Chris Feistl recounts that the Cali Cartel provided information to the Colombian authorities that made it possible to establish the whereabouts of the mafia boss
< i class=”i-share-btn sms”>
Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellín cartel, and Miguel and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, of the Cali cartel. Infobae
One of the great victories of the national institutions is the removal of the biggest drug lord Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, a subject who became one of the richest men on the planet and who It had 80% control of the distribution of cocaine worldwide. he was shot down on December 2, 1993 , one day after his 44th birthday, after intense surveillance operations carried out by Colombian and North American intelligence that were going after the top leader of the Medellín cartel.
After the death of Gilberto Orejuela alias, ‘El Ajedrecista’, on June 1, the controversy of whether or not the Cali cartel participated in the removal of Pablo Escobar was reopened. Well, in an interview with W Radio, former DEA agent Chris Feistl gave details of what happened.
“There were many entities at that time trying to locate and kill Pablo Escobar, there was the US Government, the Police, but without a doubt everyone knows the Cali cartel was giving information to locate and reach Escobar,” Feistl said.
Before his extradition to the United States in 2004, “El Ajedrecista” gave an interview to La W, where he agreed to have helped in the process to find the whereabouts of Pablo Escobar. “We had no communication with the authorities, simply when we realized that Mr. Escobar had a large criminal organization, we sought support from the authorities,” Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela said at the time.
In the radio testimony, Rodríguez Orejuela indicated that through a relative of the then president of the time, the idea of providing support to find the whereabouts of the head of the Medellín cartel was raised. “At that time the government saw this with good eyes, We made the connection with Jorge Barco, brother of President Virgilio Barco. He visits us in Cali and we tell him about the seriousness of the problem and how dangerous the Medellin organization was, we tell him with hair and ink how Minister Lara Bonilla was assassinated and that there were more people in Pablo Escobar’s sights,” he narrated. /p>
One of the points highlighted by the mafia capo was the intelligence he provided to help with the capture of the ‘Patrón’, a fact that the national government has repeatedly denied:
“He He went and spoke with his brother and the president called General Maza Márquez and gave him the order to receive information from us, collaborate with us and become our ally in the fight against drug trafficking. General Maza Márquez has always denied this.”
A native of Mariquita, municipality of Tolima, Rodríguez Orejuela was held in the Butner federal prison , in North Carolina, United States, where he was serving a 30-year sentence for sending at least 150 kilos of cocaine in 1990.
Since 2004, when He was extradited, he presented several health problems, such as a heart attack or the diagnosis of colon cancer, hypertension and even psychiatric disorders, conditions that would have triggered his death, confirmed by one of his daughters.