Former Drug Kingpin Is Extradited to the U.S.

The former leader of the Cali drug cartel was put on a plane bound for Miami late Friday, becoming the most powerful Colombian trafficker extradited to the United States.

Helmeted police armed with assault rifles escorted the handcuffed Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, 65, to the U.S. plane at a military airfield on the edge of Bogota, the Colombian capital.

Authorities said Rodriguez Orejuela, known in the 1980s and early 1990s as “the Chess Player” for his ability to outwit police, was arrested in 1995 but continued to run his empire from jail.

After his arrest, the Cali gang splintered into mini-cartels that exported as many drugs as ever, while Mexican cartels took control of sales in the U.S.

Rodriguez Orejuela will face trafficking and money laundering charges in the U.S.

Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank, called the extradition “a sign of the maturation of Colombia’s political system.”

“There will unlikely be any violence or political cost, and that’s a remarkable shift compared to 15 years ago when something like this would have triggered judges and government ministers being killed,” he said.