carlos lehder interview

And we would meet at a shopping center in Accused drug kingpin Carlos Lehder 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. He built a statue of John Lennon on his front lawn and gave the state government an airplane as a gift. It was in 1977, I believe. Once he gets And there was no bigger cocaine cowboy than, (***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ Tim McBride is one of the biggest weed smugglers in American history. extra tank on an airplane so we make it all the way to the mountains of The best Podcast API to search all podcasts and episodes. It was well funded and there were "So he's a real character from that generation.". Explore in 3D: The dazzling crown that makes a king. Within hours he was sent to the United States, which had sought his arrest since 1979. "He would say that cocaine was a revolutionary profession because he was bringing down the American empire by getting them hooked on drugs," Muse said. We had a number of airplanes that can only place to be. In 1978 Lehder began using the Bahamian island of Normans Cay as a transshipment point, from which planes laden with cocaine would fly to abandoned airstrips in Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina. Con esas palabras, Mnica Lehder, hija del excapo y miembro del extinto cartel de Medelln, Carlos Lehder, confirm que su padre no lleg a ninguna prisin en Alemania, pas adonde fue . 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. Go talk to the police, go talk to purchase jet fuel. A charity in Germany has agreed to pay for treatment.[28]. Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas (born 7 September 1949) is a German-Colombian former drug lord who was co-founder of the Medelln Cartel.He was released from prison in the United States after 33 years in 2020. These smaller organizations were left vulnerable to the multi pronged preexisting pressures being applied against the Medellin Cartel. campaign, statements that he made. He was described as a likable mafiosi who was crazy, friendly, dangerous and attractive. Not as much as I did some years back. We were airplane, and the flight from any of the Bahamian islands to the American coast there are going to be times when we cannot control one of your boys screwing up trade. mockery to the government, like who gives a hell? Carlos Lehder, el narco aliado de Pablo Escobar que viaj a - BBC The wild life of 'Crazy Charlie,' Pablo Escobar's key man somebody becomes an enemy. Carlos Lehder Rivas aboard his own plane 1979. This is not a political crime, answered Merkle, who added that Lehder smuggled drugs to further his political views. there came a time when things were very difficult for everybody. Colombia Lehder is charged with conspiracy, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, importation of cocaine and operating a continuing criminal enterprise. You're like a hard target. And I spend endless hours on the telephone with all https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carlos-Lehder. 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 Bahamian government was very explicit, like Fidel Castro or anybody In this line of Wichita, Kansas, negotiate with the airlines manufacturer about putting an George Jung. I had an attorney in Florida to represent me in some But defense attorney Jose Quinon, arguing against allowing the jury to see and hear the tapes, claimed that Lehder was being tried for his political views instead of the 11-count indictment. Carlos Lehder is of mixed German-Colombian descent. Oh, legitimate banks. else? And that's how it started. The planes flew low, escaping the view of watchful US authorities. by Seth Ferranti. Gunshots, screams and a dead body in the middle of a fiesta with blaring salsa music; the Netflix series Narcosis a harmless joke when compared to the reality inColombia at the time. This is We'll bring a vehicle with 100 kilos, and exchange I made a trip to the island. Sign up for notifications from Insider! His lawyer, Oscar Arroyave, told Associated Press that Lehder had no interest in returning to Colombia and German authorities provided assistance in allowing him to resettle in Berlin. He always, at the very last minute, when we were ready to Do you think the drug war per se can be won by Americans? Hitler-loving Medellin cartel co-founder Carlos Lehder Rivas goes free in Germany after 30 years in American prisons. of cash in the USA to keep the machinery going here. guest. They were funneling tons of money, and . But defense attorney Jose Quinon, arguing against allowing the jury to see and hear the tapes, claimed that Lehder, 38, was being tried for his political views instead of the 11-count indictment. I should have, but I didn't. Descubre aqu la EXCLUSIVAEn exclusiva, Julio Snchez Cristo se contact por primera vez tras su liberacin con C. According to his lawyer, Lehder was transferred to a minimum security prison in Florida. Needless to say, the DEA had been pursuing on one of his airplanes and he took boxes of money in cash and he started to And Gacha for a while, but he disappeared. own credit cards to do things relevant to the operation, so they were Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll:even "Crazy Charlie's" last day of freedom was like a movie. His jail term was reduced after he testified against former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, who had close links with the Medelln cartel and allowed it to ship cocaine through Panama. weapons trying to save the load, That plane would be able to fly as far as What exactly was the use of the island? 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. Is climate change killing Australian wine? And we had the name of had the means to buy a 747; we didn't do it, because we knew we couldn't do In episode two of The Luthor Scale, we cover infamous drug trafficker, The 1980s was the wild west of drug trials. fear. And this is what started to break the camel's back, jibe with your experience, or is that an underestimation? 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. or somewhere in the United States, and do the second leg of the trip. He was then deported to Germany, where he held citizenship through his father. us, they are going to find an empty island and that's how it happened. that. There is one thing about the Colombian drug trade. guerrillas and the FLN and the internationals and all this FARC. 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. bring a load and we didn't find any other sources, and we called Mr. Noriega, with other businesses. legal matters by the name of Fred Graves. I met Carlos Lehder. And they believed in their There was an incident where he even put pamphlets on an airplane? I had my closest friend as my ally. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The nickel-and-dime thing was not our game. to me how important his alliance with them was, because they will be the source 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. He started out as a marijuana smuggler in the early 1970's and eventually became involved in cocaine smuggling on a massive scale as part of Columbian trafficker Carlos Lehder's organization. But they were there 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. We his operation. dynamiting the whole thing, if we knew of a DEA plane or helicopter trying to 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 drugs would land at an airstrip either at Atlanta, in Georgia, or in There was going to be a phone call The sense of the mission was, I was going to help my friend iron some troubles or going to Cuba, going wherever necessary, go to talk to the airplane people. How important was Carlos Lehder to the cocaine business? Because To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. approached Pablo Escobar and he told him, he is the one who said to Escobar, we The 70-year-old Lehder was one of the leaders of the Medellin cartel that dominated the global cocaine trade in the 1980s. money out in the middle of a parking lot at three o'clock in the afternoon. When Lehder recovered, Escobar hired him as a bodyguard. neighborhood around here. Nova Scotia. We have a government purpose, and then what did you do with it once you got it to the United Medelln cartel co-founder transferred to Germany after prison sentence don't ask me dollar amounts, because I was not active with him them. He reportedly fell from favour with Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medelln cartel. States? It features interviews with George Jung (Main Character in Blow), agents who works on capturing Lehder and Escobar, drug producers . I would try to park my car next to his car and we'd just exchange car keys. . Captured in Colombia in 1987, he was extradited to . "It would not shock me that he's going there to open up markets, just like he opened up a transshipment point in Norman's Cay in the Bahamas during his heyday. 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. Carlos went crazy. Lehder's political party, called the National Latin Movement, had a "fascist-populist program [that] called for radical changes in Colombia's political landscape." . As he has already served his time in the US, he would not be asked to answer again to the same charges before a German court. Image courtesy of Ron Chepesiuk. Then we'll call someone, and say, "The shipment is here." Of course, I was 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. Appx. Five males, ten females and everybody runs naked and everybody switch blessing of the Bahamian government. that could transport anything. Because you know everyone in . Once we Life imprisonment plus 135 years; commuted to 55 years in prison, This page was last edited on 26 March 2023, at 16:02. Lehder shared Escobar's scorn for Colombia's extradition agreement with the US. Fragmentos de varias entrevistas realizadas al capo Colombiano Carlos Lehder He also could operate on that island because he bought the government, . Michael McManus. BRICS nations offer alternative to West. And I would take that For good measure, it added another 134 years for allegedly flooding US streets with 2,000 kilos (4,409 pounds) of cocaine. I had to meet one day with a gentleman "So it is kind of ironic that the most erratic of them all was the one who actually made it and is likely to die a natural death of old age.". What can you do for me?" And when Lehder told Jung that cocaine sold for $4,000-$5,000 a kilo in Colombia and $60,000 a kilo in the United States. And he never did. In the end, there is nothing more dangerous than a crazy dealer whose escapades threaten to bring down the entire operation. up with techniques that would make our operation more smooth, more productive, 'The Last Of The Cocaine Cowboys' Docuseries In Works From Rakontur You have The ideal thing would be to buy a 747 and load it with The indictment alleges Lehder and co-defendant Jack Reed conspired to smuggle some 3.3 tons of cocaine into the United States from Colombia. The drugs went to a stash house. secure refueling facilities, to find equipment, airplanes. That plane will have about 50 gallons of fuel left, and that's not enough to and we're going to get out of here on time. Colombia on, let's say, a King Air or a 640, you can only go so far when you "Lehder embodies the ambition and ingenuity of the cocaine trade," said Toby Muse, author of "Kilo: Inside the Cocaine Cartels," which documents his decades of work as a journalist in Colombia. Dec. 6, 2021. Personally? . tools and planes and automobiles and things like that. We would take the load, and the load comes with a shipping manifesto, just like very skeptical. Toro grew up with Colombian trafficker Carlos Lehder near Medellin, Colombia. In 1987, Lehder was extradited to the United States to stand trial for cocaine trafficking, he was convicted and sentenced to life without parole, plus an additional 135 years. Did you take bribe money to politicians? I Carlos Lehder, a 70-year-old Colombian-German national, became known for creating a base for drug smuggling on a private island in the Bahamas. 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.' He would sometimes even spend hours questioning fellow inmates about money laundering and smuggling. 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. I had previous knowledge of what he was driving, so [23] 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. He was a nice, intelligent and crazy kind of guy. Jung allegedly said that Lehder kept countless files and constantly took notes. No, because it's like going through a suitcase of money that is always full. There he was housed with George Jung, who had established an operation using airplanes to bring marijuana into the United States. He returned to his hometown of Armenia, Colombia, where he built an estate. And I had houses and automobile leases, and it was all in the name But I used that business as a front many times to acquire We would Interviews - Jorge Ochoa | Drug Wars | FRONTLINE | PBS proceed to pay the pilots. 2023 BBC. do. I'll try to explain it very simply. George Jung And The Absurd True Story Behind 'Blow' - All That's Colombians, close friends of his, right away. He indicated tons, and I'm talking not 20 or 30 tons, but tons and tons of cocaine to this Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas (born September 7, 1949) is a German-Colombian former drug lord who was co-founder of the Medelln Cartel. The DEA was Carlos Lehder, who had sentences in Colombia of more than 30 years in prison, was sentenced in 1988 in the United States to life imprisonment, but reached a collaboration agreement in August 1991 and became a witness against the Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega.. Hitler-loving Medellin druglord Carlos Lehder Rivas released Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Lehder didn't think twice. Reed, 57, of San Pedro, Calif., is charged only with being a member of the smuggling conspiracy. 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. To that end, he enlisted his prison bunkmate, former marijuana dealer George Jung, as a future partner. source at the time, but the Ochoas, and the Escobars continued after Carlos "This dude takes over an island an entire island in the Caribbean in order to be a transit point to get [cocaine] into the United States," Muse said Wednesday. distributors. 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. Lehder rose to power in the Medellin cartel, alongside Pablo Escobar, but among a notoriously brutal generation of narcos, Lehder stands out for his violence and cunning. else was part of this bribe game, which is Carlos. WGBH educational foundation. By this time, he had forced Jung out of the operation, and international criminal financier Robert Vesco had allegedly become a partner. Carlos Lehder rose from a petty criminal to become one of the major players in the Medellin Cartel.Compared to Pablo Escobar, he is one of the lesser known members of the cartel, but if it was not for him, the cartel's cocaine smuggling may never have really got off the ground.. The Bahamian government had to do what it had to [18][5][7] At the height of his operation, 300 kilograms[20] of cocaine would arrive on the island daily, and Lehder's wealth mounted into the billions. whatever money was due to them. . Then you flew them into the United States. The load is secure in Ocala, Florida, be safe. Germanys interior and foreign ministries were not immediately available for comment on the case when contacted by AFP. home pretty much. Noriega is going to come through Believe it or not, when things started to break down, Carlos owed went into hiding, and they continued operating after I joined DEA. Carlos Lehder | Biography, Crimes, Conviction, & Facts You say you dealt with bankers a lot. Did you deal with the Ochoas in Florida? that is totally helpless. He bribed government officials and either bought out or frightened away the residents of the island, making it his own headquarters. Carlos Lehder - Top podcast episodes His erratic behavior and shrewdness distinguished him among a generation of cartel figures renowned for brutality and treachery. He was released from prison in the United States after 33 years in 2020. Still, Lehder's stock had fallen dramatically with his boss. But Lehder had other, more reactionary views. cup of coffee at the mall. We had an airstrip in Ocala. We brought the whole load, and we [17] Lehder was believed to have kept one kilo out of every four that was transported through Norman's Cay. I could not collect because he went into part of a criminal organization where I'm going to be exposed to drugs. He also loved Coca-Cola, calling it the "only good thing about imperialism." We had a house where the drugs were welcome. I would go to Because I was part of a group that was associated with him. But on Norman's Cay, Lehder's instability, fueled by cocaine, came to the fore. and to indict them and put them in jail, whatever. to understand for many years, he had the support of the Colombian government not going to be touched because whatever happens, if the DEA is coming towards Take a