HEIR APPARENT TO CALI CARTEL FOUNDERS EXPECTED TO ENTER GUILTY PLEA
IN NARCOTICS CASE

The heir apparent to reputed Cali cartel founders Miguel and Gilberto
Rodriguez Orejuela is scheduled to plead guilty today in Miami
federal court to charges of running his father and uncle's
multibillion-dollar cocaine empire during the past decade.

William Rodriguez Abadia's scheduled plea this afternoon dramatically
bolsters the government's high-profile drug case against his father
and uncle, who are being held in solitary confinement in the Miami
Federal Detention Center.

Rodriguez Abadia's expected plea deal likely means he will have to
admit to helping the Cali cartel founders run their cocaine empire
while they were in a Bogota prison in the late 1990s.

Rodriguez Abadia surrendered in January to U.S. agents to avoid a
lengthy extradition process in Colombia, said his Miami lawyer,
Humberto Dominguez.

A Colombian-trained lawyer, Rodriguez Abadia was charged in a 2003
drug-smuggling indictment along with his father, Miguel, 62, and
uncle, Gilberto, 66. They face trial in September.

Although the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers had been imprisoned by
Colombian authorities since 1995, a South Florida federal grand jury
charged them eight years later with managing their once-powerful drug
business from behind bars. The indictment further alleged that
Rodriguez Abadia took orders from his father and uncle to export
cocaine to the United States.

The brothers' heyday was in the early 1990s, when they allegedly
exported more than 4,000 kilos of cocaine per month and supplied 80
percent of the cocaine on U.S. streets.

The Miami indictment, issued in September 2003, seeks the forfeiture
of $2.1 billion -- their alleged profits between 1990 and July 2002.

Miami lawyers David O. Markus and Roy Kahn, representing the
Rodriguez Orejuela brothers, said they are preparing for trial
against prosecutors Richard Gregorie, Edward Ryan and Matthew Axelrod.