The leaders of the Cali Cartel toasting to Escobar's death
The Cali Cartel was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia from 1977 to 1998, named for its stronghold of Cali. While the rival Medellin Cartel of Medellin and Miami used violence against its enemies, the Cali Cartel had an army of lawyers, and it sold cocaine to fuel the 24-hour nightlife in New York City during the 1980s. The group broke away from the Medellin Cartel when Helmer Herrera joined the group, bringing with him supply routes that entered the United States through Mexico. The Cali Cartel hired British mercenaries, allied with paramilitaries such as Los Pepes, had countless spies and informants, and utilized a vast intelligence and surveillance network that led to the United States nicknaming the cartel the "Cali KGB". It once controlled 90% of the world's cocaine, becoming a multibillion-dollar enterprise by the mid-1990s (owing to the fall of Pablo Escobar). However, the cartel was eventually hunted down by the Colombian police's Search Bloc special unit, and the cartel was destroyed by 1998.
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