Who Was Carlos Lehder: The Story of Pablo’s Partner Who Revolutionized the Medellín Cartel

When talking about Pablo Escobar, it is to remember his closest and darkest associates in drug trafficking, but few names resonate with such intensity as that of Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas, being one of the pioneers in the large-scale export of cocaine to the United States, but also personified the fusion between crime, politics and an overflowing vision that took him from the depths of the empire to a maximum security cell in the U.S. and Germany.
Lehder, born on September 7, 1949 in Armenia, Quindio, his mother was a Colombian businessman and his father Kurt Wilhelm Lehder was a German immigrant who had arrived in the country after World War II.

Criminal beginnings

Lehder at an early age left the path of education and dedicated himself to reading famous writers such as Nicolás Maquiavelo and Hermann Hesse. his life of crime began with the smuggling of stolen vehicles that were taken to Medellín, where his brother dispatched them through a dealership. carlos, who had 3 other brothers, had the task of presenting the stolen cars as legal, in spite of customs irregularities.
Then at the age of 24, he started aviation classes and became an experienced pilot. He learned many air routes; and knowledge of those routes was to be relevant in his criminal career that began with smuggling small amounts of marijuana between the United States and Canada.
His way of stealing cars was ingenious, recruiting balets parquins, carlos asked them to work for him, pick up the car, make a copy of the keys and then steal it at night.
In 1973, he was convicted in Connecticut for stealing cars, in prison he met a marijuana smuggler, with whom he shared more than one cell, together they devised a plan to transport cocaine from Colombia to the U.S. Lehder not only saw cocaine as a business, but as a challenge to the government and the state.
After getting out of prison Lehder implemented his plan, in small planes they began to start transporting large kilos of cocaine to the U.S., taking advantage of air routes that were not very well guarded by the authorities.

Carlos lehder And Pablo Escobar

His first assignment was in his homeland, there he was offered to go to Bolivia for a basuco paste in a truck, but the manufacturer decided not to send basuco, but cocaine hydrochloride paste, ready to consume, this was one of the biggest shipments that started his life 42 Kg, Lehder received a kilo of cocaine as payment, but this was stolen in Texas.

However, this was not an impediment for Carlos, since he returned to Bolivia, and then to the United States, and there he was offered to participate in a marijuana business, which consisted of passing a truck load to Texas, but when he tried to pass to the state, he was arrested by the DEA, for marijuana trafficking, then he was transferred to the state prison of Connecticut, there he received more charges of conspiracy and car theft, only 2 years in prison he received from prison. There he meets a smuggler obsessed with drugs, who tells him about the wealth that can be generated by the sale of drugs.

His relationship with Escobar was strengthened when he met the capo and together they had an obsession with drug logistics, while Pablo, was a visionary about the elaboration of cocaine, along with his partners, the Ochoa brothers and the Mexican, Carlos thought and maneuvered how to get cocaine out of the country. Together they formed the Medellin cartel, not only being partners in the cocaine world, but also involved in the death of policemen, colonels, politicians and other public forces.

Lehder, like Pablo, was very interested in politics, he was not satisfied with being just another drug trafficker, his ambition led him to participate in Colombian politics, with the creation of the Latino National movement in 1982, promoting a nationalist discourse and criticizing the U.S. military presence in Colombia. During the 1982 campaign, he openly supported the candidate Alfonso Lopez Michelsen, but also harshly criticized the extradition policy, the drug policy and the public force.
At that time Lehder stayed in Quindio, in the so-called Posada Alemana, a hacienda that was built by his father and that features a sculpture of the Beatles, from where he was in charge of operating, coordinating and moving his business.

Norman’s Cay

Normans Cay is an island of approximately 300 hectares in the archipelago of the Bahamas. In the late 70’s, the island located 350 km off the coast of Florida, became a base of operations, with private airstrip, radars, guards and luxurious mansions for his parties, from there he coordinated the trafficking of tons of cocaine arriving to Miami, New York, and Los Angeles, this control allowed him to accumulate a fortune of 2,700 million dollars at the time.

Fall and extradition

Lehder after giving an interview in an American media, where he showed his operation center, he could not return to Norman’s Cay. His bank accounts, properties and possessions were confiscated. He went from multimillionaire to bankrupt. Taking refuge in the jungle, feverish. Escobar sent a helicopter to pick up Lehder and flew him to Medellín, where he received life-saving medical attention. Once he recovered, Escobar hired him as a bodyguard.
Lehder was reportedly captured at a farm he had set up in Colombia after a new employee informed police of the location. Another rumor, backed by Jhon Jairo Velasquez, “Popeye,” Pablo Escobar’s hitman, said that associates of the Medellin Cartel wanted to take him off the map. They believed his radical, militarized thinking would jeopardize the cocaine business. Because of this, Escobar was said to have given Lehder’s location to the police.

After capturing him, the US government used him to give details of the cartel’s secret empire. In 1987, Lehder was extradited to Jacksonville, Florida. He was held in a federal courthouse cell under 24-hour armed guard. In 1988, he was convicted, sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 135 years. Now all the other leaders knew what would happen if they were also extradited; soon after, the Medellín Cartel began to fragment into independent, self-sufficient organizations. Serving 40 years in prison, Carlos has paid his full sentence for his

pablo escobar tour medellin

The stories of Lehder and his past, were written in the memory, press and in many characters, that today remember him, after 5 years of his release, Lehder and Pablo, are still heard in the streets of Medellin, their stories, have been notorious in many places, in Pablo’s tour you can know the best stories of Pablo and Lehder, how were his beginnings, what were his crimes, how was his past, know part of the family, and many more stories

where is carlos lehder today

Today, Lehder was released in 2020 in Frankfurt Germany, having been free for 5 years, Lehder launched his first book Life and Death of the Medellin Cartel in 2024, Carlos in his book tells the story of his criminal life, how he started stealing cars in New York, telling stories of his island in the Bahamas, revolutionizing forever the illegal cocaine trade, telling how he emerged, grew up in the Medellin cartel and fell.

crimes.