1) RESEARCH ON THE HISTORY OF CALI CARTEL

2) RESEARCH ON THE HISTORY OF MEDELLIN CARTEL

3) EXPLAIN BRIEFLY WHY PHILIPPINES IS CALLED AS ENTRUST SHIPMENT POINT OF ILLEGAL DRUGS

HISTORY OF CALI CARTEL

Around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca Department, the Cali Cartel was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia. Gilberto Rodrguez Orejuela and Miguel Rodrguez Orejuela, as well as José Santacruz Londoo, were the company's founders. When Hélmer "Pacho" Herrera joined the cartel's four-man executive board in the late 1980s, they broke away from Pablo Escobar and his Medellin allies. 

During the Cali Cartel's rule, from 1993 to 1995, they were credited with controlling over 80% of the global cocaine market, as well as being directly responsible for the expansion of the cocaine market in Europe, where they controlled 80% of the market. The Cali Cartel's international drug trafficking empire had grown to a $7 billion-a-year criminal organization by the mid-1990s.

The brothers Rodriguez Orejuela and Santacruz formed the Cali Cartel, all of whom were from a higher social background than most other traffickers at the time. The group's nickname, "Los Caballeros de Cali" ("Gentlemen of Cali"), reflected their social background. Las Chemas was linked to a number of kidnappings, including those of two Swiss people, Herman Buff, a diplomat, and Zack "Jazz Milis" Martin, a student. The ransom was apparently paid in the amount of $700,000, which is thought to have been used to fuel the kidnappers' drug trafficking business.

The united group got its start in marijuana trafficking. The young group chose to move their focus to a more lucrative narcotics, cocaine, due to the product's poor profit rate and vast volumes required to traffic to cover resources. The cartel dispatched Hélmer Herrera to New York City in the early 1970s to create a distribution center at a period when the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) regarded cocaine as less vital than heroin.

The Cali Cartel was led by Gilberto Rodrguez Orejuela, Miguel Rodrguez Orejuela, José Santacruz Londoo, and Hélmer Herrera of the Cali gang. Victor Patio Fomeque, Henry Loaiza Ceballos, ex-guerrilla José Fedor Rey, and Phanor Arizabaleta-Arzayus were among the senior associates.

The cocaine trade thrived in the absence of a tough DEA policy on the drug. The Cali Cartel formed and organized itself into various "cells" that looked to operate autonomously but reported to a celeno ("manager"). The Cali Cartel was distinguished from the Medelln Cartel by its independent clandestine cell organization. In contrast to the Medelln Cartel's centralised structure under leader Pablo Escobar, the Cali Cartel operated as a close confederation of separate criminal gangs.

According to then-DEA chief Thomas Constantine, the Cali Cartel grew to be "the greatest, most powerful crime syndicate we've ever known." In Spain, Juan Carlos Saavedra represented the Cali KGB Cartel.

HISTORY OF MEDELLIN CARTEL

The Medellin Cartel was a formidable and well-organized Colombian drug cartel and terrorist-type criminal organization created and led by Pablo Escobar and based in Medellin, Colombia. Because the organization's higher echelons were founded on cooperation between numerous Colombian traffickers operating alongside Escobar, it is generally regarded as the first major "drug cartel." Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez, Juan David Ochoa Vásquez, José Gonzalo Rodrguez Gacha, and Carlos Lehder were among the participants. From 1972 through 1993, the cartel operated in Bolivia, Colombia, Panama, Central America, Peru, the Bahamas, the United States (including Los Angeles and Miami), and Canada. Despite the fact that the organization began as a smuggling network in the early 1970s, it wasn't until 1976 that it began selling cocaine. This was the outcome of fellow Colombian trafficker Griselda Blanco introducing Escobar to the profitable idea of cocaine smuggling. The Medellin Cartel trafficked multiple tons of cocaine into countries around the world per week at its peak, bringing in up to US$60 million in narcotics revenues per day.

Although known for once dominating the illegal cocaine trade, the Medellin Cartel was also known for its use of violence for political purposes and its asymmetric war against the Colombian government, primarily in the form of bombings, kidnappings, indiscriminate law enforcement murder, and political assassination. The Medellin Cartel was raking in more than $20 billion per year at the time.

LATE 1970's-EARLY 1980's

Drug lord Pablo Escobar protected other smugglers who worked with him to distribute cocaine for the cartel in New York and then Miami, developing a crime network that trafficked over 300 kilos per day. Escobar oversaw the import of enormous shipments of coca paste from Andean countries like Peru and Bolivia into Colombia, where it was processed into cocaine hydrochloride (powdered cocaine) in jungle labs before being flown into the United States in quantities of up to 15 tons per day.

Cocaine had eclipsed coffee as Colombia's leading export by 1982. Kidnappings by guerrilla organizations around this period in the early 1980s prompted the government to work with criminal gangs like Escobar's and the Ochoa's. The kidnapping of Carlos Lehder, as well as the kidnapping of the Ochoas' sister in 1981, prompted the formation of cartel-funded private armies to combat guerrillas who were attempting to redistribute their lands to local peasants, kidnap them, or extort the grammage money that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC).

WHY PHILIPPINES IS CALLED AN ENTRUST SHIPMENT POINT OF ILLEGAL DRUGS

The Chinese/Filipino-Chinese drug syndicates dominate the country's illegal drug trade by undertaking bulk smuggling and manufacturing of illegal drugs. Bulk smuggling and manufacturing activities ensure the abundant supply of illegal drugs in the market. Usually, their activities are largely concentrated within their group, with the inclusion of very few and well-selected locals. Further, Chinese/Filipino-Chinese drug groups are also responsible for the establishment of clandestine laboratories and illegal chemical warehouses in the country. 

The growing trend of conveying illegal narcotics via "drug couriers" has been a global problem over the years, posing major health risks, violating human rights, and encouraging unlawful activities and other crimes such as drug trafficking and prostitution. Individuals are known as "drug mules" or "drug couriers" transport dangerous substances in exchange for a large sum of money, which varies based on the number of drugs to be delivered and the route/distance to be traveled. The number of Filipinos used as drug couriers by international drug trafficking gangs is alarmingly rising. Only two Filipinos were arrested for drug trafficking outside of the country in 1993. 

There has been a clear tendency of drug trafficking syndicates using more female Filipino drug couriers: of the 710 apprehended, 265 (37%) are males and 445 (63%) are females. Syndicates mainly target women because they elicit a low level of suspicion from authorities and the female body has more cavities into which the drugs can be inserted, offering a lower danger of detection.