---
category: City
summary: Cali, Colombia was the headquarters of the Cali Cartel, a rival to the Medellín
  Cartel that also played a role in the cocaine trade connected to the Contra supply
  chain.
tags:
- geography
- colombia
- contra-war
---

Cali, [Colombia](/places/colombia/) was the headquarters of the [Cali Drug Cartel](/organizations/cali-drug-cartel/), a rival to the [Medellín Cartel](/organizations/medellin-cartel/) that also played a role in the [cocaine](/concepts/cocaine/) trade connected to the Contra supply chain. The city's drug trafficking organizations were part of the broader Colombian narcotics infrastructure that supplied the [Blandón](/people/danilo-blandon/)-[Meneses](/people/norwin-meneses/) network.[^1]

### The Colombian Connection

Colombian drug cartels, based in both Cali and [Medellín](/places/medellin/), supplied the cocaine that flowed through the Contra-connected trafficking networks into the [United States](/places/united-states/). The [DEA](/organizations/dea/) documented that the Blandón-Meneses ring sourced cocaine from the Ochoa family in Medellín and the Suarez family in [Bolivia](/places/bolivia/), with the drugs transiting through [Central America](/places/central-america/) and the [Caribbean](/places/caribbean/) before reaching American streets.[^2]

[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 5.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 6.