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{{short description|Former Colombian drug trafficker}}
{{Refimprove|date=May 2008}}
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''[[Image:Carlitoslehder.png|thumb|right|300px|'''Carlos Lehder''']]
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}
'''Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas''' or simply '''Carlos Lehder''' (Born 1950 in [[Armenia, Colombia]]) is an imprisoned [[Colombian people|Colombian]] [[drugdealer]] and co-founder of the [[Medellín Cartel]].<ref name="Lee89">{{cite book|title=The White Labyrinth: Cocaine and Political Power|first=Rensselaer W. |last=Lee |year=1989 |pages=5,11,14,106–108,113,116|isbn=1560005653|publisher=Transaction Publishers}}</ref><ref name="Kelly05">{{cite book|title=Illicit Trafficking: A Reference Handbook|year=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|last=Kelly|first=Robert J.|isbn=1576079155}}</ref>
{{family name hatnote|Lehder|Rivas|lang=Spanish}}
{{Infobox criminal
| name = Carlos Lehder
| image = Carlos Lehder.jpg
| image_size =
| image_alt =
| image_caption = Mugshot of Carlos Lehder after his extradition in 1987.
| nationality = [[Colombian nationality law|Colombian]], [[German nationality law|German]]
| birth_name = Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1949|9|7|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Armenia, Colombia|Armenia]], [[Colombia]]
| death_date =
| death_place =
| cause =
| alias = El Loco (The Madman) <br/> ''[[Henry Ford]] of cocaine''<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.eltiempo.com/justicia/delitos/quien-es-carlos-lehder-excapo-del-narcotrafico-que-viajo-a-alemania-507982 | title=En fotos: La vida criminal del excapo del narcotráfico Carlos Lehder | date=18 June 2020 | access-date=18 August 2023 | archive-date=20 May 2024 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240520024549/https://www.eltiempo.com/justicia/delitos/quien-es-carlos-lehder-excapo-del-narcotrafico-que-viajo-a-alemania-507982 | url-status=live }}</ref> 'Rambo' González<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.filo.news/actualidad/La-historia-del-narco-Ledher-el-socio-de-Pablo-Escobar-que-quedo-en-libertad-20200617-0041.html |title=La historia del narco Ledher, el socio de Pablo Escobar que quedó en libertad |date=18 June 2020 |access-date=16 November 2023 |archive-date=16 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231116215819/https://www.filo.news/actualidad/La-historia-del-narco-Ledher-el-socio-de-Pablo-Escobar-que-quedo-en-libertad-20200617-0041.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
| motive =
| charge = [[drug trafficking]]
| conviction =
| conviction_penalty = Life imprisonment plus 135 years; commuted to 55 years in prison
| conviction_status = Released from prison 16 June 2020, after more than 33 years and 4 months in captivity.
| occupation = Drug trafficker
| spouse =
| parents = Klaus Wilhelm Rudolf Lehder<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/2020/carloslehder/guillermo-lehder.html |title=Carlos Lehder: Bonanza y ruina del capo que hizo a Escobar |access-date=16 November 2023 |archive-date=28 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230828153023/https://www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/2020/carloslehder/guillermo-lehder.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/L5ZV-1KX/kurt-wilhelm-rudolf-lehder-scheele-1904-1987 |title=Archived copy |access-date=12 March 2024 |archive-date=25 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240125215044/https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/L5ZV-1KX/kurt-wilhelm-rudolf-lehder-scheele-1904-1987 |url-status=live }}</ref> <br> Helena Rivas<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/2020/carloslehder/elena-rivas.html |title=Carlos Lehder: Bonanza y ruina del capo que hizo a Escobar |access-date=12 March 2024 |archive-date=20 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240520024550/https://www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/2020/carloslehder/elena-rivas.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
| children =


Diana Lehder<ref name="peladas">{{cite news|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|title=Supuesta libertad de Carlos Ledher fue desmentida desde Armenia|url=https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticia-completa-titulo-supuesta_libertad_de_carlos_ledher_fue_desmentida_desde_armenia-seccion-la_judicial-nota-84087.htm|language=es|work=Article from [[La Crónica del Quindío]]|location=[[Armenia, Colombia|Armenia]], [[Colombia]]|date=2015-01-15|access-date=2020-06-28|archive-date=21 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200621003131/https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticia-completa-titulo-supuesta_libertad_de_carlos_ledher_fue_desmentida_desde_armenia-seccion-la_judicial-nota-84087.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>
Lehder eventually ran a [[cocaine]] transport empire on [[Norman's Cay]] island, {{convert|210|mi|km}} off the [[Florida]] coast in the central [[Bahamas]].<ref name="Frontline: Drug War Norman's Cay">[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/business/cay.html Frontline: Drug War (Norman's Cay)]</ref><ref name="Lee89" /> Lehder was allegedly also active in the Quintín Lamé Movement, an indigenous guerrilla organization tied to the Colombian [[19th of April Movement]] and [[Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia|FARC]] insurgencies.<ref name="Lee89" /> Lehder was also a founding member of [[Muerte a Secuestradores]], a guerilla group whose focus was to retaliate against the kidnappings of cartel members and their families.<ref name="Lee89" /> He was one of the most important operators therein, and is considered to be one of the most important [[Colombia]]n drug kingpins to be successfully prosecuted in the [[United States]].


Maria Del Mar Lehder<ref name="peladas" />
In the 2001 movie ''[[Blow (film)|Blow]]'', the character Diego Delgado was based on him. Lehder is of mixed Colombian-German descent, his father a German engineer and mother a Colombian schoolteacher.<ref name="St. Petersburg Times: Carlos Lehder">[http://www.sptimes.com/News/112899/Floridian/Carlos_Lehder_Rivas__.shtml St. Petersburg Times: Carlos Lehder]</ref>The family owned a semi-legitimate used car business in the Medellin area which Carlos got his start as a criminal in by supplying it with stolen American cars.


Mónica Lehder García (1983)<ref>{{cite interview|last=Lehder García|first=Mónica|title=El peso del apellido Lehder: hija ruega para que el narco no muera en prisión|url=https://www.caracoltv.com/el-peso-del-apellido-lehder-hija-ruega-para-que-el-1743-historia|language=es|work=Los Informantes, TV program from [[Caracol Televisión]]|date=2015-10-04|access-date=2019-05-14|archive-date=14 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190514212031/https://www.caracoltv.com/el-peso-del-apellido-lehder-hija-ruega-para-que-el-1743-historia|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite interview|last=Lehder García|first=Mónica|title=Carlos Lehder quedó libre en Alemania, confirma su hija Mónica Lehder|url=https://www.semana.com/semana-tv/vicky-en-semana/articulo/carlos-lehder-quedo-libre-en-alemania-confirma-su-hija-monica-lehder/679938|language=es|work=Article from [[Semana]]|date=2020-06-16|access-date=2020-06-28|archive-date=17 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617145412/https://www.semana.com/semana-tv/vicky-en-semana/articulo/carlos-lehder-quedo-libre-en-alemania-confirma-su-hija-monica-lehder/679938|url-status=live}}</ref>
==Early activities and prison==
{{Medellin Cartel}}
[[Image:Carloslehdertakingthatshit.png|thumb|left|350px|'''Carlos Lehder''' (left) inhaling cocaine with former prisonmate Steven Yakovac on Norman's Cay (1976).]]
Lehder started out as a stolen car dealer, a marijuana dealer, and a smuggler of stolen cars between the US and Canada. While serving a sentence for car theft in federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, Lehder decided that, upon his release, he would take advantage of the burgeoning market for cocaine in the United States and enlisted his bunkmate, former marijuana dealer [[George Jung]], as a future partner.<ref name="St. Petersburg Times: Carlos Lehder"/> Jung had experience with flying marijuana to the US from Mexico in small aircraft, staying below radar level and landing on dry lake beds. Inspired by the idea, Lehder decided to apply the principle to cocaine transport and formed a partnership with Jung.<ref>[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/jung.html Frontline: Drug War (George Jung)]</ref> While in prison he set out to learn as much information, that would be useful to him in the cocaine business, as he possibly could. Lehder would sometimes even spend hours questioning fellow inmates on money laundering and smuggling. George Jung allegedly said that Lehder kept countless files and constantly took notes.


}}
Lehder's ultimate scheme was to revolutionize the cocaine trade by transporting the drug to the [[United States|U.S.]] using small aircraft.<ref name="Frontline: Drug War Carlos Toro">[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/toro.html Frontline: Drug War (Carlos Toro)]</ref> Previously, drug dealers had to rely on human "mules" to smuggle the drug in suitcases on regular commercial flights. In Lehder's vision, much greater quantities could be transported directly by small private aircraft, with far less risk of interception.
{{Medellín Cartel}}


'''Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas''' (born 7 September 1949)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carlos-Lehder|title=Carlos Lehder &#124; Biography, Crimes, Conviction, & Facts|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|date=10 November 2023|access-date=28 March 2020|archive-date=24 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200624224110/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carlos-Lehder|url-status=live}}</ref> is a Colombian and German former [[Drug barons of Colombia|drug lord]] who was co-founder of the [[Medellín Cartel]]. Born to a [[German Colombian|German father]] and Colombian mother,<ref>{{cite web|access-date=12 May 2010|publisher=[[BBC]]|title=El narco Carlos Lehder quiere volver a Colombia|date=12 May 2010|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/america_latina/2010/05/100512_2102_narco_colombia_extraditacion_transferencia_estados_unidos_carlos_lehder_fp.shtml|archive-date=14 May 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100514180813/http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/america_latina/2010/05/100512_2102_narco_colombia_extraditacion_transferencia_estados_unidos_carlos_lehder_fp.shtml|url-status=live}}<!-- auto-translated by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> he was the first high-level drug trafficker extradited to the United States, after which he was released from prison in the [[United States]] after 33 years in 2020.<ref name="Lee89">{{cite book|title=The White Labyrinth: Cocaine and Political Power|url=https://archive.org/details/whitelabyrinthco0000leer|url-access=registration|first=Rensselaer W. |last=Lee |year=1989 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/whitelabyrinthco0000leer/page/5 5], 11, 14, 106–108, 113, 116|isbn=1-56000-565-3|publisher=Transaction Publishers}}</ref><ref name="Kelly05">{{cite book|title=Illicit Trafficking: A Reference Handbook|url=https://archive.org/details/illicittrafficki0000kell|url-access=registration|year=2005|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|last=Kelly|first=Robert J.|isbn=1-57607-915-5}}</ref> Originally from [[Armenia, Colombia]], Lehder eventually ran a [[cocaine]] transport empire on [[Norman's Cay]] island, {{convert|210|mi|km}} off the [[Florida]] coast in the central [[Bahamas]].<ref name="Lee89" /><ref name="Frontline: Drug War Norman's Cay">{{cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/business/cay.html|work=[[Frontline (U.S. TV series)|Frontline]]|title=Drug War (Norman's Cay)|access-date=25 August 2017|archive-date=19 October 2000|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001019064113/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/business/cay.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
==Starting his empire==
After their releases (both were paroled), Lehder and Jung built up a small stream of money through simple, traditional drug smuggling - they enlisted two American girls to take a paid vacation to Antigua, receive cocaine, and carry it back with them to the US in their suitcases. Repeating this process several times, they soon had enough money for an airplane.


Lehder was one of the founding members of [[Muerte a Secuestradores]] ("MAS"), a [[paramilitary]] group whose focus was to retaliate against the kidnappings of cartel members and their families<ref name="Lee89" /> by the guerrillas.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.elmundo.com/portal/especiales/especiales/detalle.noticia.php?idespecial=18&idarticulo=408|title=El Mundo - Noticias de Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia y el mundo - Periódico El Mundo|website=www.elmundo.com|access-date=12 August 2020|archive-date=11 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200811005753/https://www.elmundo.com/portal/especiales/especiales/detalle.noticia.php?idespecial=18&idarticulo=408|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-12947122|title=Murió Juan David Ochoa, uno de los fundadores del cartel de Medellín|first=Casa Editorial El|last=Tiempo|date=July 25, 2013|website=El Tiempo|access-date=12 August 2020|archive-date=8 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808220243/https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-12947122|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wradio.com.co/escucha/archivo_de_audio/marta-nieves-ochoa-hermana-de-fabio-ochoa/20071018/oir/495145.aspx|title=Marta Nieves Ochoa, hermana de Fabio Ochoa|date=October 18, 2007|website=www.wradio.com.co|access-date=12 August 2020|archive-date=25 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200725041432/https://www.wradio.com.co/escucha/archivo_de_audio/marta-nieves-ochoa-hermana-de-fabio-ochoa/20071018/oir/495145.aspx|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.elespectador.com/impreso/politica/articuloimpreso-1981-plagio-de-martha-ochoa-se-creo-el-mas/|title=ELESPECTADOR.COM|first=El|last=Espectador|website=ELESPECTADOR.COM|access-date=12 August 2020|archive-date=18 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200818014137/https://www.elespectador.com/impreso/politica/articuloimpreso-1981-plagio-de-martha-ochoa-se-creo-el-mas/|url-status=live}}</ref>
Using a small plane and a professional pilot, they began to fly cocaine into the United States via the Bahamas, increasing their financial resources and building connections and trust with Colombian suppliers while spreading money around among Bahamian government officials for political and judicial protection. Their unconventional method of drug-smuggling began to gain credibility.
His motivation to join the MAS was to retaliate against the [[19th of April Movement|M-19]] guerrilla movement, which, in November 1981, attempted to kidnap him for a ransom; Lehder managed to escape from the kidnappers, though he was shot in the leg.<ref name="Martínez2005">{{cite book|author=Astrid Legarda Martínez|title=El verdadero Pablo: sangre, traición y muerte|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F_ncEwHEUJMC&q=carlos+lehder+limusina&pg=PA91|year=2005|publisher=Cangrejo|language=es|isbn=978-958-97604-7-5|page=91|access-date=12 October 2021|archive-date=20 May 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240520024551/https://books.google.com/books?id=F_ncEwHEUJMC&q=carlos+lehder+limusina&pg=PA91#v=snippet&q=carlos%20lehder%20limusina&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>
He was one of the most important MAS and Medellin Cartel operators, and is considered to be one of the most important Colombian drug kingpins to have been successfully prosecuted in the United States.


Additionally, Lehder "founded a neo-Nazi political party, the National Latin Movement, whose main function, police said, appeared to be to force Colombia to abrogate its extradition treaty with the United States."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-05-19-mn-4856-story.html|title=Hatred of All Things Yankee Absorbs Lehder|date=19 May 1988|access-date=17 July 2017|via=LA Times|archive-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306224837/http://articles.latimes.com/1988-05-19/news/mn-4856_1_cocaine|url-status=live}}</ref>
It was this rapidly growing network that became known as the Medellín Cartel. The partnership of Lehder and Jung handled transport and distribution, while Colombian drug lord [[Pablo Escobar]] handled production and supply. Other elements of the cartel, such as the [[Ochoa brothers|Ochoa family]], helped deal with political matters in Colombia. Ruthless violence was as integral to the process as cocaine itself.


==Norman's Cay==
== Early life ==
Carlos Lehder is of mixed German-Colombian descent. His father, Klaus Wilhelm Lehder, was an engineer who emigrated from Germany to [[Armenia, Colombia]] in 1928, where he participated in the construction of several buildings which had elevators, a rather modern and unusual characteristic at that place and time. When he married Helena Rivas, former beauty queen and the daughter of a jeweller from [[Manizales]], [[Department of Caldas|Caldas]], he changed his name to Guillermo Lehder. Guillermo and Helena had four sons, with Carlos Enrique, born on 7 September 1949, being the third.
{{main|Norman's Cay}}
In the late 70s, the Lehder-Jung partnership began to diverge, due to some combination of Lehder's [[megalomania]], and Lehder's secret scheming to secure a personal Bahamian island as a complete all-purpose headquarters for his operations.


In Armenia, Colombia, the family owned a small inn called ''Pensión Alemana'' (which would later inspire Carlos to have his own luxurious ''[[Posada Alemana]]'' hotel), where German immigrants would regularly meet. They also ran a small business producing vegetable oils and importing luxury goods such as wine and canned foods. In 1943, following intelligence reports from the United States, the Lehders, along with many Germans in Colombia, were suspected of ideological links with the [[Nazis]] and were investigated. The ''Pensión Alemana'' was alleged to have been a place where Nazis gathered intelligence.
That island was Norman's Cay, which at that point consisted of a marina, a yacht club, approximately 100 private homes, and an air strip. In 1978, Lehder began buying up property and harassing and threatening the island's residents. At one point, a yacht was found drifting off the coast with the corpse of one of its owners aboard. He is estimated to have spent $4.5 million on the island in total.<ref name="Chepesiuk03">{{cite book|title=The Bullet Or the Bribe: Taking Down Colombia's Cali Drug Cartel|year=2003|first=Ron |last=Chepesiuk |publisher=Greenwood Publishnig Group|isbn=0275977129}}</ref>


Carlos grew up in Armenia, Colombia until his parents divorced when he was 15, after which he emigrated with his mother to New York in the United States.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1706&dat=19890705&id=iZobAAAAIBAJ&sjid=M1MEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6607%2C1563575&hl=en |title=Padre de Carlos Lehder, un activo militante nazi |work=[[El Tiempo (Colombia)|El Tiempo]] |date=July 5, 1989 |page=12B |via=Google News |access-date=2019-05-14 |archive-date=4 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230204112409/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1706&dat=19890705&id=iZobAAAAIBAJ&sjid=M1MEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6607%2C1563575&hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref>
As Lehder chased away the local population and began to assume total control of the island, Bahamian [[Politics of the Bahamas|Prime Minister]] [[Lynden Pindling]], believed to have taken massive amounts of money in bribes from Lehder and associates, did nothing.<ref name="Kelly05" /> Norman's Cay became Lehder's lawless private [[fiefdom]]. By this time, George Jung had been forced out of the operation, and international criminal financier [[Robert Vesco]] had allegedly become a partner. Jung used his prior connections to take up a more modest line of independent smuggling for Escobar, and stayed out of Lehder's way.


== Criminal career ==
From 1978 through 1982, the Cay was the Caribbean's main drug smuggling hub and a tropical hideaway and playground for Lehder and associates. Cocaine was flown in from Colombia by [[Cessna Citation|jet]] and then reloaded into the small aircraft that then distributed it to locations in [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], [[Florida]],<ref name="Chepesiuk03" /> and the [[Carolinas]].<ref name="Frontline: Drug War Carlos Toro"/> Lehder was believed to receive 1 kilo on every 4 that was transported through Norman's Cay.<ref name="Lee89" />
=== Early activities and prison ===
Lehder dropped out of school to devote himself to reading books by authors such as [[Niccolò Machiavelli]] and [[Hermann Hesse]], while maintaining admiration for [[Adolf Hitler]]'s ''[[Mein Kampf]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Prieto |first=Carlos |date=2020-07-04 |title=¿Qué hace este avión hundido en Bahamas? Carlos Lehder en la isla de la cocaína |url=https://www.elconfidencial.com/mundo/2020-07-04/carlos-lehder-pablo-escobar-cocaina-colombia_2651695/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=elconfidencial.com |language=es |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818014345/https://www.elconfidencial.com/mundo/2020-07-04/carlos-lehder-pablo-escobar-cocaina-colombia_2651695/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-02-05 |title=El honor es volátil en el mundo del narco |url=https://www.lavanguardia.com/edicion-impresa/20170205/414017660339/el-honor-es-volatil-en-el-mundo-del-narco.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=La Vanguardia |language=es |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818015847/https://www.lavanguardia.com/edicion-impresa/20170205/414017660339/el-honor-es-volatil-en-el-mundo-del-narco.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-06-23 |title=El grito del último gran 'capo' vivo: "La cocaína es la bomba atómica de los colombianos contra EEUU" |url=https://www.elmundo.es/cronica/2020/06/23/5ef1071dfc6c8320068b45be.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=ELMUNDO |language=es |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818014345/https://www.elmundo.es/cronica/2020/06/23/5ef1071dfc6c8320068b45be.html |url-status=live }}</ref>


Lehder started out selling stolen cars and [[smuggler|smuggling]] them to Colombia, where the vehicles arrived in [[Medellín]], avoiding all customs, and were then trafficked by Lehder's brother. At the age of 24, Lehder took aviation classes, becoming an expert pilot who would know several air routes, which served as the basis for his growing criminal career, which began with small-quantity marijuana trafficking between the [[United States]] and [[Canada]].<ref>{{cite news|access-date=17 June 2020|language=es|title=Arresto y extradición de Carlos Lehder|url=https://pabloescobargaviria.info/arresto-y-extradicion-de-carlos-lehder/|newspaper=Pablo Escobar Gaviria el Patron del Mal|archive-date=8 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200608125453/https://pabloescobargaviria.info/arresto-y-extradicion-de-carlos-lehder/|url-status=live}}<!-- auto-translated by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> While serving a sentence for car theft in [[FCI Danbury|federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut]],<ref>{{Cite news |title="Mesiánico y obsesivo": así era Carlos Lehder, el primer gran narco colombiano extraditado a EE.UU. hace 30 años |language=es |work=BBC News Mundo |url=https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-38857918 |access-date=2023-08-21 |archive-date=4 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231104183804/https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-38857918 |url-status=live }}</ref> Lehder decided that, upon his release, he would take advantage of the burgeoning market for cocaine in the United States. To that goal, he enlisted his prison bunkmate, former marijuana dealer [[George Jung]], as a future partner.<ref name="St. Petersburg Times: Carlos Lehder">{{cite news |url=http://www.sptimes.com/News/112899/Floridian/Carlos_Lehder_Rivas__.shtml |newspaper=St. Petersburg Times |title=Carlos Lehder |access-date=10 June 2007 |archive-date=9 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150909164753/http://www.sptimes.com/News/112899/Floridian/Carlos_Lehder_Rivas__.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref> Jung had experience flying marijuana to the U.S. from Mexico in small aircraft, staying below radar level, and landing on dry lake beds. Inspired by the idea, Lehder decided to apply the principle to cocaine transport and formed a partnership with Jung.<ref name=":0">{{cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/jung.html|work=Frontline|title=Drug War (George Jung)|access-date=25 August 2017|archive-date=20 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020165309/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/jung.html|url-status=live}}</ref> While in prison, Lehder set out to learn as much information as possible that could be useful to him in the cocaine business. He would sometimes even spend hours questioning fellow inmates about [[money laundering]] and smuggling. Jung allegedly said that Lehder kept countless files and constantly took notes. Lehder's ultimate scheme was to revolutionize the cocaine trade by transporting the drug to the United States using small aircraft.<ref name="Frontline: Drug War Carlos Toro">{{cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/toro.html|work=Frontline|title=Drug War (Carlos Toro)|access-date=25 August 2017|archive-date=23 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170823104514/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/toro.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
Lehder built a {{convert|3300|ft|m|sing=on}} runway protected by radar, bodyguards and Doberman attack dogs for the fleet of aircraft under his command.<ref name="Frontline: Drug War Norman's Cay"/><ref name="Lee89" /> In the glory days of his operation, 300 kilograms of cocaine would arrive on the island every hour of every day, and Lehder's personal wealth mounted into the billions.


=== Early cocaine career ===
==Downfall and fugitive days==
Roman Varone and Jung had already experimented with bringing marijuana into the United States from Mexico in small aircraft below radar range and landing in dry riverbeds. Inspired by that idea, Lehder decided to apply the same principle to drug transport. Lehder's dream was to have a huge resort for people like himself and in turn bring justice to his native Colombia. After Lehder and Jung were released (both were paroled but Lehder was deported to Colombia), they built up a small revenue stream through simple, traditional drug smuggling. Specifically, they enlisted two young women who were US citizens to take a vacation to [[Antigua]], receive cocaine, and carry it back with them to the U.S. in their suitcases. Repeating this process several times, Lehder and Jung soon had enough money for an airplane.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Carlos Lehder: Bonanza y ruina del capo que hizo a Escobar |url=https://www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/2020/carloslehder/index.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Univision |archive-date=21 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230821134055/https://www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/2020/carloslehder/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Cristo |first=Julio Sánchez |title=El estadounidense que cambió para siempre el Cartel de Medellín: El poder oculto de George Jung {{!}} Cambio Colombia |url=https://cambiocolombia.com/personajes/el-estadounidense-que-cambio-para-siempre-el-cartel-de-medellin-el-poder-oculto-de |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=cambiocolombia.com |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818014334/https://cambiocolombia.com/personajes/el-estadounidense-que-cambio-para-siempre-el-cartel-de-medellin-el-poder-oculto-de |url-status=live }}</ref>
The cartel was able to survive and dominate only with the help of political and judicial violence, mostly overseen by its Colombia-based kingpins, chiefly Pablo Escobar. Lehder is believed to have been at least partially involved in the [[Palace of Justice siege]], which resulted in the death of 11 Colombian Supreme Court justices<ref name="Lee89" /> and 84 other people, as well as the murders of as many as 28 journalists, and an uncounted number of police officers, government officials, and members of his own organization - and Colombian Justice Minister, [[Rodrigo Lara Bonilla|Rodrigo Lara]].


Using a small stolen plane and a professional pilot, the pair began to fly cocaine into the United States via the [[Bahamas]], in the process increasing their financial resources and building connections and trust with Colombian suppliers, while spreading money around among Bahamian government officials for political and judicial protection. Their unconventional method of drug-smuggling began to gain credibility. Although the business had serious setbacks due to constant robberies by common criminals in the US, marijuana trafficking; which was in a bonanza, came to an end due to the intense police operations in Colombia and the reduction in income due to the cultivation of marijuana in the US, which would prelude its beginnings in cocaine trafficking, a more profitable business with options easy to transport.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Collado |first=Erik |date=2022-12-27 |title=George Jung - Boston George - biografia |url=https://www.growbarato.net/blog/george-jung-boston-george-biografia/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Blog de Grow Barato |language=es-ES |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818014345/https://www.growbarato.net/blog/george-jung-boston-george-biografia/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Sabogal |first=Hugo |date=1988-05-21 |title=Lehder, el 'emperador' de la cocaína |language=es |work=El País |url=https://elpais.com/diario/1988/05/21/internacional/580168806_850215.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |issn=1134-6582 |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818014333/https://elpais.com/diario/1988/05/21/internacional/580168806_850215.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
It was this last killing (on April 29, 1984) that began the end of the Medellin cartel. Lara had campaigned against the activities of the cartel, and his murder marked a change in Colombian politics. President [[Belisario Betancur]], who had previously opposed extraditing any Colombian drug lords to the United States, announced that he was now willing to extradite. Carlos Lehder was the top name on the crackdown list.


Lehder and his partners in the Cartel would amass enormous fortunes through cocaine trafficking, which is why they were nicknamed ''Los Mágicos'' (''The Magicians''), because they had become rich overnight, although Lehder was better known as the ''[[Henry Ford]] of cocaine''.<ref name="elespectador_1">{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2020-04-08 |title=ELESPECTADOR.COM |url=https://www.elespectador.com/judicial/el-henry-ford-de-la-cocaina-article-207220/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=ELESPECTADOR.COM |language=spanish |archive-date=21 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230821134241/https://www.elespectador.com/judicial/el-henry-ford-de-la-cocaina-article-207220/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
While other major Medellín players fled to the protection of [[Manuel Noriega]] in Panama and began plans to establish an even larger operation there, Lehder, distrusting Noriega, sought protection in [[Nicaragua]], paying the [[Sandinista]] regime for the privilege.


=== Norman's Cay ===
Later, still a fugitive, Lehder re-entered Colombia and hid among leftist guerillas in the jungles of that country, even appearing briefly on television in 1985 to deliver a message that denounced American imperialism and extradition treaties, and played upon Colombian nationalist sentiment.
[[File:Carloslehdertakingthatshit.png|thumb|350px|Carlos Lehder (left) snorting cocaine with former prison mate Steven Yakovac on [[Norman's Cay]] (1976)]]
In the late 1970s, the Lehder-Jung partnership began to diverge, due to some combination of Lehder's [[wikt:megalomania|megalomania]] and his secret scheming to secure a personal Bahamian island as an all-purpose headquarters for his operations.<ref name=":0" />
[[File:Curtiss C-46 N355BY F1999-Bah3-20-V-2.jpg|350px|right|The wreckage of a [[Curtiss C-46 Commando]] that crashed in shallow water at Norman's Cay in November 1980 (1999)]]


That island was [[Norman's Cay]], which at that point consisted of a marina, a yacht club, approximately 100 private homes, and an [[Norman's Cay Airport|airstrip]].<ref name="tide">{{cite book | last = Kirkpatrick | first = Sidney | title = Turning the tide: one man against the Medellin Cartel | publisher = Dutton | location = New York, N.Y., U.S.A | year = 1991 | isbn = 9780525249986 | quote = The airstrip had been sliced diagonally across the broadest section of the island. | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/turningtideonema00kirk }}</ref><ref name="Frontline: Drug War Norman's Cay"/> In 1978, Lehder began buying up property and harassing and threatening the island's residents; at one point, a yacht was found drifting off the coast with the corpse of one of its owners aboard. Lehder is estimated to have spent $4.5 million on the island in total.<ref name="Chepesiuk03">{{cite book|title=The Bullet Or the Bribe: Taking Down Colombia's Cali Drug Cartel|year=2003|first=Ron|last=Chepesiuk|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=0-275-97712-9|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/bulletorbribetak0000chep}}</ref>
The down fall of Carlos Lehder was assisted by the activities of Jack Carlton Reed and his purchase of a 55 acre farmhouse in Starkville, Mississippi. Jack Reed had a dog that was referred to the Mississippi State Vet school. Jack Reed asked one of the Doctors to hold a suitcase for him. Other persons under the direction of Jack Reed actually purchased the farm house which also had a grass air strip on the property. Law enforcement was alerted and surveillance was conducted from the day the property was purchased til the day it was abandoned when one of the persons spotted a person dressed in camouflage taking pictures. This was a state agent who never admitted his mistake. The property was eventually searched and valuable evidence was seized. Hidden walls had been built in the house which law enforcement learned later were to conceal hundreds of kilos of cocaine. the most important evidence siezed by the local law enforcement was the suitcase left by Jack Reed. This suit case was Reed's life history. The above picture of Carlos Lehder and Steven Yakovac was one contained in the suitcase. This suitcase was a gold mine for the federal officials in the prosecution of the entire organization. Jack Reed's concern for his dog and belief he could come into a small southern Mississippi town and spend $ 155,000.00 cash in the early eighties with no raised eyebrows, resulted in the siezure of some of the most damaging evidence presented in trial in Jacksonville Florida


[[File:NormansCay.png|thumb|right|350px|Norman's Cay in 1981]]
==Capture, trial and whereabouts==
As Lehder paid or forced the local population to leave, and began to assume total control of the island, Norman's Cay became his lawless private [[fiefdom]], after allegedly bribing the [[Prime Minister of the Bahamas]] [[Lynden Pindling]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Semana |date=1995-07-10 |title=EL ULTIMO AVENTURERO |url=https://www.semana.com/el-ultimo-aventurero/25971-3/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Semana.com Últimas Noticias de Colombia y el Mundo |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818020015/https://www.semana.com/el-ultimo-aventurero/25971-3/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Semana |date=1987-03-09 |title=El "Loquito" Carlos Lehder |url=https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/quien-es-carlos-lehder-rivas-delitos-aventuras-y-contradicciones/8680/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Semana.com Últimas Noticias de Colombia y el Mundo |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818020014/https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/quien-es-carlos-lehder-rivas-delitos-aventuras-y-contradicciones/8680/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=1988-01-14 |title=BAHAMAS LEADER TIED TO DRUG BRIBE (Published 1988) |work=The New York Times |language=en |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/14/us/bahamas-leader-tied-to-drug-bribe.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818020015/https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/14/us/bahamas-leader-tied-to-drug-bribe.html |url-status=live }}</ref> By this time, he had forced Jung out of the operation, and international criminal financier [[Robert Vesco]] had allegedly become a partner. Jung used his prior connections to take up a more modest line of independent smuggling for [[Pablo Escobar]] and stayed out of Lehder's way.<ref name=":0" />
Eventually, Lehder was captured in the jungle, and lost his fight against extradition. In 1987 (by which point his net worth was in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion), he was sent to the United States, where he was tried and sentenced to life without parole, plus an additional 135 years.


From 1978 through 1982, the Cay was the Caribbean's main drug-smuggling hub, and a tropical hideaway and playground for Lehder and associates. They flew cocaine in from Colombia on all sorts of aircraft able to land fully loaded on the airstrip, reloaded it into various small aircraft, and then distributed it to locations in [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], Florida,<ref name="Chepesiuk03" /> and the [[Carolinas]].<ref name="Frontline: Drug War Carlos Toro"/> Lehder was believed to have kept one kilo out of every four that was transported through Norman's Cay.<ref name="Lee89" />
In 1992, in exchange for Lehder's agreement to testify against Manuel Noriega, this was reduced to a total sentence of 55 years. Three years after that, Lehder wrote a letter of complaint to a [[Jacksonville]] federal district judge, complaining that the government had reneged on a deal to transfer him to a [[Germany|German]] prison. The letter was construed as a threat against the judge.


Lehder expanded a runway to {{convert|3300|ft|m|adj=on}}, protected by radar, bodyguards, and [[Doberman pinscher|Doberman]] attack dogs for the fleet of aircraft under his command, the island also had the [[Colombian flag]] and its [[National Anthem of Colombia]] was usually sung.<ref name="tide"/><ref name="Lee89" /><ref name="Frontline: Drug War Norman's Cay"/><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2020-06-23 |title=¿Qué pasó con la narcoisla y la fortuna del excapo Carlos Lehder? |url=https://www.eltiempo.com/unidad-investigativa/carlos-lehder-que-paso-con-su-fortuna-su-isla-y-sus-lujos-509788 |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=El Tiempo |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818020021/https://www.eltiempo.com/unidad-investigativa/carlos-lehder-que-paso-con-su-fortuna-su-isla-y-sus-lujos-509788 |url-status=live }}</ref> At the height of his operation, 300 kilograms<ref>{{cite book|last1=Schneider|first1=Stephen|title=Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada|date=2009|publisher=John Wiley & Sons Canada|isbn=9780470835005|page=499|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZO8jKSn25DAC|access-date=25 December 2016|archive-date=20 May 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240520024609/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZO8jKSn25DAC|url-status=live}}</ref> of cocaine would arrive on the island daily, and Lehder's wealth mounted into the billions. He accumulated such staggering wealth that on two occasions he offered to pay the Colombian [[external debt]]. In 1978, he made an offer to do so to President [[Alfonso López Michelsen]], in exchange for a free space for [[drug trafficking]]. In 1982, through [[Pablo Escobar]], who was a Colombian Congressman at the time, Lehder did so again, this time in an attempt to prevent his [[extradition]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.elpais.com.co/contenido-premium/carlos-lehder-el-preso-que-simbolizo-la-lucha-de-ee-uu-contra-el-narcotrafico.html |title=Carlos Lehder, el preso que simbolizó la lucha de EE.UU. Contra el narcotráfico |date=21 June 2020 |access-date=18 August 2023 |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024319/https://www.elpais.com.co/contenido-premium/carlos-lehder-el-preso-que-simbolizo-la-lucha-de-ee-uu-contra-el-narcotrafico.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.eltiempo.com/unidad-investigativa/carlos-lehder-que-paso-con-su-fortuna-su-isla-y-sus-lujos-509788 |title=¿Qué pasó con la narcoisla y la fortuna del excapo Carlos Lehder? |date=23 June 2020 |access-date=18 August 2023 |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818020021/https://www.eltiempo.com/unidad-investigativa/carlos-lehder-que-paso-con-su-fortuna-su-isla-y-sus-lujos-509788 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.elespectador.com/el-magazin-cultural/el-documental-de-la-vida-de-carlos-lehder-que-nunca-pudo-ser-article/ |title=Archived copy |access-date=18 August 2023 |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024319/https://www.elespectador.com/el-magazin-cultural/el-documental-de-la-vida-de-carlos-lehder-que-nunca-pudo-ser-article/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1981, the [[Drug Enforcement Administration|DEA]] and the Bahamas police intervened on the island dismantling the empire built by Lehder, who escaped capture and said goodbye to the island on July 10, 1982 by bombing with pamphlets Clifford Park in [[Nassau, Bahamas|Nassau]] with the phrase ''DEA go home'', some of those pamphlets with $100 bills.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Carlos Lehder's Bahamian Legacy |url=https://www.bahamapundit.com/2006/07/carlos_lehders_.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Bahama Pundit |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818020006/https://www.bahamapundit.com/2006/07/carlos_lehders_.html |url-status=usurped }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Bahamas' Worst Prime Minister {{!}} Bahamas Local News |url=https://www.bahamaslocal.com/newsitem/69938/The_Bahamas_Worst_Prime_Minister.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=www.bahamaslocal.com |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818020006/https://www.bahamaslocal.com/newsitem/69938/The_Bahamas_Worst_Prime_Minister.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/08/42/49/00247/UF00084249_00247.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818020015/https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/08/42/49/00247/UF00084249_00247.pdf |date=18 August 2023 }} {{bare URL PDF|date=February 2024}}</ref>
Within weeks of sending that letter in the fall of 1995, Lehder was whisked away into the night, according to several protected witnesses at the Mesa Unit in Arizona. While many believe he could have been released, others consider that this is not true. There was a brother of Carlos Lehder, Federico Guillermo Lehder Rivas on the periphery of the business who might have been confused for him causing the reports of his being free and overseas.


== Return to Colombia ==
According to journalist and author Tamara S. Inscoe-Johnson, who worked on the Lehder defense during the time in question, Lehder was simply transferred to another prison and has continued to be held in [[WITSEC]], which is the Bureau of Prisons' version of the federal Witness Protection Program.
Lehder returned to Colombia where, in addition to resuming his business, he was recognized for giving the government of Quindío a modern plane [[Piper PA-31 Navajo]] for the time. Such a gift caught the attention of the authorities and the public because despite being used on several occasions, its high cost overruns forced its sale a year after it was legalized. It is believed that the plane had been secretly repurchased by Lehder taking advantage of its legalization, and said plane would travel anywhere in Colombia unnoticed, while the money given to the government for the sale of the aircraft was used to improve a hospital for the less favored classes, and mysteriously the plane would return to the El Eden airport in Armenia in poor condition.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lehder hizo llover plata sobre Armenia |url=https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/general-1/https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/general-1/lehder-hizo-llover-plata-sobre-armenia |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Cronica del Quindio |language=es-ES }}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Historia de una Piper Navajo |url=https://www.eje21.com.co/2020/06/historia-de-una-piper-navajo/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Eje21 |language=es |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024318/https://www.eje21.com.co/2020/06/historia-de-una-piper-navajo/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=País |first=El |date=2020-06-21 |title=Carlos Lehder, el preso que simbolizó la lucha de EE.UU. contra el narcotráfico |url=https://www.elpais.com.co/contenido-premium/carlos-lehder-el-preso-que-simbolizo-la-lucha-de-ee-uu-contra-el-narcotrafico.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Noticias de Cali, Valle y Colombia - Periodico: Diario El País |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024319/https://www.elpais.com.co/contenido-premium/carlos-lehder-el-preso-que-simbolizo-la-lucha-de-ee-uu-contra-el-narcotrafico.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2020-06-27 |title=ELESPECTADOR.COM |url=https://www.elespectador.com/opinion/columnistas/gustavo-paez-escobar/historia-de-una-piper-navajo-column/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=ELESPECTADOR.COM |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024316/https://www.elespectador.com/opinion/columnistas/gustavo-paez-escobar/historia-de-una-piper-navajo-column/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>https://www.elespectador.com/el-magazin-cultural/el-documental-de-la-vida-de-carlos-lehder-que-nunca-pudo-ser-article/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024319/https://www.elespectador.com/el-magazin-cultural/el-documental-de-la-vida-de-carlos-lehder-que-nunca-pudo-ser-article/ |date=18 August 2023 }} {{bare URL inline|date=February 2024}}</ref>


Also called ''Man of the world'' and being a fan of [[The Beatles]] and [[The Rolling Stones]], he became a bohemian and highly popular man in Quindío and in the midst of the coffee boom, showing a wealth comparable to any millionaire of the world, something very different from the wealthy classes of the time. Lehder, in turn, owned expensive cars, with license plates so admired by Armenians that it got to the point of betting his license plate numbers in the regional lottery, not forgetting Lehder's charisma, who would employ many people from the region.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-06-17 |title=Cuando Carlos Lehder quiso traer a los Rolling Stones a Armenia |url=https://www.las2orillas.co/cuando-carlos-lehder-quiso-traer-a-los-rolling-stones-a-armenia/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |language=es |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024316/https://www.las2orillas.co/cuando-carlos-lehder-quiso-traer-a-los-rolling-stones-a-armenia/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=García |first=Por Adriana Chica |title=La historia del capo narco fan de John Lennon y Adolf Hilter que fue traicionado por su socio, Pablo Escobar |url=https://www.infobae.com/america/colombia/2018/12/23/la-historia-del-capo-narco-fan-de-john-lennon-y-adolf-hilter-que-fue-traicionado-por-su-socio-pablo-escobar/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=infobae |date=23 December 2018 |language=es-ES |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024319/https://www.infobae.com/america/colombia/2018/12/23/la-historia-del-capo-narco-fan-de-john-lennon-y-adolf-hilter-que-fue-traicionado-por-su-socio-pablo-escobar/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
Inscoe-Johnson argued that Lehder had not been released, despite Internet rumors to the contrary. Inscoe-Johnson's work on Lehder entitled Norman's Cay: The True Story of Carlos Lehder and the Medellin Cartel, details why the author believes that Lehder will never be released. Allegedly, Lehder would be privy to secret information regarding the [[CIA]]'s and his own involvement in the [[Iran-Contra affair]].


=== Participation in the MAS ===
Carlos Lehder's ongoing legal battles confirm Lehder remains imprisoned in the US, and that he is not likely to be released anytime soon. On July 22, 2005 he appeared in the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to contest his sentence. Lehder appeared ''[[pro se]]'', arguing that the United States failed to perform its obligations under a cooperation agreement he had entered into with the United States Attorney's Office, after he held up his end of the deal. (United States v. Lehder-Rivas, 136 Fed. Appx. 324; 2005).
On November 19, 1981, he was kidnapped by the guerrilla movement [[19th of April Movement|M-19]]. Lehder escaped, while being wounded in the leg, and was helped by an unknown person, who not only rejected the million-dollar gratitude offered by Lehder but also did not know the identity of the drug trafficker. The failed kidnapping happened a week after the kidnapping of Martha Nieves Ochoa; which led to the creation of the paramilitary group [[Death to Kidnappers|MAS]]. Lehder offered a million-dollar reward for his ephemeral captors, several of whom had been kidnapped by Escobar for the kidnapping of the younger sister of his partners, who in turn would increase his security measures since then; hiring ex-agents from [[Administrative Department of Security|DAS]], Sijin, army, etc., in addition to buying a luxurious limousine belonging to a former German chancellor with built-in weapons which were never used by Lehder. That limousine was stored in the ''Mónaco'' building and was one of the few surviving vehicles of the attack perpetrated by the [[Cali Cartel]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Semana |date=1983-08-01 |title=El destape de Lehder |url=https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/carlos-lehder-confeso-a-caracol-radio-haberse-lucrado-de-la-bonanza-marimbera/3135/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Semana.com Últimas Noticias de Colombia y el Mundo |language=spanish |archive-date=20 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240520024556/https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/carlos-lehder-confeso-a-caracol-radio-haberse-lucrado-de-la-bonanza-marimbera/3135/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/4015471.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220529181952/https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/4015471.pdf |date=29 May 2022 }} {{bare URL PDF|date=February 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Frenético y extravagante: esta fue la vida del narco Carlos Lehder |url=https://www.kienyke.com/crimen-y-corrupcion/quien-es-carlos-lehder-narco-libre |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=KienyKe |language=es |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024317/https://www.kienyke.com/crimen-y-corrupcion/quien-es-carlos-lehder-narco-libre |url-status=live }}</ref>
In May 2007, he requested the Colombian Supreme Court to order the Colombian government to request from the United States his release because of the violations of his cooperation agreement.
In May 2008, Carlos Lehder's lawyer [[Óscar Arroyave]] declared to [[El Tiempo]] that an [[Habeas corpus]] petition had been filed, alleging that there were violations to his cooperation agreement, and that "a court in Washington" has less than 30 days to respond to the notice.<ref>[http://www.terra.com.co/actualidad/articulo/html/acu11626.htm "Carlos Lehder podría salir libre por cumplimiento de pena", ''Terra Actualidad''] May 22, 2008. </ref> He is also seeking to be part of a prisoner exchange program with the German government.


=== The National Latin Movement ===
==See also==
In 1982, Belisario Betancur is elected president of Colombia. Lehder admired him for his almost homonymous origin since Betancur was a native of [[Amagá]]. After his election, Betancur declared a patrimonial amnesty, which Lehder takes advantage of to legalize his money and assets. In addition, Lehder follows Escobar's example by dabbling in politics by founding the Movimiento Cívico Latino Nacional (National Latin Civic Movement), a political movement based on the principles of [[anti-communism]], [[neo-Nazism]], [[Decolonization|Anti-colonialist]], [[Non-Aligned Movement|Non-Aligned]], [[Anti-fascism]], [[Anti-Zionism]], Anti-Marxist-Leninist, as well as declaring itself Latin American, [[Nationalism|Nationalist]], [[Regionalism (politics)|Regionalist]], Moralist, [[Environmentalism|Ecologist]], [[Bolivarianism|Bolivarian]], Republican, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman and supporter of legalization in favor of a Pan-American union similar to [[NATO]] with its own army and with which it mainly gave speeches against the extradition of Colombians and Latin Americans to American prisons.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Movimiento Latino Nacional de Carlos Lehder. 1981 |url=https://www.proyectopabloescobar.com/2011/05/movimiento-latino-nacional.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |language=es |archive-date=21 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230821134938/https://www.proyectopabloescobar.com/2011/05/movimiento-latino-nacional.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=El Carlos Enrique Lehder que yo conocí |url=https://www.elquindiano.com/noticia/19580/el-carlos-enrique-lehder-que-yo-conoci |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=El Quindiano |date=20 June 2020 |language=es-ES |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180108/https://www.elquindiano.com/noticia/19580/el-carlos-enrique-lehder-que-yo-conoci |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2015-08-11 |title=Carlos Lehder, la historia del 'loco' del Cartel de Medellín |url=https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-16218415 |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=El Tiempo |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180108/https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-16218415 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Semana |date=1987-03-09 |title=El "Loquito" Carlos Lehder |url=https://www.semana.com/quien-es-carlos-lehder-rivas-delitos-aventuras-y-contradicciones/8680/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Semana.com Últimas Noticias de Colombia y el Mundo |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180108/https://www.semana.com/quien-es-carlos-lehder-rivas-delitos-aventuras-y-contradicciones/8680/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>https://www.elespectador.com/el-magazin-cultural/el-documental-de-la-vida-de-carlos-lehder-que-nunca-pudo-ser-article/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024319/https://www.elespectador.com/el-magazin-cultural/el-documental-de-la-vida-de-carlos-lehder-que-nunca-pudo-ser-article/ |date=18 August 2023 }} {{bare URL inline|date=February 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last= |date=2020-06-17 |title=Carlos Lehder era rey de las rutas de cocaína |url=https://juanpaz.net/carlos-lehder-era-rey-de-las-rutas-de-cocaina/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |language=es |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180108/https://juanpaz.net/carlos-lehder-era-rey-de-las-rutas-de-cocaina/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last= |date=2020-06-16 |title=El historial criminal de Carlos Lehder, exnarco del Cartel de Medellín que fue dejado en libertad |url=https://noticias.caracoltv.com/antioquia/el-historial-criminal-de-carlos-lehder-exnarco-del-cartel-de-medellin-que-fue-dejado-en-libertad |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Noticias Caracol |language=es |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180108/https://noticias.caracoltv.com/antioquia/el-historial-criminal-de-carlos-lehder-exnarco-del-cartel-de-medellin-que-fue-dejado-en-libertad |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Semana |date=1984-02-13 |title=LEDHER EN LOS LLANOS |url=https://www.semana.com/ledher-en-los-llanos/4806-3/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Semana.com Últimas Noticias de Colombia y el Mundo |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180107/https://www.semana.com/ledher-en-los-llanos/4806-3/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=El primer alquimista |url=https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/quindio/https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/quindio/el-primer-alquimista |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Cronica del Quindio |language=es-ES }}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Liberaron a Carlos Lehder, el capo narco fan de John Lennon y Adolf Hitler que había sido traicionado por Pablo Escobar |url=https://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2020/06/17/liberaron-a-carlos-lehder-el-capo-narco-fan-de-john-lennon-y-adolf-hitler-que-habia-sido-traicionado-por-pablo-escobar/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=infobae |date=17 June 2020 |language=es-ES |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180107/https://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2020/06/17/liberaron-a-carlos-lehder-el-capo-narco-fan-de-john-lennon-y-adolf-hitler-que-habia-sido-traicionado-por-pablo-escobar/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
*[[Cocaine Cowboys]]
*[[Cali Cartel]]
*[[Norte del Valle Cartel]]
*[[Operation Pseudo Miranda]]
*[[Jorge Luis Ochoa Vázquez]]
*[[José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha]]
fuck


Extradition was by then a controversial issue for most sectors of Colombian society, especially for the members of the Medellín Cartel. Lehder began to be recognized by the US authorities thanks to Ed Worth, a former partner of Norman's Cay and Sears, and Lehder began to be investigated by the prosecutor [[Robert Merkle]] who traveled to Bogotá and presented said evidence before the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia to study his extradition.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.mrt.com/news/amp/Fallecik-Robert-W-Merkle-acusador-de-colombiano-7918382.php | title=Fallecik Robert W. Merkle, acusador de colombiano Lehder | newspaper=Midland Reporter-Telegram | date=7 May 2003 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2003-05-09 |title=Robert Merkle, 58; Tried Big Trafficker (Published 2003) |work=The New York Times |language=en |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/09/us/robert-merkle-58-tried-big-trafficker.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180108/https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/09/us/robert-merkle-58-tried-big-trafficker.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2003-05-09 |title=Robert Merkle, 58; Prosecuted Drug Kingpin |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-may-09-me-merkle9-story.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180107/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-may-09-me-merkle9-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=1987-05-06 |title=Accused Cocaine Kingpin Offering His Cooperation, Prosecutor Says |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-05-06-mn-2484-story.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180108/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-05-06-mn-2484-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
==References==

The newly created National Latin Movement (founded in the Posada Alemana) obtains the support of Luis Fernando Mejía, a renowned Pereiran poet and political mentor. The movement obtains more than 10,000 followers in the department of Quindío and with broad support in small towns and with a significant impact in large cities of the country, although becoming a serious adversary for the departmental political class, however, the origin of its Fortune would draw the attention of the Colombian authorities who would know of his old businesses in Norman's Cay as well as several incidents in Miami due to wars between gangs associated with cocaine trafficking. On the other hand, the recently appointed [[Ministry of Justice (Columbia)|Minister of Justice]] [[Rodrigo Lara Bonilla]] publicly denounced the leaking of "Dineros Calientes" (money of dubious origin) in political movements and in national soccer teams, while several sectors would accuse Lehder of handling illicit money for bribes. The Supreme Court of Justice authorizes Lehder's extradition, although it would have to be signed by President Betancur.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Carlos Lehder: Bonanza y ruina del capo que hizo a Escobar |url=https://www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/2020/carloslehder/index.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Univision |archive-date=21 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230821134055/https://www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/2020/carloslehder/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=El golpe de Carlos Lehder al periodismo caldense |url=https://www.eje21.com.co/2020/06/el-golpe-de-carlos-lehder-al-periodismo-caldense/ |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Eje21 |language=es |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180108/https://www.eje21.com.co/2020/06/el-golpe-de-carlos-lehder-al-periodismo-caldense/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2020-06-21 |title=Carlos Lehder, el preso que simbolizó la lucha de EE.UU. contra el narcotráfico |url=https://www.elpais.com.co/contenido-premium/carlos-lehder-el-preso-que-simbolizo-la-lucha-de-ee-uu-contra-el-narcotrafico.html |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=Noticias de Cali, Valle y Colombia - Periodico: Diario El País |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818024319/https://www.elpais.com.co/contenido-premium/carlos-lehder-el-preso-que-simbolizo-la-lucha-de-ee-uu-contra-el-narcotrafico.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2020-06-25 |title=Carlos Lehder debe responder por crimen de Rodrigo Lara Bonilla |url=https://www.eltiempo.com/justicia/investigacion/carlos-lehder-debe-responder-por-homicidio-de-rodrigo-lara-bonilla-510990 |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=El Tiempo |language=spanish |archive-date=18 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818180107/https://www.eltiempo.com/justicia/investigacion/carlos-lehder-debe-responder-por-homicidio-de-rodrigo-lara-bonilla-510990 |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Downfall ==
{{BLP sources|date=August 2010}}
Their government's approval of the extradition of Colombians encouraged Escobar and Lehder to participate in politics. Lehder founded the National Latino Movement (''Movimiento Latino Nacional'', in Spanish), which managed three congressional seats, and popularized itself by making speeches against extradition.

The April 30, 1984 assassination of [[Rodrigo Lara Bonilla]], the Colombian Minister of Justice, initiated the beginning of the end for Lehder and the Medellín Cartel. Lara had campaigned against the cartel's activities, and his murder marked a change in Colombian politics. President [[Belisario Betancur]], who had previously opposed extraditing any Colombian [[drug lord]]s to the United States, announced that he was now willing to extradite. Lehder was a leading individual on the crackdown list.

Other major Medellín Cartel associates fled to the protection of [[Manuel Noriega]] in Panama, but when Pablo Escobar discovered Noriega was plotting to betray him to the U.S. in return for amnesty, the cartel associates then fled to Nicaragua to seek the assistance of Nicaraguan president [[Daniel Ortega]]. Escobar had paid some of Noriega's closest colonels to inform him of Noriega's intentions.{{cn|date=January 2023}}

Lehder's downfall was assisted by his blatant bribing of Bahamian officials, and the attention the activities on Norman's Cay were attracting.

=== Fugitive, capture, trial, and whereabouts ===
After [[Brian Ross (journalist)|Brian Ross]]'s September 5, 1983 report, on the U.S. television network [[NBC]], made public the corruption of Bahamian government leaders,<ref>{{cite book |last=Ehrenfeld |first=Rachel |title=Evil Money: the Inside Story of Money Laundering and Corruption in Government, Banks and Business |year=1994 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0suNIFdE2fgC |location=New York, NY |publisher=Shapolsky Publishers, Inc. |page=14 |isbn=1-56171-333-3 |access-date=April 13, 2015 |archive-date=20 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240520025601/https://books.google.com/books?id=0suNIFdE2fgC |url-status=live }}</ref> Lehder could not return to Norman's Cay. The government had frozen all his bank accounts and taken over his property and possessions, and he went from being a billionaire to nearly bankrupt. While on the run in the jungle, he got sick with a fever. Escobar sent a helicopter for Lehder and brought him back to Medellín, where he received medical attention to save his life. Even so, he was left very weak. When Lehder recovered, Escobar hired him as a bodyguard.

Eventually, Lehder wanted to rebuild his fortune, but he was captured at a farm he had just established in Colombia, when a new employee of his informed the police of his location. Another hypothesis supported by [[Jhon Jairo Velásquez]], better known as "Popeye", the head assassin of Pablo Escobar, is that fellow members of the Medellín Cartel wanted him out of the picture due to his radical military-like behavior, which they believed would jeopardize their cocaine empire, and so Escobar himself provided Lehder's whereabouts to the police, leading to Lehder's capture.<ref>{{cite book |last=Velásquez Vásquez|first=Jhon Jairo |date=2016 |title=Mi vida como sicario de Pablo Escobar |trans-title=My Life As Pablo Escobar's Hitman |language=es |location=Nashville, Tennessee |publisher=HarperCollins Espanol |isbn=9780718081287 |page=43}}</ref>

Having captured one of the Cartel's most powerful members, the U.S. government used him as a source of information about the details of the Cartel's secret empire, which later proved useful in assisting the Colombian government to dismantle the Cartel. In 1987, Lehder was extradited to [[Jacksonville, Florida]]. He was kept in a holding cell in the federal courthouse, watched by armed officers all hours of the day. In 1988, he was convicted and sentenced to life without parole, plus an additional 135 years. Now all of the other leaders knew what would happen if they too were extradited; soon afterward, the Medellín Cartel began to fracture into separate organizations.

These smaller organizations were left vulnerable to the multi pronged preexisting pressures being applied against the Medellin Cartel. A violent war began as the Medellín Cartel leaders tried to protect themselves by fighting back. Escobar's faction, initially both the most powerful and violent, rapidly disintegrated in the face of attacks by the rival [[Cali Cartel]], Colombian police/army, organs of the U.S. government, and [[Los Pepes|vigilante paramilitaries]].

In 1992, in exchange for Lehder's agreement to testify against [[Manuel Noriega]], his sentence was reduced to a total of 55 years. Three years after that, Lehder wrote a letter to a federal district judge, complaining that the government had reneged on a deal to transfer him to a [[Germany|German]] prison. The letter was construed as a threat against the judge.

Within weeks of sending that letter in the fall of 1995, Lehder was whisked away into the night, according to several protected witnesses at the Mesa Unit in Arizona. According to journalist and author Tamara S. Inscoe-Johnson, who worked on the Lehder defense during the time in question, Lehder was simply transferred to another prison and continued to be held in [[WITSEC]], the U.S. Bureau of Prisons' version of the federal Witness Protection Program. Inscoe-Johnson argued that Lehder had not been released, despite Internet rumors to the contrary.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://tamara-inscoe-johnson.com/work1.htm |title=NORMAN'S CAY: The True Story of Carlos Lehder, the Medellin Cartel, the CIA, and America's War On Drugs |access-date=May 11, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060511231204/http://tamara-inscoe-johnson.com/work1.htm |archive-date=May 11, 2006 |url-status=live }}</ref> Inscoe-Johnson also believed Lehder would never be released: allegedly, he would be privy to secret information regarding the [[CIA]]'s and his own involvement in the [[Iran-Contra affair]].

On July 22, 2005, he appeared in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to contest his sentence. Lehder appeared ''[[pro se]]'', arguing that the United States failed to carry out its obligations under a cooperation agreement he had entered into with the United States Attorney's Office, after he held up his end of the deal. (''United States v. Lehder-Rivas'', 136 Fed. Appx. 324; 2005).

In May 2007, Lehder requested the [[Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia|Supreme Court of Colombia]] and the Colombian government to intervene in order to comply with the extradition agreement established between Colombia and the US, which stated that a maximum sentence of 30 years would be applied to any extradited Colombian citizen. Lehder argued that, having already served 20 years in prison, which corresponded to two-thirds of the 30-year maximum time stated in the treaty, he had completed his legal sentence and should therefore be released.<ref>{{cite news |date=6 July 2007 |title=Noticias de Lehder |url=https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-3628016 |work=El Tiempo |language=es |location=Bogotá |access-date=March 28, 2020 |archive-date=28 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200328194433/https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-3628016 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In May 2008, Lehder's lawyer declared to ''[[El Tiempo (Colombia)|El Tiempo]]'' that a ''[[habeas corpus]]'' petition had been filed, alleging that Lehder's cooperation agreement had been violated and that "a court in Washington" had less than 30 days to respond to the notice.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.terra.com.co/actualidad/articulo/html/acu11626.htm |title=Carlos Lehder podría salir libre por cumplimiento de pena |journal=Terra Actualidad |date=May 22, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716072524/http://www.terra.com.co/actualidad/articulo/html/acu11626.htm |archive-date=2011-07-16 }}</ref>

According to his lawyer, Lehder was transferred to a minimum security prison in Florida. He was visited regularly by family members and had access to TV and a computer with only email access. An article published by ''Cronica Del Quindio'' in January 2015 reported that Lehder could be released and extradited to Germany at any time.

On June 24, 2015, Lehder wrote a letter to then-President of Colombia [[Juan Manuel Santos]], in which he requested mediation with the United States to be allowed to return to Colombia.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.eltiempo.com/contenido/politica/justicia/ARCHIVO/ARCHIVO-16217540-0.pdf|title=Carta de Carlos Lehder al President Juan Manuel Santos|newspaper=El Tiempo|date=June 24, 2015|access-date=11 August 2015|archive-date=24 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924142901/http://www.eltiempo.com/contenido/politica/justicia/ARCHIVO/ARCHIVO-16217540-0.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Lehder was released from prison on June 15, 2020, and escorted to Germany by two US officials on a regular passenger flight from New York to Frankfurt and handed over to German authorities.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/16/carlos-lehder-rivas-medellin-cartel-transferred-germany|title=Medellín cartel co-founder transferred to Germany after prison sentence|newspaper=The Guardian|date=June 16, 2020|via=www.theguardian.com|access-date=17 June 2020|archive-date=20 May 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240520025602/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/16/carlos-lehder-rivas-medellin-cartel-transferred-germany|url-status=live}}</ref> According to declarations made by his daughter, a reason for his release is a relapse of [[prostate cancer]], which had been diagnosed years earlier. A charity in Germany has agreed to pay for treatment.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.semana.com/semana-tv/vicky-en-semana/articulo/carlos-lehder-quedo-libre-en-alemania-confirma-su-hija-monica-lehder/679938|title=Carlos Lehder quedó libre en Alemania, confirma su hija Mónica Lehder|date=16 June 2020|language=es|access-date=17 June 2020|archive-date=17 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617002049/https://www.semana.com/semana-tv/vicky-en-semana/articulo/carlos-lehder-quedo-libre-en-alemania-confirma-su-hija-monica-lehder/679938|url-status=live}}</ref>

== In popular culture ==
===Films===
* In the movie ''[[Blow (film)|Blow]]'' (2001), the character Diego Delgado (played by the Spanish actor [[Jordi Mollà]]), the cellmate of the main character [[George Jung]] at Danbury [[federal prison]], who became Jung's good friend, business partner, and later his nemesis, was based on Carlos Lehder.
* The 2006 documentary film ''{{Lang|es|El Mágico}}'' (The Magic One), directed by Camilo Martín Ortiz, it tells Lehder's life, with several testimonies from people who knew him, and archive images and footages from newscasts, newspapers and magazines, and 2001 film ''Blow''.<ref>https://proimagenescolombia.com/secciones/cine_colombiano/peliculas_colombianas/pelicula_plantilla.php?id_pelicula=465</ref><ref>https://www.elespectador.com/el-magazin-cultural/el-documental-de-la-vida-de-carlos-lehder-que-nunca-pudo-ser-article/</ref>

===Television===
* In the 2012 Caracol Televisión series ''[[Escobar, el Patrón del Mal]]'' (''Pablo Escobar: The Boss of Evil''), Lehder is portrayed as Marcos Herber (by the Colombian actor and singer [[Alejandro Martínez (actor)|Alejandro Martínez]]).
* [[Investigation Discovery]]'s ''Manhunt: Kill or Capture'' episode, "Colombian Rambo" (August 26, 2015), features the story of Carlos Lehder's rise and fall.<ref>{{cite web|website=TVGuide|url=http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/manhunt-kill-or-capture/episode-3-season-1/colombian-rambo/829868/|title=''Manhunt: Kill or Capture'' - Colombian Rambo|date=August 26, 2016|access-date=8 September 2016|archive-date=11 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161011122422/http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/manhunt-kill-or-capture/episode-3-season-1/colombian-rambo/829868/|url-status=live}}</ref>
* In the [[RCN Televisión]] TV Series (produced by [[RTI Producciones]]) ''[[Tres Caínes]]'', is portrayed by Julián Beltrán as the character of Marcos Fender.
* In TV series ''[[Alias El Mexicano]]'' is portrayed by Andrés Aramburo.
* In the [[Netflix]] original drama/action television mini-series ''[[Narcos]]'' (2015), which follows drug kingpin [[Pablo Escobar]] as well as the ruthless [[Medellín Cartel]], Lehder is portrayed by [[Juan Riedinger]].
* In the 2017 film ''[[American Made (film)|American Made]]'', he was portrayed by Fredy Yate Escobar.

===Videogames===
* In the 2020 DLC for ''[[Grand Theft Auto Online]]'': ''The Cayo Perico Heist'', the main antagonist Juan "El Rubio" Strickler is of Colombian-German descent and his drug operation is also based on an island in the Caribbean.

== See also ==
* ''[[Cocaine Cowboys (2006 film)|Cocaine Cowboys]]''

== References ==
{{Reflist}}
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://revistas.elheraldo.co/latitud/carlos-lehder-25-anos-despues-73855 ''Carlos Lehder, 25 años después''] ''[[El Heraldo (Colombia)|El Heraldo]]'' (in Spanish, July 7, 2012)
* [http://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticia-completa-titulo-supuesta_libertad_de_carlos_ledher_fue_desmentida_desde_armenia-seccion-la_judicial-nota-84087.htm ''Supuesta libertad de Carlos Ledher fue desmentida desde Armenia''] ''La Crónica del Quinio'' (in Spanish, Jan 15, 2015)
* {{Internet Archive|SHOTGUNS_201708|Lehder's estate in ''Shotguns and Accordions: Music of the Marijuana Growing Regions of Colombia, 1983'' video}} (timestamp: 39 minutes)

{{Authority control}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehder, Carlos}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehder, Carlos}}
[[Category:Medellín Cartel traffickers]]
[[Category:1949 births]]
[[Category:Disappeared people]]
[[Category:Colombian drug traffickers]]
[[Category:1950 births]]
[[Category:Colombian crime bosses]]
[[Category:Mob bosses]]
[[Category:Colombian people of German descent]]
[[Category:Colombian drug lords]]
[[Category:Colombian people imprisoned abroad]]
[[Category:Colombian people imprisoned abroad]]
[[Category:Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States federal government]]
[[Category:Colombian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment]]
[[Category:Colombian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment]]
[[Category:Fugitives wanted on organised crime charges]]

[[Category:German drug traffickers]]
[[de:Carlos Lehder Rivas]]
[[Category:German prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment]]
[[es:Carlos Lehder]]
[[fr:Carlos Lehder]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Medellín Cartel traffickers]]
[[it:Carlos Lehder]]
[[Category:Neo-Nazis convicted of crimes]]
[[nl:Carlos Lehder]]
[[Category:People deported from the United States]]
[[pt:Carlos Lehder]]
[[Category:People extradited from Colombia to the United States]]
[[Category:People from Armenia, Colombia]]
[[Category:Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States federal government]]

Latest revision as of 01:18, 27 December 2024

Carlos Lehder
Mugshot of Carlos Lehder after his extradition in 1987.
Born
Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas

(1949-09-07) 7 September 1949 (age 75)
NationalityColombian, German
Other namesEl Loco (The Madman)
Henry Ford of cocaine[1] 'Rambo' González[2]
OccupationDrug trafficker
Criminal statusReleased from prison 16 June 2020, after more than 33 years and 4 months in captivity.
ChildrenDiana Lehder[6]

Maria Del Mar Lehder[6]

Mónica Lehder García (1983)[7][8]
Parent(s)Klaus Wilhelm Rudolf Lehder[3][4]
Helena Rivas[5]
Criminal chargedrug trafficking
PenaltyLife imprisonment plus 135 years; commuted to 55 years in prison

Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas (born 7 September 1949)[9] is a Colombian and German former drug lord who was co-founder of the Medellín Cartel. Born to a German father and Colombian mother,[10] he was the first high-level drug trafficker extradited to the United States, after which he was released from prison in the United States after 33 years in 2020.[11][12] Originally from Armenia, Colombia, Lehder eventually ran a cocaine transport empire on Norman's Cay island, 210 miles (340 km) off the Florida coast in the central Bahamas.[11][13]

Lehder was one of the founding members of Muerte a Secuestradores ("MAS"), a paramilitary group whose focus was to retaliate against the kidnappings of cartel members and their families[11] by the guerrillas.[14][15][16][17] His motivation to join the MAS was to retaliate against the M-19 guerrilla movement, which, in November 1981, attempted to kidnap him for a ransom; Lehder managed to escape from the kidnappers, though he was shot in the leg.[18] He was one of the most important MAS and Medellin Cartel operators, and is considered to be one of the most important Colombian drug kingpins to have been successfully prosecuted in the United States.

Additionally, Lehder "founded a neo-Nazi political party, the National Latin Movement, whose main function, police said, appeared to be to force Colombia to abrogate its extradition treaty with the United States."[19]

Early life

Carlos Lehder is of mixed German-Colombian descent. His father, Klaus Wilhelm Lehder, was an engineer who emigrated from Germany to Armenia, Colombia in 1928, where he participated in the construction of several buildings which had elevators, a rather modern and unusual characteristic at that place and time. When he married Helena Rivas, former beauty queen and the daughter of a jeweller from Manizales, Caldas, he changed his name to Guillermo Lehder. Guillermo and Helena had four sons, with Carlos Enrique, born on 7 September 1949, being the third.

In Armenia, Colombia, the family owned a small inn called Pensión Alemana (which would later inspire Carlos to have his own luxurious Posada Alemana hotel), where German immigrants would regularly meet. They also ran a small business producing vegetable oils and importing luxury goods such as wine and canned foods. In 1943, following intelligence reports from the United States, the Lehders, along with many Germans in Colombia, were suspected of ideological links with the Nazis and were investigated. The Pensión Alemana was alleged to have been a place where Nazis gathered intelligence.

Carlos grew up in Armenia, Colombia until his parents divorced when he was 15, after which he emigrated with his mother to New York in the United States.[20]

Criminal career

Early activities and prison

Lehder dropped out of school to devote himself to reading books by authors such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Hermann Hesse, while maintaining admiration for Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.[21][22][23]

Lehder started out selling stolen cars and smuggling them to Colombia, where the vehicles arrived in Medellín, avoiding all customs, and were then trafficked by Lehder's brother. At the age of 24, Lehder took aviation classes, becoming an expert pilot who would know several air routes, which served as the basis for his growing criminal career, which began with small-quantity marijuana trafficking between the United States and Canada.[24] While serving a sentence for car theft in federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut,[25] Lehder decided that, upon his release, he would take advantage of the burgeoning market for cocaine in the United States. To that goal, he enlisted his prison bunkmate, former marijuana dealer George Jung, as a future partner.[26] Jung had experience flying marijuana to the U.S. from Mexico in small aircraft, staying below radar level, and landing on dry lake beds. Inspired by the idea, Lehder decided to apply the principle to cocaine transport and formed a partnership with Jung.[27] While in prison, Lehder set out to learn as much information as possible that could be useful to him in the cocaine business. He would sometimes even spend hours questioning fellow inmates about money laundering and smuggling. Jung allegedly said that Lehder kept countless files and constantly took notes. Lehder's ultimate scheme was to revolutionize the cocaine trade by transporting the drug to the United States using small aircraft.[28]

Early cocaine career

Roman Varone and Jung had already experimented with bringing marijuana into the United States from Mexico in small aircraft below radar range and landing in dry riverbeds. Inspired by that idea, Lehder decided to apply the same principle to drug transport. Lehder's dream was to have a huge resort for people like himself and in turn bring justice to his native Colombia. After Lehder and Jung were released (both were paroled but Lehder was deported to Colombia), they built up a small revenue stream through simple, traditional drug smuggling. Specifically, they enlisted two young women who were US citizens to take a vacation to Antigua, receive cocaine, and carry it back with them to the U.S. in their suitcases. Repeating this process several times, Lehder and Jung soon had enough money for an airplane.[29][30]

Using a small stolen plane and a professional pilot, the pair began to fly cocaine into the United States via the Bahamas, in the process increasing their financial resources and building connections and trust with Colombian suppliers, while spreading money around among Bahamian government officials for political and judicial protection. Their unconventional method of drug-smuggling began to gain credibility. Although the business had serious setbacks due to constant robberies by common criminals in the US, marijuana trafficking; which was in a bonanza, came to an end due to the intense police operations in Colombia and the reduction in income due to the cultivation of marijuana in the US, which would prelude its beginnings in cocaine trafficking, a more profitable business with options easy to transport.[31][32]

Lehder and his partners in the Cartel would amass enormous fortunes through cocaine trafficking, which is why they were nicknamed Los Mágicos (The Magicians), because they had become rich overnight, although Lehder was better known as the Henry Ford of cocaine.[33]

Norman's Cay

Carlos Lehder (left) snorting cocaine with former prison mate Steven Yakovac on Norman's Cay (1976)

In the late 1970s, the Lehder-Jung partnership began to diverge, due to some combination of Lehder's megalomania and his secret scheming to secure a personal Bahamian island as an all-purpose headquarters for his operations.[27]

The wreckage of a Curtiss C-46 Commando that crashed in shallow water at Norman's Cay in November 1980 (1999)
The wreckage of a Curtiss C-46 Commando that crashed in shallow water at Norman's Cay in November 1980 (1999)

That island was Norman's Cay, which at that point consisted of a marina, a yacht club, approximately 100 private homes, and an airstrip.[34][13] In 1978, Lehder began buying up property and harassing and threatening the island's residents; at one point, a yacht was found drifting off the coast with the corpse of one of its owners aboard. Lehder is estimated to have spent $4.5 million on the island in total.[35]

Norman's Cay in 1981

As Lehder paid or forced the local population to leave, and began to assume total control of the island, Norman's Cay became his lawless private fiefdom, after allegedly bribing the Prime Minister of the Bahamas Lynden Pindling.[36][37][38] By this time, he had forced Jung out of the operation, and international criminal financier Robert Vesco had allegedly become a partner. Jung used his prior connections to take up a more modest line of independent smuggling for Pablo Escobar and stayed out of Lehder's way.[27]

From 1978 through 1982, the Cay was the Caribbean's main drug-smuggling hub, and a tropical hideaway and playground for Lehder and associates. They flew cocaine in from Colombia on all sorts of aircraft able to land fully loaded on the airstrip, reloaded it into various small aircraft, and then distributed it to locations in Georgia, Florida,[35] and the Carolinas.[28] Lehder was believed to have kept one kilo out of every four that was transported through Norman's Cay.[11]

Lehder expanded a runway to 3,300-foot (1,000 m), protected by radar, bodyguards, and Doberman attack dogs for the fleet of aircraft under his command, the island also had the Colombian flag and its National Anthem of Colombia was usually sung.[34][11][13][39] At the height of his operation, 300 kilograms[40] of cocaine would arrive on the island daily, and Lehder's wealth mounted into the billions. He accumulated such staggering wealth that on two occasions he offered to pay the Colombian external debt. In 1978, he made an offer to do so to President Alfonso López Michelsen, in exchange for a free space for drug trafficking. In 1982, through Pablo Escobar, who was a Colombian Congressman at the time, Lehder did so again, this time in an attempt to prevent his extradition.[41][42][43] In 1981, the DEA and the Bahamas police intervened on the island dismantling the empire built by Lehder, who escaped capture and said goodbye to the island on July 10, 1982 by bombing with pamphlets Clifford Park in Nassau with the phrase DEA go home, some of those pamphlets with $100 bills.[44][45][46]

Return to Colombia

Lehder returned to Colombia where, in addition to resuming his business, he was recognized for giving the government of Quindío a modern plane Piper PA-31 Navajo for the time. Such a gift caught the attention of the authorities and the public because despite being used on several occasions, its high cost overruns forced its sale a year after it was legalized. It is believed that the plane had been secretly repurchased by Lehder taking advantage of its legalization, and said plane would travel anywhere in Colombia unnoticed, while the money given to the government for the sale of the aircraft was used to improve a hospital for the less favored classes, and mysteriously the plane would return to the El Eden airport in Armenia in poor condition.[47][48][49][50][51]

Also called Man of the world and being a fan of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, he became a bohemian and highly popular man in Quindío and in the midst of the coffee boom, showing a wealth comparable to any millionaire of the world, something very different from the wealthy classes of the time. Lehder, in turn, owned expensive cars, with license plates so admired by Armenians that it got to the point of betting his license plate numbers in the regional lottery, not forgetting Lehder's charisma, who would employ many people from the region.[52][53]

Participation in the MAS

On November 19, 1981, he was kidnapped by the guerrilla movement M-19. Lehder escaped, while being wounded in the leg, and was helped by an unknown person, who not only rejected the million-dollar gratitude offered by Lehder but also did not know the identity of the drug trafficker. The failed kidnapping happened a week after the kidnapping of Martha Nieves Ochoa; which led to the creation of the paramilitary group MAS. Lehder offered a million-dollar reward for his ephemeral captors, several of whom had been kidnapped by Escobar for the kidnapping of the younger sister of his partners, who in turn would increase his security measures since then; hiring ex-agents from DAS, Sijin, army, etc., in addition to buying a luxurious limousine belonging to a former German chancellor with built-in weapons which were never used by Lehder. That limousine was stored in the Mónaco building and was one of the few surviving vehicles of the attack perpetrated by the Cali Cartel.[54][55][56]

The National Latin Movement

In 1982, Belisario Betancur is elected president of Colombia. Lehder admired him for his almost homonymous origin since Betancur was a native of Amagá. After his election, Betancur declared a patrimonial amnesty, which Lehder takes advantage of to legalize his money and assets. In addition, Lehder follows Escobar's example by dabbling in politics by founding the Movimiento Cívico Latino Nacional (National Latin Civic Movement), a political movement based on the principles of anti-communism, neo-Nazism, Anti-colonialist, Non-Aligned, Anti-fascism, Anti-Zionism, Anti-Marxist-Leninist, as well as declaring itself Latin American, Nationalist, Regionalist, Moralist, Ecologist, Bolivarian, Republican, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman and supporter of legalization in favor of a Pan-American union similar to NATO with its own army and with which it mainly gave speeches against the extradition of Colombians and Latin Americans to American prisons.[57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66]

Extradition was by then a controversial issue for most sectors of Colombian society, especially for the members of the Medellín Cartel. Lehder began to be recognized by the US authorities thanks to Ed Worth, a former partner of Norman's Cay and Sears, and Lehder began to be investigated by the prosecutor Robert Merkle who traveled to Bogotá and presented said evidence before the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia to study his extradition.[67][68][69][70]

The newly created National Latin Movement (founded in the Posada Alemana) obtains the support of Luis Fernando Mejía, a renowned Pereiran poet and political mentor. The movement obtains more than 10,000 followers in the department of Quindío and with broad support in small towns and with a significant impact in large cities of the country, although becoming a serious adversary for the departmental political class, however, the origin of its Fortune would draw the attention of the Colombian authorities who would know of his old businesses in Norman's Cay as well as several incidents in Miami due to wars between gangs associated with cocaine trafficking. On the other hand, the recently appointed Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla publicly denounced the leaking of "Dineros Calientes" (money of dubious origin) in political movements and in national soccer teams, while several sectors would accuse Lehder of handling illicit money for bribes. The Supreme Court of Justice authorizes Lehder's extradition, although it would have to be signed by President Betancur.[71][72][73][74]

Downfall

Their government's approval of the extradition of Colombians encouraged Escobar and Lehder to participate in politics. Lehder founded the National Latino Movement (Movimiento Latino Nacional, in Spanish), which managed three congressional seats, and popularized itself by making speeches against extradition.

The April 30, 1984 assassination of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, the Colombian Minister of Justice, initiated the beginning of the end for Lehder and the Medellín Cartel. Lara had campaigned against the cartel's activities, and his murder marked a change in Colombian politics. President Belisario Betancur, who had previously opposed extraditing any Colombian drug lords to the United States, announced that he was now willing to extradite. Lehder was a leading individual on the crackdown list.

Other major Medellín Cartel associates fled to the protection of Manuel Noriega in Panama, but when Pablo Escobar discovered Noriega was plotting to betray him to the U.S. in return for amnesty, the cartel associates then fled to Nicaragua to seek the assistance of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega. Escobar had paid some of Noriega's closest colonels to inform him of Noriega's intentions.[citation needed]

Lehder's downfall was assisted by his blatant bribing of Bahamian officials, and the attention the activities on Norman's Cay were attracting.

Fugitive, capture, trial, and whereabouts

After Brian Ross's September 5, 1983 report, on the U.S. television network NBC, made public the corruption of Bahamian government leaders,[75] Lehder could not return to Norman's Cay. The government had frozen all his bank accounts and taken over his property and possessions, and he went from being a billionaire to nearly bankrupt. While on the run in the jungle, he got sick with a fever. Escobar sent a helicopter for Lehder and brought him back to Medellín, where he received medical attention to save his life. Even so, he was left very weak. When Lehder recovered, Escobar hired him as a bodyguard.

Eventually, Lehder wanted to rebuild his fortune, but he was captured at a farm he had just established in Colombia, when a new employee of his informed the police of his location. Another hypothesis supported by Jhon Jairo Velásquez, better known as "Popeye", the head assassin of Pablo Escobar, is that fellow members of the Medellín Cartel wanted him out of the picture due to his radical military-like behavior, which they believed would jeopardize their cocaine empire, and so Escobar himself provided Lehder's whereabouts to the police, leading to Lehder's capture.[76]

Having captured one of the Cartel's most powerful members, the U.S. government used him as a source of information about the details of the Cartel's secret empire, which later proved useful in assisting the Colombian government to dismantle the Cartel. In 1987, Lehder was extradited to Jacksonville, Florida. He was kept in a holding cell in the federal courthouse, watched by armed officers all hours of the day. In 1988, he was convicted and sentenced to life without parole, plus an additional 135 years. Now all of the other leaders knew what would happen if they too were extradited; soon afterward, the Medellín Cartel began to fracture into separate organizations.

These smaller organizations were left vulnerable to the multi pronged preexisting pressures being applied against the Medellin Cartel. A violent war began as the Medellín Cartel leaders tried to protect themselves by fighting back. Escobar's faction, initially both the most powerful and violent, rapidly disintegrated in the face of attacks by the rival Cali Cartel, Colombian police/army, organs of the U.S. government, and vigilante paramilitaries.

In 1992, in exchange for Lehder's agreement to testify against Manuel Noriega, his sentence was reduced to a total of 55 years. Three years after that, Lehder wrote a letter to a federal district judge, complaining that the government had reneged on a deal to transfer him to a German prison. The letter was construed as a threat against the judge.

Within weeks of sending that letter in the fall of 1995, Lehder was whisked away into the night, according to several protected witnesses at the Mesa Unit in Arizona. According to journalist and author Tamara S. Inscoe-Johnson, who worked on the Lehder defense during the time in question, Lehder was simply transferred to another prison and continued to be held in WITSEC, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons' version of the federal Witness Protection Program. Inscoe-Johnson argued that Lehder had not been released, despite Internet rumors to the contrary.[77] Inscoe-Johnson also believed Lehder would never be released: allegedly, he would be privy to secret information regarding the CIA's and his own involvement in the Iran-Contra affair.

On July 22, 2005, he appeared in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to contest his sentence. Lehder appeared pro se, arguing that the United States failed to carry out its obligations under a cooperation agreement he had entered into with the United States Attorney's Office, after he held up his end of the deal. (United States v. Lehder-Rivas, 136 Fed. Appx. 324; 2005).

In May 2007, Lehder requested the Supreme Court of Colombia and the Colombian government to intervene in order to comply with the extradition agreement established between Colombia and the US, which stated that a maximum sentence of 30 years would be applied to any extradited Colombian citizen. Lehder argued that, having already served 20 years in prison, which corresponded to two-thirds of the 30-year maximum time stated in the treaty, he had completed his legal sentence and should therefore be released.[78]

In May 2008, Lehder's lawyer declared to El Tiempo that a habeas corpus petition had been filed, alleging that Lehder's cooperation agreement had been violated and that "a court in Washington" had less than 30 days to respond to the notice.[79]

According to his lawyer, Lehder was transferred to a minimum security prison in Florida. He was visited regularly by family members and had access to TV and a computer with only email access. An article published by Cronica Del Quindio in January 2015 reported that Lehder could be released and extradited to Germany at any time.

On June 24, 2015, Lehder wrote a letter to then-President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, in which he requested mediation with the United States to be allowed to return to Colombia.[80]

Lehder was released from prison on June 15, 2020, and escorted to Germany by two US officials on a regular passenger flight from New York to Frankfurt and handed over to German authorities.[81] According to declarations made by his daughter, a reason for his release is a relapse of prostate cancer, which had been diagnosed years earlier. A charity in Germany has agreed to pay for treatment.[82]

Films

  • In the movie Blow (2001), the character Diego Delgado (played by the Spanish actor Jordi Mollà), the cellmate of the main character George Jung at Danbury federal prison, who became Jung's good friend, business partner, and later his nemesis, was based on Carlos Lehder.
  • The 2006 documentary film El Mágico (The Magic One), directed by Camilo Martín Ortiz, it tells Lehder's life, with several testimonies from people who knew him, and archive images and footages from newscasts, newspapers and magazines, and 2001 film Blow.[83][84]

Television

Videogames

  • In the 2020 DLC for Grand Theft Auto Online: The Cayo Perico Heist, the main antagonist Juan "El Rubio" Strickler is of Colombian-German descent and his drug operation is also based on an island in the Caribbean.

See also

References

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