Carlos Lehder

Carlos Lehder (born September 7, 1949, Armenia, Colombia) is a Colombian-German drug smuggler, a leader in the powerful Medellín drug cartel, who was credited with revolutionizing the transportation network for delivering cocaine to the United States by vastly increasing the volume of smuggled drugs. It was estimated that Lehder’s network supplied as much as 80 percent of the cocaine that arrived in the United States in the 1980s.

Lehder, whose father was a German immigrant, spent his childhood in Colombia but moved to the United States in his teens. He began smuggling stolen cars, operating in Canada and on the American east coast, and was sometimes involved in the delivery of marijuana. These activities led to his 1974 incarceration in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. There he was housed with George Jung, who had established an operation using airplanes to bring marijuana into the United States. By Jung’s account, Lehder persuaded him that importing cocaine by airplane would be significantly more lucrative, and upon their release in 1976 the two went into business together, transporting the drug from Medellín, Colombia, to the United States. Within a few years, however, Lehder sidelined Jung in the business.

In 1978 Lehder began using the Bahamian island of Norman’s Cay as a transshipment point, from which planes laden with cocaine would fly to abandoned airstrips in Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina. He bribed government officials and either bought out or frightened away the residents of the island, making it his own headquarters. He enlarged the runway, which was fully devoted to the extremely profitable cocaine trade. It was estimated that he made as much as $300 million a year, which fueled his lavish lifestyle. Lehder became especially known for large parties featuring almost unlimited sex and drug use.

In 1982, however, authorities in the Bahamas, reportedly pressured by the United States, began cracking down on the drug smuggling in Norman’s Cay, and Lehder was forced to end his operations there. He returned to his hometown of Armenia, Colombia, where he built an estate. He was known for his admiration of Adolf Hitler and of John Lennon, and he founded a short-lived political party, the National Latin Movement, that was described as fascist-populist but that also sought the abrogation of the 1979 extradition treaty between Colombia and the United States. He reportedly fell from favour with Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medellín cartel. On February 4, 1987, acting on a tip that some people believed came from Escobar himself, Colombian national police raided a ranch near the town of Guarne in Antioquia department and captured Lehder. Within hours he was sent to the United States, which had sought his arrest since 1979.

Lehder went on trial in October 1987 in Jacksonville, Florida, on charges of conspiracy and running a criminal enterprise as well as other charges related to the importation and sale of cocaine. The trial continued until May 1988, when he was convicted on all counts. He was later sentenced to life without parole and an additional 135 years in prison. In 1991, however, Lehder testified against Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, saying that Noriega had allowed Panama to be used as a transshipment conduit for the cartel’s cocaine smuggling operations. In return, Lehder’s sentence was reduced to 55 years. Beginning in 2005, Lehder made pleas to various government entities in the United States and Colombia, saying that he was now entitled to be released under the agreement he had made in 1991, but he remained in prison until 2020. He was then deported to Germany, where he held citizenship through his father.