José Santacruz Londoño (also known as Chepe Santacruz; October 1, 1943 – March 5, 1996) was a Colombian drug lord. Along with Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela , Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela and Hélmer Herrera Buitrago, Londoño was a leader of the Cali Cartel .
Cali Cartel
Londoño and the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers formed the Cali Cartel in the 1970s . They were primarily involved in the marijuana trade. In the 1980s, they moved into the cocaine trade. At one point, the cartel supplied 80% of the cocaine supply in the United States.
The Cali Cartel was less violent than its rival, the Medellín Cartel . While the Medellín Cartel was involved in a brutal campaign of violence against the Colombian government, the Cali Cartel grew. The cartel was much more inclined towards bribery than violence. After the demise of the Medellín Cartel, the DEA and Colombian authorities turned their attention to Cali. The campaign began in the summer of 1995.
Capture and Escape
Several Cali Cartel leaders were arrested in the summer of 1995; Gilberto was arrested on June 9, Londoño on July 4 in a restaurant north of Bogotá, and Miguel on August 6. However, Londoño escaped from La Picota prison in Bogotá on January 11, 1996. After bribing several people, Londoño escaped through the prison’s security glass. He broke through an unnamed prosecutor’s interrogation room and fled in a van. The government offered a reward for his capture. His motives for escaping have been attributed to a number of reasons.
He was in charge of consolidating the cartel’s network of hitmen and gunmen, allying himself with longtime members of the Medellín Cartel; exercising greater control over some of the smuggling networks, which had begun to operate more independently after the cartel’s leaders were imprisoned; and he coordinated the killing of approximately 27 potential witnesses against him and several other cartel capos, and apparently arranged the assassinations of key government figures.
Death
Being at war with the Norte del Valle Cartel, the leaders of this organization contacted the corrupt Colonel Danilo González for his eventual arrest. They allied with the paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño Gil and after the news that Santacruz was allying with the FARC to rebuild the Cali Cartel and form urban militias, Castaño and González set a trap for him and killed him along with a companion, pretending that Santacruz had evaded a police check.
