White Nights

by Austin Galt

  Don Efra was killed in 1996 by his right-hand man Fernando Cifuentes of the Cifuentes clan who, after the fall of the Medellín Cartel, had aligned themselves with the Cali Cartel and then the Norte del Valle Cartel. Fernando was already under pressure after a 7-ton load of cocaine went missing but it was after encouragement from Orlando Henao, who suspected Don Efra of talking with the DEA, that Fernando killed his boss. Henao then had one of his men kill Fernando to eliminate any evidence connecting him to the murder. The other brothers from the Cifuentes clan, Pacho and Jorge, fled to Medellín where they aligned themselves with Don Berna and the Castaño brothers. Pacho was killed a decade later while Jorge, who once arranged the delivery of a large shipment of weapons for the paramilitaries, was captured in Venezuela in 2012 and extradited to the United States.

  It was Wilber Varela, known as ‘Jabón’ or ‘Soap’, who eliminated Fernando Cifuentes for his boss Orlando Henao. His nickname was derived from the fact that he was very slippery, both for the authorities and for his enemies. He had previously been a police officer before switching over to work in security for the Cali Cartel. He now commanded a band of sicarios who did his bidding.

  Jabón was injured when Pacho Herrera’s men made an attempt on his life which was regarded as payback for Jabón assassinating one of Herrera’s best friends. After recovering, Jabón asked his boss Orlando Henao for permission to take out the Cali Cartel leader, but it wasn’t until Henao began suspecting Herrera of talking to the DEA that permission was granted and Herrera’s life was extinguished in early November 1998 by a sicario in jail. (Jabón would then go about wiping out much of the Herrera clan and appropriating their properties.) In retaliation, Pacho Herrera’s invalid brother, who was imprisoned in the same jail as Henao, shot dead the Norte del Valle Cartel boss less than two weeks later with a gun he had hidden in his wheelchair.

  Many drug traffickers tried to make deals with the DEA and they originally did this through a man of Colombian origin named Baruch Vega. He was a Miami-based photographer who also worked as an intermediary between Colombian narcos and US law enforcement agencies, the FBI and DEA. He had helped out a friend arrested for drug trafficking in the 1970s who was released after authorities believed they made a mistake. Nevertheless, Vega was given the credit and word spread of his power. He dealt with many of Colombia’s biggest drug lords and arranged the surrender of Orlando Sánchez Cristancho.

  Baruch Vega was dealing with Pacho Herrera, whose days were numbered when Herrera’s enemies, such as Jabón, found out. Vega was in the process of gaining admission to the prison where Herrera was being held just minutes before Herrera’s assassination. Vega immediately left Colombia but returned in 1999 when he met with other traffickers including the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers. He learnt that an assassination plot against him was underway so he once again fled the country.

  Vega was arrested in 2000 after US authorities accused him of money laundering and obstruction of justice. He allegedly took large bribes from drug traffickers just to start a negotiation, giving the Colombian traffickers the perception that American authorities were corrupt which made things all the more believable as corruption is a language the narcos understood well. He was also accused of selling the information he gleaned from those who turned themselves in to other traffickers still in Colombia. The charges against Vega were eventually dropped.

  One of the biggest drug traffickers Vega dealt with was José Nelson Urrego who became the most wanted man in Colombia after Pastor Perafán was captured in 1997. Urrego was arrested in 1998 at a luxurious residence just outside of Medellín where he commenced his criminal career with the Medellín Cartel. He specialised in smuggling cocaine by throwing tightly packed bundles into the sea which would then be picked up by fishing vessels or scuba divers. He was also a communications expert and would relay to drug-trafficking pilots and captains when it was safe to travel.

  Nelson Urrego took over the leadership of the Cali Cartel after the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers were taken into custody in 1995. He became one of the richest men in the world at the time, reportedly worth in excess of $2 billion when captured. One of his prime assets was the luxurious Sunrise Beach hotel on the island of San Andrés, valued today at over $100 million.

  Upon his early release from jail in 2001, reportedly due to agreeing to work as an informant for US authorities, he moved to Panama where he bought Chapera Island which was allegedly used for the interchange of drugs and weapons. Urrego was arrested on the island in 2007 on money laundering charges and released in 2014, having served his time. The island, which forms part of the Pearl Islands, is now the site of a Panamanian air force base and is used for policing the region which is known to be used by drug traffickers bound for the United States.

  After Orlando Henao’s death, leadership of the Norte del Valle Cartel fell into the hands of two men – Wilber ‘Jabón’ Varela and Diego Montoya.

  Diego Montoya, known simply as ‘Don Diego’, was the right-hand man to Iván Urdinola and participated with him in the Trujillo massacre. It was a strange path for someone who had wanted to be a priest when he was a boy. He was rejected by the seminary for being too young. Don Diego’s power base was in the north of the Cauca Valley and he owned over 100 haciendas in six different municipalities which were all linked by a private network of dirt roads that allowed him to travel undetected by police. His neighbours invariably stayed silent about the convoy of cars that would occasionally speed by – the few that didn’t generally wound up dead.

  Tensions within the Norte del Valle Cartel began increasing around the turn of the century due to some members being indicted in the United States and rumours of others collaborating with the DEA. A group of assassins, operating loosely under the banner of Muerte a Sapos Americanos (MASA) or Death to American Snitches, was responsible for an increase in violence. All those who had been negotiating with Baruch Vega and American authorities, which included over 100 narcos, were to be targeted along with their families.

  Tensions finally boiled over when an ally and friend of Don Diego, Miguel Solano known as ‘Miguelito’ or ‘Little Miguel’, also began cooperating with the DEA and when Jabón found out he ordered his death. Solano was gunned down in January 2003 as he left a nightclub in Cartagena and it was this act that triggered the internal war that raged for two years.

  Both rival cartel factions had set up their own military wings. Don Diego formed Los Machos or The Males, while Jabón formed Los Rastrojos or The Stubbles. The Machos was commanded by ex-FARC guerrilla Gildardo Rodríguez known as ‘Señor de la Camisa Roja’ or ‘Mister in the Red Shirt’. The nickname was given to him by Jabón who pointed him out during a confrontation. He was captured and extradited to the United States in 2008 and returned to Colombia in 2016. The Rastrojos was led by another ex-FARC guerrilla Diego Pérez known as ‘Diego Rastrojo’ from whom the group took its name. He was originally captured in Venezuela in 2004 but released after Jabón allegedly paid a $500,000 bribe. He was recaptured in that country in 2012 and extradited the following year to the United States where he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

  The war was only made public after a massacre in October 2003 which saw seven of Don Diego’s men gunned down in the popular Cañandonga restaurant and bar in the south of Cali. Towards the end of 2003, leaflets declaring war against the private army of Jabón were handed to motorists stopped at traffic lights in Cali. A plane also dropped notices throughout northern Valle del Cauca titled Diciembre negro (Black December). They stated, ‘Good kids go to bed early, the bad we will lay down ourselves’. Residents generally stayed inside their houses after the sun went down. And taking a cue from Los Pepes, several of Jabón’s lawyers were killed by a group calling itself Peporva – the abbreviation of Perseguidos por Varela or Persecuted by Varela.

  Chupeta fled to Brazil in 2004 after falling out with Jabón. He had several plastic surgeries to his face to disguise himself and posed as an Argentinian physician, but it was all in vain. He ha
d been sold out by his right-hand man, Laureano Rentería, who had surrendered to authorities and had already led them to several of the drug lord’s secret stashes containing over $60 million. Rentería would pay for his treachery, being poisoned with cyanide in his jail cell. In 2007, Chupeta was tracked down to a luxurious mansion near Sao Paulo where he was arrested. He was extradited to the United States the following year and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

  Chupeta had sent his brother-in-law Alejandro Gracia Álvarez, nicknamed ‘Gato Seco’ or ‘Dry Cat’ due to being weak as a boy, to Argentina in 2003 setting off a chain reaction which saw that country converted into an embassy of capos. He was anything but weak now and he even gained a new nickname, ‘El Embajador’ or ‘The Ambassador’. He posed as a successful real estate agent and linked up with Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Álvarez Meyendorff, allegedly helping him and his brother to launder close to $1 billion.

  After the downfall of Nacho, Gracia Álvarez returned to Colombia and was eventually captured in Bogotá in early 2015. His arrest sent shockwaves through the mafia world as he was thought to be the brains behind the money-laundering operations of at least a dozen Colombian drug traffickers who sought refuge in Argentina.

  Another of the cartel’s massive hitters was Luis Hernando Gómez Bustamante known as ‘Rasguño’ or ‘Scratch’. He got his nickname after a bullet grazed his cheek which he brushed off as ‘just a scratch’. He was a gas-station attendant before entering the drug trade in the mid-1980s. He had about 800 people working for him which was just under 15 percent of the cartel’s 6000-strong workforce. He invested his profits in working farms and supplied milk throughout the region, while also selling meat to supermarkets all over Colombia. He came to own over 50 percent of all arable land in the municipality of Cartago where he was based. Rasguño used paramilitaries to protect his drug routes with much of his cocaine supplied by Salvatore Mancuso.

  While other members came up through the ranks of the Cali Cartel, Rasguño’s proximity to the coffee region meant he was part of a group of drug traffickers, including the Henao clan and Don Diego, that came up under José Olmedo Ocampo. Ocampo arrived in Quindio at the end of the 1970s and was regarded as the boss of bosses in that region until he handed over the reins to Orlando Henao. Ocampo died in 2006 from a heart attack and, although a few properties were confiscated, he essentially remained untouched by the law as authorities focused their attention elsewhere.

  Rasguño chose not to enter the dispute between Don Diego and Jabón and instead began speaking with the DEA. He tried to get the two warring leaders to do the same but this only sowed distrust among the mafia bosses. He fell out with Don Diego who gave him 24 hours to leave the country.

  Preferring not to become a snitch, Rasguño fled to Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico before flying to Cuba where he was arrested in 2004. He was returned to Colombia in 2007 and extradited to the United States where he was sentenced to 30 years in jail. His most-prized possession confiscated by Colombian authorities was a gold-plated gun given to him by the Mexican drug lord known as ‘El Señor de los Cielos’ or ‘The Lord of the Skies’ – Amado Carrillo Fuentes of the Juárez Cartel. Also seized was a Ferrari with only 1300 kilometres on the clock which was converted into probably the most stylish police car in the world.

  Once on American soil, Rasguño declared that President Ernesto Samper and Interior Minister Horacio Serpa had instigated the 1995 murder of Álvaro Gómez. Both Samper and Serpa have denied these accusations. Rasguño also stated that he went to a meeting in early 1996 at a farm in Tierralta attended by Carlos Castaño, Orlando Henao and Don Efra. Carlos Castaño and Orlando Henao got into a heated argument, with Carlos telling Orlando that ‘they didn’t have to kill Álvaro Gómez to protect a bandit like Samper’. Rasguño said Henao told him that Gómez was setting up a coup d’état inside the military and should Gómez take power then he would extradite all of the top capos, thus providing two separate motives to take him out.

  Orlando Henao also told Rasguño that it was Danilo González who carried out the hit on the politician with the help of two lower-ranking police officers. González went on to become Jabón’s head of security before one of Don Diego’s assassins killed him in March 2004, just as he was looking to turn himself over to American authorities. As for the Devil’s Cartel, some of its members continued to prosper and have gone on to become incredibly powerful people in the country.

  The blood-letting from the cartel war claimed close to 2000 lives and brought a lot of heat from government authorities. Jabón sought refuge in Venezuela while Don Diego fled briefly to the Middle Magdalena where he was given protection by the paramilitaries.

  The Rastrojos unsuccessfully tried to take part in the AUC demobilisation by changing their name to Rondas Campesinas Populares (RCP) or Popular Peasant Patrols. Their façade consisted of shirts stamped with the image of Che Guevara despite their stated mission of ridding the region of communist guerrillas. Don Diego also tried to participate in the demobilisations by purchasing his own paramilitary unit for several million dollars. The Autodefensas Unidas del Valle (AUV) or United Self-Defence Forces of Valle were not given permission to demobilise as other paramilitary chiefs determined it was too obvious they were being used as a cover for their drug trafficking.

  The paramilitaries had become the most powerful drug-trafficking organisation in the country and they were closely aligned with the Norte del Valle Cartel. The top AUC commander in the region was Carlos Mario Jiménez known as ‘Macaco’ or ‘Macaque’. He was a Norte del Valle Cartel member who converted to a paramilitary after buying an AUC franchise from Vicente Castaño, taking on the nom de guerre Javier Montañés. He was aligned with Rasguño and took over his operations after his capture.

  Macaco led the Central Bolivar Bloc and, although he was closer to Jabón whom he could have joined in the war against Don Diego, he preferred to act as a mediator between the warring factions. He was able to achieve the peace in 2005 after the assassination of a key player – Jaime ‘Pispi’ Pineda.

  Pispi was an ex-policeman who began working for Víctor Patiño until his extradition, after which he participated in the killing of Patiño’s family members and associates. He began working for Jabón, but when war broke out he chose to side with Don Diego. To gain the confidence of his new boss, he killed Danilo Gonzalez which in turn infuriated his old boss, Jabón, who accused him of betrayal.

  As far as Jabón was concerned, there could be no peace while Pispi remained alive; he was lured to a meeting in the Mexican resort city of Acapulco where he was shot dead but not before being subjected to five days of gruelling interrogation and torture. Jabón and Don Diego subsequently signed a peace document but it was arguably Macaco who succeeded in becoming one of the most powerful capos in the land.

  Macaco participated in the paramilitary demobilisations in 2005; however, after continuing his illicit activities from jail he was extradited to the United States in 2008. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison.

  The stakes for Don Diego increased after he was suspected of being the mastermind behind the massacre of 10 policemen at a property in Jamundi, Valle del Cauca in May 2006. The crime was perpetrated by an army battalion allegedly in the service of the drug lord and it was speculated they were protecting him, although it has never been proven. The soldiers involved were all given hefty prison sentences.

  Don Diego was eventually captured in September 2007 at one of his properties in Zarzal. The police had flown reconnaissance flights all over the northern parts of the Cauca Valley in order to detect luxurious farms which are commonly owned by narcos. They spotted one of his properties with a clandestine airstrip disguised as a go-kart track. The house was in a partial state of ruin with some of the roof missing, but this was perhaps a ploy to put off the authorities. It didn’t work. Don Diego, the master of Valle del Cauca who had financed so many of its politicians and businesses, was found hiding in a hole not far from his house. He was extradited to the United States
and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

  This left Jabón as the undisputed leader of the Norte del Valle Cartel and mulling a return to Colombia. As well as wanting to occupy the space left by Don Diego, he had recently allied with Macaco and planned to confront the Oficina de Envigado of which Don Berna had begun to lose control. He never got the chance to capitalise as he was killed in January 2008 in a hotel room in the city of Mérida.

  While in Venezuela, he had allied with two of the country’s interconnected drug cartels – the Cartel de los Soles or Cartel of the Suns, allegedly made up of high-ranking Venezuelan military officers, and La Mafia del Puerto or The Port Mafia led by Walid Makled, known as ‘El Árabe’ or ‘The Arab’. Jabón was betrayed by his own men who reportedly came to an agreement with Walid Makled in order to inherit his business. Makled, who was Venezuela’s biggest civilian drug trafficker, allegedly summoned Jabón to a meeting where he was killed by Diego Rastrojo with the help of the Calle Serna brothers – Javier and Luis, known collectively as Comba.

  It was the Comba brothers who took Jabón to hospital after the attack ordered by Pacho Herrera. They surrounded the hospital to protect their boss and even got into a fight with a police colonel who wanted them gone so Herrera’s men could finish the job. It was also Javier Calle Serna who led the attack on William Rodríguez in the Cali restaurant and who allegedly assassinated Miguel Solano in Cartagena. The Comba brothers were also instrumental in exterminating the family and friends of Víctor Patiño.

  Javier, the elder brother and leader of the clan, grew up in the southern state of Putumayo tending to his father’s coca crops and working in cocaine laboratories linked to the Medellín Cartel. He stayed in the southern jungle region until 1990 at which time he moved to Cali and became an assassin for hire. Jabón, who was then the head of security for Orlando Henao, noticed Javier’s talents and put him on the payroll. He was put straight to work in an operation that saw over a dozen suspected ELN guerrillas killed. His younger brother Luis followed Javier into the business and oversaw the cocaine laboratories along the Pacific coast. Another brother Juan Carlos was involved in money laundering, while it was their uncle, Rafael Uribe Serna, who killed Pacho Herrera in jail in 1998.