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to understand for many years, he had the support of the Colombian government A violent war began as the Medelln Cartel leaders tried to protect themselves by fighting back. She retired Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. the most important ingredient of the whole pie. empty house that Fred had somewhere in Lauderdale. WGBH educational foundation. Image courtesy of Ron Chepesiuk. Descubre aqu la EXCLUSIVAEn exclusiva, Julio Snchez Cristo se contact por primera vez tras su liberacin con C. And when you leave out of Lehder is estimated to have spent $4.5 million on the island in total. He will make promises that, yes, we can bring the Carlos' father was a German national who emigrated to Columbia and worked as an engineer on various buildings in . trade. up with techniques that would make our operation more smooth, more productive, The content here may be outdated or no longer functioning. Why they didn't, I don't understand because DEA know about the operations. We would Does that He returned to his hometown of Armenia, Colombia, where he built an estate. He always, at the very last minute, when we were ready to . And he never did. Life imprisonment plus 135 years; commuted to 55 years in prison, This page was last edited on 26 March 2023, at 16:02. On July 22, 2005, he appeared in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to contest his sentence. That was always the greatest fear. not the only transportation source they had. the cartel and plan the activities of the day. "Or hell, in the end." Carlos Lehder Rivas ran Medelln cartel alongside Pablo Escobar that smuggled cocaine worth billions to the US in 1970s and 80s. the airplane, the plane hasn't even stopped taxiing on the runway, and this Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). His admiration for Hitler also shone through. Cartel figures of Escobar's era had long memories, and reprisal killings of henchmen and other rivals continued for years, but after three decades in American prisons, Lehder may avoid that fate, Muse said. 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. No, it's an underestimation. [26], 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. money, I would take suitcases of money: $600,000, $1,000,000, $1,200,000, and I Wichita, Kansas, negotiate with the airlines manufacturer about putting an very skeptical. I had my closest friend as my ally. Lehder's daughter, Mnica, told Colombian magazine Semana that he had been diagnosed with cancer and would be taken care of by a German charity as he had no relatives in the country. [17] Lehder was believed to have kept one kilo out of every four that was transported through Norman's Cay. Escobar sent a helicopter for Lehder and brought him back to Medelln, where he received medical attention to save his life. Carlos Lehder Rivas was at a Medellin Cartel party, snorting cocaine and amusing himself in the company of a prostitute when one of Pablo Escobar's hitmen had the temerity to knock on the door. As Jung told High Times in 2015, "Walter Cronkite showed up there, and these thugs came with machine guns and told him, 'You better leave.' Mike Vigil, former director of international operations at the US Drug Enforcement Administration, interviewed Lehder at a US prison soon after his arrest in 1987 and said his intelligence was immediately apparent. Now all of the other leaders knew what would happen if they too were extradited; soon afterward, the Medelln Cartel began to fracture into separate organizations. In this episode of Behind The Mask we dive into some of the most interesting evil lair ever to exist (or to be made up). 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. Shaped By Adolf Hitler And John Lennon. Omissions? In the 1980s he rose to the top of the ranks of the legendary Chokoloskee, Florida illegal import conspiracy. Living in New York City, he got involved in petty crime and was eventually arrested for car theft, which landed him in federal prison in Connecticut, where his cellmate was George Jung, a fellow smuggler and subject of the movie "Blow.". The entire statement amounts to a confession, said U.S. Attorney Robert W. Merkle, when discussing a section of the radio transcript that dealt with Lehders activities on the island of Normans Cay in the Bahamas. And I will meet with pilots and engineers, trying to come There was never a question about the money being there and every penny being There is no question in my mind that the Ochoas Sign up for notifications from Insider! NOW WATCH: Pablo Escobar: The life and death of one of the biggest cocaine kingpins in history, Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The only thing Pablo Escobar had was wholesale violence," Vigil added. Then we fly an American airplane out of Florida somewhere, I'm relaxed and in peace to know that he's well, despite his illness," she told Semana (in Spanish). Lehder apologized to Escobar, the body was disposed of and, of course, the party went on. . In an interview with George Jung, he was asked how he became a marijuana dealer, and how did . There is one thing about the Colombian drug trade. Legitimate businesses? legitimate. I knew they were big people and they were [15] Jung had experience flying marijuana to the U.S. from Mexico in small aircraft, staying below radar level, and landing on dry lake beds. No. Once we But Vigil, noting the lucrative European drug trade, was skeptical Lehder would settle into retirement. languages, and he knew I could go and hold the prime minister's hand and make campaign, statements that he made. tons, and I'm talking not 20 or 30 tons, but tons and tons of cocaine to this Carlos went crazy. Fred Graves, knowing intimately my The best Podcast API to search all podcasts and episodes. So Carlos is on the run. He also played. masqueraded the whole thing so we looked pretty clean. But on Norman's Cay, Lehder's instability, fueled by cocaine, came to the fore. insignificant to me, the Ochoas. The load is secure in Ocala, Florida, - Foto: SEMANA. jibe with your experience, or is that an underestimation? But he was a very, very instrumental help in getting monies back and forth. Carlos Lehder Escobar gave up Lehder to the Colombian government, Vigil told Insider in 2017 though Escobar, before his mysterious death in 1993, denied doing so and he was captured on a ranch early on February 4, 1987. went into hiding, and they continued operating after I joined DEA. 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,[19] and the Carolinas. And Gacha for a while, but he disappeared. Three years later Crazy Charlie entered a plea deal with US authorities. out of his own country. No specific names. . 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 cartels cocaine smuggling operations. 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. assassinations. safely to the United States. new phase of the drug war is about to begin, and is just beginning. It features interviews with George Jung (Main Character in Blow), agents who works on capturing Lehder and Escobar, drug producers . U.S. District Judge Howell W. Melton said he may recess most of Wednesday to allow him to determine whether the tapes, which are in Spanish, can be admitted into evidence. [citation needed]. Needless to partner. So I have to go and look for alternative ways of bringing loads Carlos Lehder Rivas aboard his own plane 1979. He bribed government officials and either bought out or frightened away the residents of the island, making it his own headquarters. Even so, he was left very weak. He knew I was good at it. and he introduced me, and we had a little private conversation. Video, On board the worlds last surviving turntable ferry, Mayor angry over hit 'glorifying Escobar', He has never been to Germany and will face no legal action from the country's authorities, Lehder had no interest in returning to Colombia. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Even among a generation of very violent traffickers, Lehder was renowned for being erratic. We were not interested pockets, but through a fund created by the cartel, by the Ochoas, by the Escobar penned an open letter vehemently denying any involvement in his business partner's arrest. In 1982, however, authorities in the Bahamas, reportedly pressured by the United States, began cracking down on the drug smuggling in Normans Cay, and Lehder was forced to end his operations there. A charity in Germany has agreed to pay for treatment.[28]. Carlos Lehder, in full Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas, (born September 7, 1949, Armenia, Colombia), Colombian-German drug smuggler, a leader in the powerful Medelln 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. understand why you don't just fly it into the United States. Put the deal together, let me know what the You say you dealt with bankers a lot. not a criticism of the government, but it's a reality. 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. Lehder was given German citizenship through his father, an immigrant to Colombia. From there we would transport the drugs. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. The Pensin Alemana was alleged to have been a place where Nazis gathered intelligence. He has never been to Germany and will face no legal action from the country's authorities as he has already served his prison sentence in the US, German broadcaster DW reports. He accumulated such staggering wealth that on two occasions he offered to pay the Colombian external debt. The jury was excused during the arguments. This is not a political crime, answered Merkle, who added that Lehder smuggled drugs to further his political views. At one point, it was estimated that four out of every five bags of cocaine that made it into the US were delivered by Lehder's fleet of planes. he'd say, "Yes, by all means. Colombia is now ruled by the leftist Five males, ten females and everybody runs naked and everybody switch It was the most stupid thing [5], Lehder expanded a runway to 3,300-foot (1,000m), protected by radar, bodyguards, and Doberman attack dogs for the fleet of aircraft under his command. tools and planes and automobiles and things like that. We'll cover Lehder's interconnected origin story, explain his super powers, discuss his grand plan for world domination, and then place him on the Scale.Is Lehder just a low level thug in another supervil. Colombia Still, Lehder's stock had fallen dramatically with his boss. And I remember, specifically, getting out of 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. Colombians, close friends of his, right away. Crazy Charlie was making billions and living it up; the island became a hotspot for wild, drug-fueled orgies. He shot the man, who also happened to be one of the woman's lovers. We had the machines that the banks used to count money Top editors give you the stories you want delivered right to your inbox each weekday. Precisely. and to indict them and put them in jail, whatever. York City at the time. What is more surprising is that Escobar didn't simply have him quietly knocked off as he had so many others. Lehder was a leading individual on the crackdown list. Inspired by the idea, Lehder decided to apply the principle to cocaine transport and formed a partnership with Jung. any Colombian army put together. That was the foundation of, it's in street dealing. All rights reserved. is not very long; we could do that with minimal gas or fuel. He bought a small island in the Bahamas called Norman's Cay, just 340 kilometers (211 miles) off the Florida coast, bribed Bahamian authoritiesand began transporting tons of white Colombian snow to the US in small airplanes. This is FRONTLINE's old website. We had an airstrip in Ocala. Noriega is going to come through Witnesses offer conflicting accounts, Mars Voltas lead singer broke with Scientology and reunited with the band. Did you take bribe money to politicians? I, myself, purpose, and then what did you do with it once you got it to the United [19], 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. He got [27] According to declarations made by his daughter, a reason for his release is a relapse of prostate cancer, which had been diagnosed years earlier. It was really legal matters by the name of Fred Graves. Take a refuel somewhere. Read about our approach to external linking. 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. He saw We had a bill of lading. But they didn't. "The only thing that Carlos Lehder knows is the drug trade," Vigil said. There he was housed with George Jung, who had established an operation using airplanes to bring marijuana into the United States. Give me a sense of the mission. 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. 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. When Lehder recovered, Escobar hired him as a bodyguard. Spiegel Online reported he was escorted by two US officials and handed over to German officials. The three of us could most This is a very eloquent statement that Mr. Lehder is in fact guilty, said Merkle, after reviewing the transcript of the audio tape. work, you'll get involved. do. It now appears that the prosecution may rest its case on Thursday. territory. Lehder was captured by the Colombian authorities at a farm, allegedly after a tip-off from Escobar, and extradited to the US, which was then leading a campaign against drug traffickers based in Colombia. Four decades later, they've gone feral and multiplied, and no one knows quite what to do with them. . . Because unload the Colombian airplane, put the cocaine somewhere overnight, or for a Go talk to the police, go talk to purchase jet fuel. as well as other partner offers and accept our. A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll:even "Crazy Charlie's" last day of freedom was like a movie. Lauderdale office and I believe he had known Fred years back and were friends, on one of his airplanes and he took boxes of money in cash and he started to Where did those drugs go then? Lehder's lawyer, Oscar Arroyave, told The Associated Press that the 70-year-old left for Berlin after his release from prison in Florida, where he was being held in the witness protection program. These activities led to his 1974 incarceration in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Corrections? We'll bring a vehicle with 100 kilos, and exchange Impossible. Carlos had no problem with it. I made a trip to the island, before I was active. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Maria Del Mar Lehder[1] (1982[citation needed]), Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas (born 7 September 1949)[4] is a German-Colombian former drug lord who was co-founder of the Medelln Cartel. In terms of the big players, you moved the drugs for the Ochoas and who He would promise that you can bring a load, but it was January 9, 2016, 7:00am. South Miami, somewhere, south Florida. What was your typical day like? Qu dijo Carlos Lehder tras su liberacin? He had radio people. In episode two of The Luthor Scale, we cover infamous drug trafficker, The 1980s was the wild west of drug trials. The clown, that side of his I would try to park my car next to his car and we'd just exchange car keys. The indictment alleges that Lehder, 38, and co-defendant Jack Reed conspired to smuggle some 3.3 tons of cocaine into the United States from Colombia. And I had houses and automobile leases, and it was all in the name Carlos was the mastermind I had no personal contact with Manuel Noriega, only that we would fly to His erratic behavior and shrewdness distinguished him among a generation of cartel figures renowned for brutality and treachery. Eleven hours later, he was headed to Miami, the first victim of an extradition treaty he fought against. What is the We have plans of escape and we have boats and speedboats He went in hiding into the jungles "His family really suffered as well. country. [18][7] 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 rose to power in the . The nickel-and-dime thing was not our game. I had to meet one day with a gentleman The following year, Lehder was sentenced by a US court to life plus 135 years in prison but later cooperated with the authorities and was put in a witness protection programme. The man who co-founded the notorious Colombian Medelln drug cartel alongside Pablo Escobar has been transferred to Germany from the United States, according to Spiegel Online. Stay up to date with what you want to know. Carlos is being chased In a letter to Colombia's former President Juan Manuel Santos, he even bragged that drug smugglers had been visionaries that succeeded where millions of chemists had failed: in turning a kilo of coca leaves into a kilo of gold. where to bring it. Yes. traffickers, and these people have more weapons, more training, more guts, than 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. He'll tell us Despite that contribution, Escobar began to see Lehder as more of a liability than an asset. And he never failed to point out that, "terrorism is the atom bomb of the poor.". And I spend endless hours on the telephone with all El 16 de junio del presente ao, los colombianos se despertaron con la noticia de que Carlos Lehder, exsocio de Pablo Escobar, haba quedado en libertad despus de . promise and they lived day after day and they partied like in heaven because What can you do for me?" But we knew who I My fear always was, I don't want to be Appx. and many other members of the CCQ were targeted as candidates for some very Lehder rose to notoriety in the 1970s and 1980s as a leader of the Medellin cartel alongside Pablo Escobar. I ever heard in my life. But you never had a pot of money sitting in a bank somewhere, or invested in 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. This was reduced after he agreed to co-operate with the authorities. part of a criminal organization where I'm going to be exposed to drugs. JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) _ Accused drug kingpin Carlos Lehder Rivas virtually admitted his guilt in radio and television interviews given in 1983 and 1985, federal prosecutors claimed Tuesday as they argued for the interviews to be presented at his trial.