Jorge Velásquez, commonly known by his nickname Navegante was one of the sicarios of the Cali cartel.
In the 1980s, Navegante served as Cali cartel leader Hélmer Herrera’s bodyguard, and accompanied him to Mexico and Panama as his boss oversaw relations between their cartel and Mexican drug traffickers.
In 1989, he successfully infiltrated the Medellín cartel by working as the head of security for drug lord José Rodríguez Gacha during the start of the violent conflict between the Medellín and Cali cartels of Colombia. Under his bosses’ orders, he contacted the DEA team stationed in Colombia, and provided information which led to a Search Bloc raid on Gacha’s estate in Cartagena on December 15 1989, killing the drug lord and his son. After the raid, he returned back to Cali and worked as the bodyguard of Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela. At the same time, he committed several murders as the conflict between the cartels intensified.
In April 1993, he accompanied Herrera to Miami, and helped his boss to take over Pablo Escobar’s control over Miami by forming a partnership with The Lion, Pablo’s main man in Miami. After meeting all of Escobar’s contacts, Navegante garrotted El Leon to death. After Cali gained complete control of Miami, he returned back to Colombia and resumed his duties as a sicario.
Miguel Rodríguez ordered Navegante and Jorge Salcedo to recover his mistress Maria Salazar’s son from her mother-in-law Gerda Salazar, a leader of the Norte del Valle cartel. After Gilberto’s judgment in September 1994, Navegante was ordered by David Rodriguez to kill the family of Carlo Cordova; the head of security of the cartel. By 1995, Navegante was one of the last few remaining sicarios of the Cali cartel, and was tasked by David Rodriguez to kill Guillermo Pallomari. Navegante was disappointed to hear that Salcedo had betrayed the cartel by working as an informant for the DEA; but due to their years of friendship refused to kill him when he met him outside Pallomari’s house. However in a bid to secure his family’s safety, Salcedo killed Navegante by shooting him multiple times with a Sig sauer handgun and escorted Pallomari to the airport, allowing the DEA to fly him to the United States.
