Proceso 8000

***Proceso 8000*** was the unofficial name of the investigation over the allegations that Colombian President Ernesto Samper was funded by the Cali cartel in exchange for an amnesty deal.

In 1993, Ernesto Samper's campaign was close to failing when he ran out of money. Cali cartel leader Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela offered to donate upwards of $6 million through intermediary Santiago Medina, who was a money launderer. As per the deal, Medina would negotiate a surrender deal for the four leaders of the Cali cartel with Attorney-General Alfonso Valdivieso Sarmiento if they win the election. The deal would offer the drug lords a minimal prison sentence in Colombia, and would allow them to have complete control of their legitimate businesses and properties. The money was paid in installments from bank accounts linked to cartel money laundered Franklin Jurado to high-ranking members of Samper's campaign, including future Defense Minister Fernando Botero Zea.

Conversations between Gilberto and Medina were recorded by the CIA and supplied to the US State Department. The Americans decided to not intervene, as they viewed Samper as as a friend towards American foreign policy. Additionally, the CIA wanted the peaceful dismantling of the Cali cartel and wanted to blame any further drug trafficking on the FARC guerrillas.

As part of the deal, drug traffickers allied to the cartel would also be forced to give up their operations. This angered the Norte del Valle cartel, who then used the opportunity to engage in a war with the Cali cartel and form an alliance with the Mexican Juárez cartel.

The scandal was uncovered by El Tiempo journalist Carolina Álvarez with the assistance of DEA agent Javier Peña. When Peña realized that deal was viewed positively by the American government, he went rogue and gave an scathing interview with Carolina in which he called Colombia a "narco-democracy". Peña's interview triggered a massive outcry, and the Colombian government began investigation soon after. The Cali cartel's head of security Jorge Salcedo and chief accountant Guillermo Pallomari defected to the United States and agreed to testify against the cartel.

As the investigation progressed, Botero resigned as Defense Minister and fled to Mexico. After the United States threatened to decertify Colombia as a partner in the War on Drugs, President Samper agreed that some drug money might have reached his campaign's finances, and in order to save face, ordered the cartel's surrender deal to be scrapped, and had Gilberto and his brother Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela extradited to the United States. José Santacruz Londoño freed himself from prison, but was later killed by Carlos Castaño Gil, while the other co-leader Hélmer Herrera was killed while being imprisoned in 1998. This effectively marked the end of mega drug cartels in Colombia, as the Norte del Valle cartel under Orlando Henao Montoya adopted a franchise model and went underground. The downfall of the mega Colombian cartels resulted in the War on Drugs shifting towards Mexico, with the rise of large cartels such as the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels.

Samper managed to escape from the scandal and served a full term. Javier Peña resigned from the DEA to avoid suspension, but Mike Spencer allowed him to return to the DEA and go after the drug cartels in Mexico, which he declined.

## Trivia

* In real life, Attorney-General Alfonso Valdivieso Sarmiento was not involved with negotiations, and was in fact, the leading investigator of *Proceso 8000*.