Carlos Lehder

In 1987, Carlos Lehder was extradited to the United States. He was tried and sentenced to life without parole, plus an additional 135 years. In 1992, however, in exchange for Lehder's testimony against Manuel Noriega, his sentence was reduced to a total of 55 years.

In 1995, there were rumours of Lehder being set free. However, they were all shunned down by his brother who stated that there has been a change of prison. He was held in WITSEC, the US Bureau of Prisons’ version of the federal Witness Protection Program.

On July 22, 2005, he appeared in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to contest his sentence. Lehder argued that the US had violated the cooperation agreement he had entered into with the Attorney's Office. In May 2007, he requested the Colombian Supreme Court to order the Colombian government to request his release from the United States due to this violation.

Carlos Lehder was born on September 7, 1949 in Armenia, Colombia in to a German-Colombian family. His father was a German engineer while his mother was a Colombian school teacher.

Early on, the family resided in the Medellin area. They had a semi-legally approved used car business. It was during this time that Lehder first got involved in criminal acts. He started stealing cars and supplying it to his father who sold them as used cars.

By the time Carlos Lehder became an adult, he had immersed himself completely into criminal activities. Starting off as a stolen car dealer, he then progressed to becoming a marijuana dealer and a smuggler of stolen cars between US and Canada.

Lehder’s car theft business got him into a prison in Danbury, Connecticut. It was while serving his sentence that he decided to start dealing in cocaine. By then, drug addiction in America had caught up with the youth as more and more people demanded the drug. He struck a deal with his prison inmate George Jung, a former marijuana dealer, as his future partner in cocaine business.

Instead of repenting for his mistake, Lehder updated himself with all the necessary information required for starting his cocaine business. He learned tricks of money laundering and smuggling and also trained himself with the skills required for cocaine transport. He spend hours questioning inmates and taking down notes. He filed all the information for further use.

After their release, Carlos Lehder and Jung started off with small traditional drug smuggling. Though their ultimate aim was to revolutionize the cocaine trade by transporting it to the American soil, they could realize it only through small steps.

The duo’s first successful cocaine transportation was realized when two young women who were on paid holiday to Antigua brought the drug to the country in their suitcase. The trick paid off and both the women indulged in too many holidays to help Lehder and Jung have enough to buy an aeroplane.