Pablo Escobar's former partner heads to Germany after release from US prison Former Medellin cartel kingpin Carlos Lehder has been allowed to live in Germany after spending decades in a US jail for cocaine trafficking. The Colombian-German will be taken care of by a charity.
Carlos Lehder, one Colombia's most infamous "cocaine cowboys," arrived in Germany on Tuesday after spending more than 30 years in a US prison.
Holding both Colombian and German citizenships, 70-year-old Lehder was escorted by US marshals on a passenger flight from New York to Frankfurt and handed over to German authorities. He will be taken care of by a German non-profit organization, Spiegel Online reported.
Lehder was a co-founder of the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia together with the notorious cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. In the 1970s and 80s, the cartel dominated the cocaine trade from Colombia into the US, and operated for years with impunity by bribing authorities and murdering their opposition. Lehder was known for his brutality and was said to admire Adolf Hitler.
Within the cartel, Lehder was Escobar's right-hand man. At one point, he had amassed enough money to buy his own island and airstrip in the Bahamas for a fleet of aircraft to transport sacks of cocaine every day to Miami, Florida, a few hundred miles away.
In 1987, Lehder was extradited to the US and sentenced to 130 years in prison. However, his sentence was reduced after he cooperated with an investigation into Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. He was then placed in a witness protection prison in Florida.
Never been to Germany
Lehder's attorney, Oscar Arroyave, told the Associated Press his client has no interest in returning to Colombia following his prison sentence in the US.
Colombian authorities had demanded for years that Lehder be returned after serving his sentence in the US. However, his relatives said they were concerned he would be thrown back in jail.
As Lehder's father was a German immigrant to Colombia, German immigration authorities issued him a temporary passport in June. The former drug boss has never been to Germany and has no relatives in the country. He will not face any legal action from German authorities, as he has already served his prison sentence in the US.
Colombian Authorities Arrest Former Drug Lord Carlos Lehder
By Reuters
March 28, 2025, at 9:12 p.m.
BOGOTA (Reuters) - Carlos Lehder, former drug trafficker and one of the founding leaders of the Medellin Cartel, was arrested on Friday by Colombian authorities upon his arrival from Germany on a warrant in the Latin American country.
Lehder was sentenced to life plus 135 years in prison in 1988 after a Florida court convicted him of cocaine trafficking.
His sentence was later reduced by 55 years after he testified against former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, and he was released in 2020 due to health issues.
"Lehder Rivas, who arrived in the country from Frankfurt, presented in our information systems an arrest warrant in force," Colombia migration authorities said on X, adding that the former drug lord had been handed over to the police.
A video from the migration authority showed Lehder in a suit and tie guarded by several agents.
(Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Modified: 3 hours agoYesterday, 19:03in International
BOGOTA (Colombia) - Police and justice in Colombia have arrested one of the largest and most famous drug lords ever, the former leader of the notorious Medellin cartel Carlos Lehder.
A photo of the arrested drug smuggler Carlos Lehder is shown to the public by Colombian customs.
Lehder arrived in the Colombian capital Bogota on Friday on KLM flight KL741 and was arrested at El Dorado airport. Lehder flew from Frankfurt to Colombia via Schiphol. Together with Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder was the major supplier of cocaine to the US and Western Europe in the 1980s. Many of the drug shipments went via the Netherlands.
The leaders of the Medellin cartel organised smuggling routes via Suriname and the Antilles and turned Amsterdam into a 'hub' of transit routes to other European countries. According to a Dutch police informant from the American narcotics brigade, Escobar and Lehder also visited our country in the 1980s to do business.
See also:
'Chief of transport' of coke baron Escobar now lives in Berlin
Apparently Lehder underestimated the risk of arrest and assumed that the police in Colombia were no longer interested in him. However, the now very elderly drug baron (77) was still on the wish list of the judiciary for drug offences and arms trafficking. He spent 33 years in prison in the US and had been free since 2020. Since then, he has lived in Frankfurt because of his dual nationality.
Carlos Lehder was arrested on 4 February 1987 on an estate in Antioquia and was the first Colombian drug dealer to be extradited to the US. There he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but he made a witness deal with the justice department after which his sentence was reduced to 33 years.
At the height of the Medellin cartel, he bought an island in the Bahamas in 1987, from where cocaine and marijuana transports were organized.
In biographies, Lehder is described as highly gifted and politically engaged. He built a drug empire with Pablo Escobar, who, due to the fierce police hunt from the US, increasingly focused on Western Europe, including the Netherlands. The Medellin cartel is considered the first criminal organization to bring cocaine onto the Dutch market in large quantities.
Former cocaine baron Carlos Lehder released in Colombia, case expires
Colombian authorities released former Medellín cartel cocaine boss Carlos Lehder (75) on Monday after a judge ruled that a sentence handed down in Colombia for drug and weapons possession, among other offenses, had expired. Lehder was arrested Friday evening shortly after landing at the airport in the Colombian capital Bogotá on a flight from Germany.
Lets just say that Lehder never was arrested to begin with and Escobar ended up passing away.
Lehder would have taken over full control of the Medellin organization correct? He says he was visiting family?
I wouldn't doubt it if he was there conducting business as he was never a rat. Im sure he still has plenty of connections to still be involved in the life.
Lets just say that Lehder never was arrested to begin with and Escobar ended up passing away.
Lehder would have taken over full control of the Medellin organization correct? He says he was visiting family?
I wouldn't doubt it if he was there conducting business as he was never a rat. Im sure he still has plenty of connections to still be involved in the life.
I agree.
He breaks it with a justification: “I did not participate in any assassination or plot. I have chosen to defend my life in circumstances in which it was life or death. But never against the Colombian government.” Throughout the conversation it becomes clear that if anything hurts Lehder, it is accusations of treason against his homeland.
Medellín Cartel The truth about Carlos Lehder, Pablo Escobar’s feared associate
Interesting he says it was Escobar himself who he gave him up.
He later learned from his lawyer that it was Escobar who had turned him over to the authorities in revenge. Lehder, who spent three decades behind bars because of that betrayal, has now taken his own revenge in his book, attributing all the crimes committed against ministers, judges, and journalists to Escobar, without exception. The living are those who write history and the dead — Escobar was killed in December 1993 — can only turn over in their graves.
The return of Lehder to the country has sent shockwaves through its political and social history, particularly for the families of victims from that era of violence and bloodshed.
The alleged involvement of the former drug lord in the 1984 assassination of Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla still resonates in Colombia, that could hunt him, but most of those died to find real proof after 41 years good luck.
Lets just say that Lehder never was arrested to begin with and Escobar ended up passing away.
Lehder would have taken over full control of the Medellin organization correct? He says he was visiting family?
I wouldn't doubt it if he was there conducting business as he was never a rat. Im sure he still has plenty of connections to still be involved in the life.
The Ochoa's ran the Medellin Cartel. Not Lehder or Escobar.
Lets just say that Lehder never was arrested to begin with and Escobar ended up passing away.
Lehder would have taken over full control of the Medellin organization correct? He says he was visiting family?
I wouldn't doubt it if he was there conducting business as he was never a rat. Im sure he still has plenty of connections to still be involved in the life.
The Ochoa's ran the Medellin Cartel. Not Lehder or Escobar.
Yep the Old man controlled everybody within the Cartel. He never did a day in jail and died in peace in 2002.
Bunch of cowboys who control the cartels down in Colombia, just like Tony Montana said. He killed two of them when they tried to fuck him up in the hotel room.
These guys live on ranches, ride horses and kill people for profit.
![[Linked Image]](https://colombiaone.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/carlos-lehder-credit-migracion-colombia-1024x664.jpeg)
![[Linked Image]](https://www.crimesite.nl/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/lehder.png)
