Taking Down Colombia's Cali Cartel

Journalist's 18th Book Probes Far-Reaching Drug Empire

THE BULLET OR THE BRIBE: TAKING DOWN COLOMBIA'S CALI DRUG CARTEL

By Ron Chepesiuk. Praeger Publishers. 294 pages. $34.95.

Movie and TV star Don Johnson of "Miami Vice" could really relate to
retired Winthrop University Professor Ron Chepesiuk's recent book "The
Bullet or the Bribe: Taking Down Colombia's Cali Drug Cartel."

The suave Johnson, along with co-star Philip Michael Thomas, doggedly
tracked down cocaine traffickers from Colombia in the popular 1980s action
TV series that helped raise Americans' consciousness of the insidious role
the drug played in South Florida's culture.

If you watched "Miami Vice" religiously, you might remember frequent
mentions of a murderous, tremendously powerful, seemingly untouchable,
far-reaching drug empire headquartered in Cali, Colombia.

That drug-trafficking organization is in the crosshairs of investigative
journalist Chepesiuk's 18th book. Chepesiuk spent many painstaking months
trying to understand the inner workings of the cocaine smugglers and
marketers from Cali.

The traffickers from Cali should not be confused with their counterparts
from the Medellin Cartel, Chepesiuk writes. While both organizations were
lethal, "the thugs from Medellin were more insidious," according to a
career foreign service diplomat quoted in Chepesiuk's book. "Escobar (of
the Medellin Cartel) 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 manipulative. We called them 'criminals with Gucci
slippers.' "

While the Medellin and Cali cartels each wielded vast money and power, the
latter's players operated as if they were working for a company like Sears
or JC Penney, rather than a multinational criminal enterprise. "The
Cartel's employees would get regular vacations and other company benefits.
In return, workers were told to act like regular Joe and Jane America.
..Workers maintaining stash houses were expected to leave the house every
day, as if they were going to work.

"On December 11, 1992, investigators hit a home on a quiet street in the
city of Yonkers, New York. It was the residence of Orlando Jaramillo (who)
left his home every day just like many of his neighbors. His wife shopped
in the local supermarkets and his children attended the local Catholic
elementary school. Jaramillo told his neighbors he worked on Wall Street.
Inside the Jaramillo residence, the police found the typical financial
ledgers showing that Jaramillo had collected $5 million over the previous
several weeks. They found a large box in the basement containing more than
$100,000."

Such was the immense power, the lure of the business-savvy Cali Cartel,
which made the most of the lucrative market for cocaine in the United
States. Chepesiuk found that many of Cali's leaders were billionaires, who,
along with great wealth, had at their disposal the best communications
technology, the best firepower, the best legal representation and the best
intelligence -- inside the government in Colombia and in the United States.

Occasionally, even with all its resources, a Cali operative would get
caught. When that happened, Chepesiuk writes, the fallen comrade would get
a stern reminder that if he kept his mouth shut, his family would be well
taken care of, financially and otherwise. If the ill-fated operative
considered caving in to law enforcement, he got another message from his
Cali associates: "Think of cooperating and not even your dog will remain.
Remember, you still have family in Colombia."

Chepesiuk writes that by the late 1990s, the Cali Cartel had declined. Many
of its leaders had been jailed or killed; others, arrested by authorities
in the United States or South America, went into witness protection
programs in exchange for ratting out cohorts.

Still, cocaine and other illegal substances continue to ravage our nation,
despite the decline of Cali. The flow of drugs out of Colombia, Chepesiuk
notes, has not diminished, and by 1999 Columbia "had become the premier
coca-cultivating country in the world, producing more coca leaf than Peru
and Bolivia combined."

Maybe that's why Chepesiuk's close look at the Cali Cartel is so important.
Drug trafficking has yet to play out, and until it does, (if it ever does),
we had best be as informed about it as possible.