Former Colombian drug lord Rodriguez Orejuela dies in US prison

GilbertoRodriguezOrejuela, aformerleader of Colombia's once-powerful Cali cartel, has died in the United States while serving a 30-yeardrugtrafficking sentence, his family said on Wednesday.

Sometimes known by his alias 'Chessplayer,'Rodriguezwas extradited to the United States in 2004. The 83-year-old was serving time at a federalprisonin Butner, North Carolina.

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"The children and wife of GilbertoRodriguezOrejuelaregretfully inform that yesterday, Tuesday May 31, 2022, at 6:54 p.m., our father and husband died of a lymphoma," the family said in a statement shared byRodriguez's daughter Alexandra.

They were beginning the process of extraditing his remains back to Colombia, his family said.

Watch |Colombia: Drug cartels found shipping weapons, officials say trade fueling violence

Rodriguez's 1995 arrest byColombianauthorities marked the beginning of the disintegration of the Cali cartel, which once controlled 80 per centof the global cocaine market, according to a contemporary report from theUSDrugEnforcement Administration.

Rodriguez's brother Miguel was captured two months later and is also serving a sentence in the United States.

The brothers deployed bombs and vigilantes against theirdrugtrafficker enemy Pablo Escobar, who was killed in a police operation in 1993, and his associates.

They also confessed to financing political campaigns, including that of Liberal Party president Ernesto Samper in 1994, who has denied having any knowledge of the donations at the time.

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