US lawyers linked with Cali cartel

The case first hit the headlines with the "Broccoli Bust" - six tons of Colombian cocaine buried among frozen broccoli in the port of Miami three years ago. On Monday, US authorities charged 59 people, including a former senior US Justice Department official, two former federal prosecutors, other American lawyers and leaders of Colombia's Cali cartel in connection with 200 tons of cocaine imported into the US in the past 10 years.

The Miami indictment, described by the White House as "a fantastic day for law enforcement", said the cartel had operated as a well-managed multinational corporation, using a network of American and Colombian lawyers to launder drug money, pass on death- threats to potential "squealers" and disrupt investigations into cartel activities.

The indicted Cali cartel leaders, brothers Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, Jose Santacruz and Pacho Herrera, are in hiding in Colombia and had already been charged in previous US cases. They cannot be extradited under a 1991 Colombian law, but the American lawyers face life imprisonment if convicted on charges of money-laundering, drug conspiracy and racketeering.

They include Michael Abell, a Washington lawyer who, as head of the Justice Department's Office of International Affairs until 1984, helped investigate the Cali cartel. The accusations against him and two former federal prosecutors cover a period after they had left public service and were in private practice.

"These lawyers were not only defending their clients. They had clearly been directly involved in laundering drug money," said George Weise of the US Customs Service, which led the investigation with the Drug Enforcement Administration. "They [the Cali cartel] are not going to throw in the towel but I think we've had an impact here." During the investigation US authorities confiscated $2bn (pounds 1.3bn) believed to have belonged to the Cali cartel.

Unsealing the indictment in Miami, US Attorney Kendall Coffey said it "takes the battle . . . against the Cali cartel as far as it can go without multinational co-operation and assistance." That was a reference to Bogota, which the US accuses of foot-dragging in its efforts to wipe out the cartel.

US authorities are frustrated by Colombia's no-extradition policy, largely a result of pressure from the country's drug barons, notably the Medellin cartel leader, Pablo Escobar, who led a violent lobby group called "The Extraditables" before he was killed by Colombian troops in 1993. The Miami indictment also accuses Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela of bribing unnamed Colombian politicians, whose identities could become known during the trial.

The Colombian authorities disclosed on Monday that two senior administration officials, the Prosecutor-General, Orlando Vasquez, and the Comptroller- General, David Turbay, were under investigation for alleged links with the Cali cartel. The case involves trips to Cali which were allegedly paid for by the cartel, but both men deny knowing who was behind the company that paid their bills.

In a book published this week, a Colombian journalist, Alberto Giraldo, said the Cali cartel helped finance the 1978 election campaign of Belisario Betancur, who was later to become president, and that it also provided his successor, Virgilio Barco, with confidential reports on the rival Medellin cartel. Mr Giraldo, a self-styled confidant of Cali cartel leaders, is in detention on charges of illicit enrichment.