Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela
Colombian drug trafficker

Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Orejuela (born August 15, 1943) is a convicted Colombian drug lord, formerly one of the leaders of the Cali Cartel, based in the city of Cali. He is the younger brother of Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela. He married Miss Colombia 1974, Martha Lucía Echeverry.
Cali Cartel
The Rodríguez brothers and "Jose" formed the Cali cartel in the 1970s. They were primarily involved in marijuana trafficking. In the 1980s, they branched out into cocaine trafficking. For a time, the Cali Cartel supplied 80% of the United States and 90% of the Europe cocaine market.
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 toward bribery rather than violence.
“Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela” enters the record as colombian drug trafficker. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Miguel, Rodríguez and Orejuela can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2254048. VIAF identifies the subject as 36327322. The Library of Congress control number is n2005057092. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.