Bogota  - Colombian authorities on Wednesday arrested 38 people with ties to former drug lords Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, the brothers who led the Cali cartel and are now imprisoned in the United States.

Colombian Attorney General Mario Iguaran said that their sister, Amparo Rodriguez Orejuela, was among those arrested in raids across Colombia in the so-called Operation Second Generation, as are four children of the two men.

Pablo Daza, the suspected accountant for a money-laundering network, was captured on the Caribbean island of San Andres.

Iguaran said the raids took place in Bogota, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena de Indias, San Andres and other Colombian cities, where a total of 120 buildings were searched. Stockholdings in 15 companies worth some 30 million dollars were seized.

He said that the operation was launched in the face of evidence that the suspects were engaged in money laundering and hiding undeclared assets of the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers.

In 2006, the two men had made a deal with US authorities to declare all their assets and save their relatives in Colombia from criminal prosecution. However, an informer said the fallen drug lords did not abide by their side of the bargain, and Colombian authorities launched their investigation.

Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela was extradited in late 2004 to the United States, followed by his brother in early 2005.

Colombian and US authorities once regarded the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers as the biggest drug traffickers in the world, following the fall of the Medellin cartel, once led by Pablo Escobar. Escobar, the archenemy of the two brothers, was slain by police in 1993. (dpa)