Colombia Seizes $5 Million Linked to Jailed Drug Boss

BOGOTA, Colombia — A huge cache of drug money linked to a Cali cartel kingpin may provide the hardest evidence yet for long-standing U.S. charges that drug lords are trafficking narcotics from inside Colombia’s prisons.

Nearly $5 million in suspected cocaine cash was discovered by police Tuesday in a raid on a house in the southwestern city of Cali, most of it in $100 and $50 bills sealed in wrappers marked “Reserva Federal Bank,” an apparent reference to the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Rosso Jose Serrano, the chief of Colombia’s national police, charged that the money belonged to Helmer “El Pacho” Herrera, the No. 4 man in the Cali drug mob, who surrendered to police in September.

The United States has said repeatedly that top Cali drug bosses, most of whom were arrested in 1995, continue to run their empire from jail.

Serrano said one of the most alarming things about the money linked to Herrera--apart from the fact that it may have come from a U.S. Federal Reserve bank--was that some of the bills were issued less than two weeks ago.

“The last few packets of dollars are dated Feb. 28 of this year. That’s something that has me a little bit worried,” he said.

Meanwhile, Cali cartel leader Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela admitted in testimony to financing a political campaign, a top prosecutor said Wednesday.

The admission came during testimony against a former senator, Jaime Lara.

Lara has pleaded guilty to charges of accepting drug money and says several of his colleagues were also financed by the Cali cartel.

A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said Rodriguez did not identify which lawmakers he gave money to, and he did not say whether any of the money went to President Ernesto Samper’s 1994 election campaign.

Samper vehemently denies any connection to drug money.