José Santacruz Londoño (1943 – 1996), also known as Don Chepe was a Colombian drug trafficker and one of the four godfathers of the Cali cartel. He oversaw the cartel's American operations.
Santacruz grew in Cali along with Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela. He earned a master's degree in chemical engineering and handled cocaine production after he established the Cali cartel along with the brothers in the mid 1970s. In the 1980s, he was sent to the cartel's crown jewel, New York City, where he lived under the alias Victor Crespo. Santacruz put his chemical engineering skills to use and started cocaine production in the United States.
In June 1995 after an explosion in one of the laboratories operated by Santacruz, journalist Manuel de Dios exposes him as a Colombian drug lord, forcing Santacruz and his wife Amparo to flee to Colombia after killing de Dios. In Colombia, Santacruz and Hélmer Herrera took part in the war with the Norte del Valle cartel by taking over the Buenaventura Port. Santacruz surrendered to the Search Bloc and he was arrested in a restaurant after finishing his dinner in September 1995 after the arrests of the Rodríguez brothers; however, he escaped prison on January 11 1996 and attempted to return to drug trafficking by allying with the AUC right-wing paramilitary. The Castaño brothers expected a stronger contribution to their cause from Chepe, and violently beat him before shooting him to death on March 5 1996.