REPUTED CALI CARTEL KINGPIN MAKES FIRST U.S. COURT APPEARANCE

MIAMI - One half of a team of brothers alleged to have run Colombia's
notorious Cali cocaine smuggling cartel appeared Monday in a federal
courtroom to face U.S. charges that were 14 years in the making.

Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, 61, was ordered held without bond after waiving
his right to a bond hearing. He and his older brother, Gilberto Rodriguez
Orejuela, 66, will be formally arraigned March 28.

Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela appeared in court dressed in a light olive- green
jail jumpsuit and shackled with handcuffs to another prisoner. He listened
to the proceedings through headphones that provided a Spanish translation,
but he did not speak.

Security for the hearing was tight, with extra U.S. marshals keeping watch
and access to the courtroom limited to a few people. Prosecutors refused
comment after the hearing.

Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela was flown to the United States on Friday after
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe rejected his final appeal against
extradition. His older brother was extradited three months ago on the same
indictment.

Investigators blame the Cali cartel founded by the brothers and others for
more than 250 tons of highly sophisticated smuggling missions that hid
cocaine in everything from hollowed-out lumber to chlorine cylinders,
frozen broccoli and okra.

Prosecutors say the brothers kept control of their drug empire after they
were convicted and imprisoned in Colombia in 1995. The brothers cannot be
prosecuted for any crimes committed before the United States and Colombia
renewed an extradition treaty in 1997 even though their drug empire
stretches back to the 1970s.

The lengthy Cali investigation was begun in 1991 by U.S. Customs agents
after a drug-sniffing dog found a shipment of cocaine at Miami's port that
was hidden inside concrete posts. To date, more than 100 members of the
Cali cartel have been convicted and more than 50 tons of cocaine and $15
million in U.S. currency seized, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officials.

Miguel is known as "The Master" for his ability to devise new ways of
hiding drugs. Gilberto, nicknamed "The Chess Player," is seen as the
strategic thinker behind the family's financial empire, anchored by the
seized 400-store discount drugstore chain Drogas La Rebaja.

The brothers and 10 others face a four-count indictment issued by a grand
jury in Miami in 2003 that covers all the drug-smuggling bases and carries
possible life sentences. The charges are a smuggling conspiracy, a drug
distribution conspiracy, money-laundering plots and obstruction plots
including hits.

They also face a separate money-laundering conspiracy indictment in New York.

The brothers have the notorious honor of being "specially designated
narcotics traffickers," subjecting their families and businesses to
embargo-style sanctions by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign
Asset Control. U.S. bank accounts tied to the family have been frozen, and
U.S. businesses are barred from doing business with anything tied to the
cartel.

Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela has been prevented from hiring his own trial
attorney by the U.S. government, which contends that any payment he could
make would be illegal drug proceeds. Miami attorney Jose Quinon was
temporarily representing both men.

Colombia, the world's largest producer of cocaine, has extradited about 200
suspected drug traffickers to the United States under Uribe, a close
Washington ally. The most prominent before the brothers was former Medellin
cartel kingpin Fabio Ochoa, who is serving a 30-year prison sentence.