Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

116 • COLOMBIAN COCAINE CARTELSDuring the 1990s the fortunes of the cartels slipped, due to U.S.pressure on the Colombian government to take more effective stepsto shut down cartel operations and also due to the resurgence ofFARC, which has resumed control over many of the regions in whichcoca is grown and processed. During 1995 the Colombian governmentof President Ernesto Samper Pizano undertook a campaign tocripple the financial, security, communications, and administrativestructures of the cartel, in the course of which the three Orejuelabrothers who ran the Cali cartel were arrested. Following this blow tothe main leadership of the cartel, the distribution network within theUnited States reacted to the leadership vacuum by a power struggleand infighting, which led to more than 20 killings and abductionsbetween branches of the Cali apparatus in New York City.The Colombian government passed a freezing of assets and seizurelaw on 12 December 1996 that would enable it to confiscate theroughly $76 billion in assets of the cartels as well as 9.9 million acresof land acquired by the drug lords. Colombia amended its constitutionagain in December 1997 to allow extradition of suspected carteldrug dealers to the United States, but the amendment was applicableonly to those charged with crimes committed after that date. In themeantime, FARC had made a comeback, occupying over 40 percentof Colombia and taking over much of the coca cultivation and processingthemselves to fund their revolutionary agenda.On 7 September 2001 Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, the former righthandman of Pablo Escobar, was extradited to the United States forhis role in smuggling cocaine into the United States and for his involvementin the 1986 murder of a DEA informant. On 28 May 2003Ochoa was convicted in U.S. District Court in Miami on two countsof conspiracy to possess and to distribute cocaine in the UnitedStates. In November 2002 a Colombian judge ordered the release forgood behavior of two Cali cartel leaders, Miguel Rodríguez Orejuelaand Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, who had been imprisoned in 1995for a 15-year term.Although the Medellín and Cali cartels were considered defunctby 2002, other groups, including FARC and the Self-Defense Forcesof Colombia, moved into the cocaine drug trade. On 7 March 2002a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted seven people,including three FARC leaders, for organizing shipments of cocainefrom Colombia to the United States in order to obtain cash, weap-