Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, a former Colombian drug lord who built one of the world’s most powerful criminal organizations that flooded the U.S. with cocaine in the 1980s and ’90s, died in a U.S. prison. He was 83 years old.
Mr. Rodríguez Orejuela’s lawyer in Miami, David Markus, said his client, known as “The Chessplayer,” died Tuesday night in a North Carolina prison, where he had been serving a 30-year sentence on drug trafficking charges. Mr. Markus didn’t reveal the cause of death. Mr. Rodríguez Orejuela had several health ailments, previously suffering from cancer and complications from a Covid-19 infection.