Carlos Lehder
| Carlos Lehder | |
|---|---|
Profile picture
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| Born |
Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas September 7, 1949 Armenia, Colombia |
| Nationality | Colombian, German |
| Occupation | Drug trafficker Medellín Cartel, |
| Criminal charge | murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated |
Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas or simply Carlos Lehder (born September 7, 1949) is a co-founder of the Medellin Cartel and former Colombian drug lord. He is currently released from United States. Born in 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.
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 by the guerrillas. His motivation to join the MAS was to retaliate against the M-19 guerrilla movement, which, on November 19, 1981 attempted to kidnap him for a ransom, but he escaped from the kidnappers, and they only managed to shoot him in the leg. 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."
Lehder is of mixed German-Colombian descent; his father a German engineer and mother a Colombian schoolteacher. The family owned a semi-legitimate used car business in the Medellín area in which Carlos got his start as a criminal, by supplying it with stolen American cars.
Lehder started out as a stolen car dealer, a marijuana dealer, and a smuggler of stolen cars between the U.S. 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. To that end, he enlisted his prison bunkmate, former marijuana dealer George Jung, as a future partner. 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. 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.
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