OUTWITTING CALI'S PROFESSOR MORIARTY

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In recent years, Santacruz has preoccupied himself with countersurveillance. His lieutenants moved about Cali with laptop computers linked, via radio, to a mainframe that contained such information as records of every long-distance call into and out of the city. Old-fashioned, low-tech ruthlessness was not beneath him, however. In addition to allegedly being connected to at least three killings in the U.S., he was the one who established the cartel's draconian methods of policing its own ranks. As insurance, the dealers to whom cocaine is consigned put up not only cash and property, but also human collateral -- the names and addresses of relatives in Colombia.

The system worked so well that Santacruz may be hard to replace. "He has more corporate knowledge in his little finger," says a DEA agent, "than anybody else down there has in his whole body." That's why Santacruz's arrest is seen as wiping out the cartel's trade. "With the capture of Gilberto Rodr’guez Orejuela and Santacruz, the Cali cartel has crumpled," Serrano said. "I think the justice system will give the maximum penalties that a criminal like Santacruz deserves."

Perhaps. But Colombia's sentencing practices are notoriously lax. During the crackdown, the U.S. has offered Colombia only grudging praise, dwelling instead on the subject of punishment. "We look forward," says a State Department official, "to a prison sentence commensurate with the crimes Santacruz has committed, and complete forfeiture of his assets."

Even if his arrest spells the demise of the Cali cartel, few experts believe that this means an end to the business of drug trafficking in Colombia. "The Rodr’guez Orejuelas are going to fall," said William Ram’rez, a political-science professor at the National University in Bogota. "The Scorpions will fall. But there are always going to be others to replace them until you tackle consumption." That, however, is a problem the U.S. must tend to within its own borders.

--Reported by Mary Matheson/Bogota and Elaine Shannon/Washington