MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) – Co-founder of Colombia’s Drug Cali Cartel, Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela is seeking compassionate early release from
federal prison because of ill health.

Rodriguez Orejuela, 81, is asking a Miami federal judge to let him return to his family in Colombia because he suffers from prostate and colon cancer.

He is known as one of the world’s major cocaine kingpins.

“He has been in various jails for the past 25 years,” his attorney, David O. Markus, said in an email Thursday. “Our system allows judges to be compassionate, and that’s what we are asking for here.”

Although not as notorious as Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel, Rodriguez Orejuela and his brother, Miguel, fashioned a sophisticated global smuggling enterprise known for using innovative techniques to hide cocaine in all sorts of legitimate shipments — even such items as frozen vegetables and coffee packages.

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