phone
debit cards listing numbers in Cali, Colombia as targets. Leads to
hundreds of tapes of conversations between kingpin Miguel Rodriguez
Orejuela and U.S. operatives. Six search warrants authorized to
collect evidence from U.S. law firms.

1995 -- U.S. grand jury in Miami indicts Gilberto and Miguel
Rodriguez Orejuela and 57 other Cali cartel members. Rodriguez
Orejuela brothers are arrested in Colombia.

1996 -- Cali kingpins reach agreement to plead guilty in Colombia in
hopes of avoiding extradition.

1997 -- Colombia passes law stating that people accused of drug
trafficking would be subject to extradition for offenses committed
after Dec. 17, 1997.

1999-2002 -- U.S. investigators gather evidence that Rodriguez
Orejuela brothers have continued to run drug empire from Colombian prison.

2003 -- Grand jury in Miami issues new indictment charging cartel
founders with more recent drug and money laundering crimes.
Government seeks forfeiture of $2.1 billion in assets.

2004 -- Colombian government approves extradition of Rodriguez
Orejuela brothers. Gilberto arrives in Miami in December 2004 and
Miguel in March 2005.

2006 -- Brothers plead guilty to U.S. charges, are sentenced to 30
years in prison and ordered to forfeit $2.1 billion in assets.
Twenty- eight family members are given some assets, with some
avoiding prosecution.