Now, with Escobar dead, Toft worried that the effort against Escobar had created a monster. It had opened a bridge between the Colombian government, its top politicians and generals, and the rival Cali drug cartel - what the DEA came to call a "super cartel." In the years the Americans had focused on Escobar, Toft feared, the Cali cartel had consolidated its operations, cemented its relationship with the Colombian government, and emerged as a cocaine monopoly.
In 1994, Toft retired from the DEA.
"I don't know what the lesson of the story is," he said recently. "I hope it's not that the end justifies the means."