41 Facts About Carlos Lehder

Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas was born on 7 September 1949 and is a Colombian and German former drug lord who was co-founder of the Medellin Cartel.

Originally from Armenia, Colombia, Lehder eventually ran a cocaine transport empire on Norman's Cay island, 210 miles off the Florida coast in the central Bahamas.

Carlos Lehder was one of the founding members of Muerte a Secuestradores, a paramilitary group whose focus was to retaliate against the kidnappings of cartel members and their families by the guerrillas.

Carlos Lehder 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.

Carlos Lehder's 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.

Guillermo and Helena had four sons, with Carlos Lehder Enrique, born on 7 September 1949, being the third.

Carlos Lehder 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.

Carlos Lehder dropped out of school to devote himself to reading books by authors such as Niccolo Machiavelli and Hermann Hesse, while maintaining admiration for Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Carlos Lehder started out selling stolen cars and smuggling them to Colombia, where the vehicles arrived in Medellin, avoiding all customs, and were then trafficked by Carlos Lehder's brother.

At the age of 24, Carlos 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.

Jung allegedly said that Carlos Lehder kept countless files and constantly took notes.

Carlos Lehder's dream was to have a huge resort for people like himself and in turn bring justice to his native Colombia.

In 1978, Carlos 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.

Carlos Lehder is estimated to have spent $4.5 million on the island in total.

Carlos Lehder was believed to have kept one kilo out of every four that was transported through Norman's Cay.

Carlos Lehder expanded a runway to 3,300-foot, protected by radar, bodyguards, and Doberman attack dogs for the fleet of aircraft under his command.

At the height of his operation, 300 kilograms of cocaine would arrive on the island daily, and Carlos Lehder's wealth mounted into the billions.

Carlos Lehder accumulated such staggering wealth that on two occasions he offered to pay the Colombian external debt.

In 1982, through Pablo Escobar, who was a Colombian Congressman at the time, Carlos Lehder did so again, this time in an attempt to prevent his extradition.

In 1981, the DEA and the Bahamas police intervened on the island dismantling the empire built by Carlos Lehder, who escaped capture and said goodbye to the island on July 10,1982, by bombing Clifford Park in Nassau with pamphlets with the phrase DEA go home written on them.

Carlos Lehder returned to Colombia where, in addition to resuming his business, he was recognized for giving the government of Quindio a modern plane Piper PA-31 Navajo for the time.

Carlos 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 Carlos Lehder's charisma, who would employ many people from the region.

Carlos 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 Carlos Lehder but did not know the identity of the drug trafficker.

Carlos 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.

Carlos Lehder admired him for his almost homonymous origin since Betancur was a native of Amaga.

Carlos Lehder began to be recognized by the US authorities thanks to Ed Worth, a former partner of Norman's Cay and Sears, and Carlos Lehder began to be investigated by the prosecutor Robert Merkle who traveled to Bogota and presented said evidence before the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia to study his extradition.

Carlos Lehder founded the National Latino Movement, which managed three congressional seats, and popularized itself by making speeches against extradition.

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

Escobar sent a helicopter for Carlos Lehder and brought him back to Medellin, where he received medical attention to save his life.

Carlos Lehder was kept in a holding cell in the federal courthouse, watched by armed officers all hours of the day.

Three years after that, Carlos 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.

Inscoe-Johnson argued that Carlos Lehder had not been released, despite Internet rumors to the contrary.

Carlos 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.

In May 2007, Carlos 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.

Carlos 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.

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

Carlos Lehder 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 Carlos Lehder could be released and extradited to Germany at any time.

On June 24,2015, Carlos 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.

Carlos 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.

When Carlos Lehder flew from Germany to Colombia on 28 March 2025, he was immediately arrested upon arrival at the Bogota airport.