Carlos Lehder's dream was to make millions from cocaine and to use the proceeds for revolutionary goals, including the destabilisation of imperialistic America. Of German-Colombian descent, twenty-four-year-old Lehder was arrested in Miami in 1973 for smuggling marijuana, and sentenced to four years. In minimum-security federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, he rubbed shoulders with a more polished type of prisoner: white-collar criminals, Vietnam War protesters. Unlike the typical Colombian smuggler, Lehder spoke fluent English, enabling him to absorb knowledge from the eclectic mix of prisoners, which he filed away for future use.
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Lehder was born in Armenia, Colombia. His father, Wilhelm Lehder, a tall German, was considered a dangerous Nazi by the Colombian police, who suspected him of running a fascist spy ring out of the hotel he owned with forty rooms and hidden transmitters. Wilhelm hated Jews and the American government, and longed for the installation of a totalitarian regime in Colombia. He had a vegetable-oil factory and imported canned goods and wine for his hotel, which his German common-law wife ran. His Colombian beauty queen wife gave birth to Carlos Lehder.
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The youngest of four children, Lehder moved to America with his mother at age fifteen. Considerably shorter than his father, he was handsome, intelligent and ambitious. But every time he turned to crime, he got arrested, commencing with the interstate transportation of stolen cars in America.
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His arrest for marijuana brought him into contact with a cellmate called George Jung whose life story was portrayed in the movie Blow, starring Johnny Depp. It was a meeting that changed their lives forever.
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Born in Boston in 1942, Jung was a high-school football star and a natural leader. At the University of Southern Mississippi, he studied advertising, but dropped out to lead a life of smoking and dealing marijuana. Mesmerised by West Coast culture, he became a hippy, embracing LSD and free love. Noticing a discrepancy in the price of weed in South Los Angeles - $60 a kilo - versus on the East Coast - $300 a kilo - Jung started to bulk buy weed from the owner of a hairdressing salon. Demand far exceeded the amounts smuggled by the airline stewardesses he'd hired as mules - including his girlfriend - so he invested in motorhomes.
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Soon he had hundreds of thousands of dollars. He bought a plane to fly weed from Mexico that cost $8-$10 a kilo. Only twenty-six, he hired a team of pilots. In 1974, he was busted smuggling 660 pounds of marijuana to Chicago. He bonded out and went on the run. When he visited his parents, they called the police. His sentence was reduced after he argued with the judge.
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In 1974, serving a four-year sentence, Jung was bracing to receive a new cellmate in his seven-by-nine-foot room with a view of the countryside. When Carlos Lehder walked in, Jung was relieved by the presence of such a polite young man.
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After exchanging pleasantries, Lehder said, "What are you in for?"
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"Flying pot out of Mexico," Jung said. For an hour, they discussed their experiences in the marijuana trade.
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Standing in the line for the chow hall, Carlos said,
"You must know a lot about airplanes and have a lot of people in the US who buy drugs. Do you know anything about cocaine?"
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"No," Jung said. "Tell me about it."
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"It sells in the US for $40-$50,000 a kilo."
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"How much do you get it for, Carlos?"
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"Like $2-$5,000."
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"Tell me everything you know about cocaine, Carlos. Everything."
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For sixteen months, the cellmates ironed out the logistics for distributing cocaine across America. Lehder told Jung that he could obtain unlimited amounts of it from two cousins: Gustavo Gaviria and Pablo Escobar. Aiming to make millions from air transportation, they obtained maps from the prison library, and plotted trafficking routes. Banker inmates taught them about money laundering and offshore accounts. After a doctor incarcerated for Medicare fraud mentioned Belize, which lacked an extradition treaty, Lehder contemplated setting up a regional haven for traffickers.
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Jung wanted to transport cocaine to America in light aircraft, just like he'd done with weed. A pilot advised them that a small plane couldn't carry enough fuel for such a long trip. The plane would have to stop somewhere to refuel. If a plane were to fly from Miami to the Bahamas, as if taking its occupants on a vacation, it could continue to Colombia, get the cocaine, and return to the Bahamas. If the plane returned with the end-of-the-week traffic, it would be invisible to the authorities.
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Lehder affectionately referred to incarceration as his college days because he was learning so much. He obtained a high-school diploma. Due to his excellent grades, he ended up teaching Hispanic inmates. He never stopped reading. Jung introduced him to Machiavelli, Plato, Nietzsche, Carl Jung, Hermann Hesse and Hemingway.
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In 1975, Jung was released to his parents. In 1976, he received a telex from Colombia: "Weather beautiful. Please come down. Your friend, Carlos."
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Unwilling to violate parole, Jung sent a friend to Lehder in Medellín on a fact-finding mission. They
arranged a fifteen-kilo transaction.
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In April 1976, Lehder called Jung with instructions to send two female mules to Antigua with baggage. "Don't tell them any thing. We'll explain everything when they get there."
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Jung approached his girlfriend and her friend at a schoolyard where they were watching a softball game. "Would you be interested in a free Caribbean vacation?"
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"When?"
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"Now."
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The women took hard-shell Samsonite cases and spending money. They had a blast with the charming Lehder. Jung's girlfriend slept with one of Lehder's friends. They returned home with different cases.
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Jung took the new cases home and removed the aluminium lips protecting the fibreglass false bottoms. Snorting the product, Jung thought it was wonderful. It was the beginning of a monstrous drug habit. Carlos paid Jung five kilos to distribute the cocaine. He sold four kilos for $180,000. He paid his female smugglers in cocaine. More trips were organised.
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A setback occurred on October 19, 1976, when Lehder was arrested for smuggling Chevrolet wagons into Colombia. Through bribery, Lehder arranged to serve his time in a special terrace in Bella Vista, a new prison in Medellín. While most of the prisoners slept on a filthy floor and ate rotten-horsemeat soup, Lehder had his own bed and ordered food from restaurants.
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Lehder buddied-up with an American incarcerated for smuggling weed. He told the smuggler that he wanted to form "a conglomerate of small-time cocaine producers, and to put all their merchandise together into one shipment, so it would pay for the equipment necessary to get into the United States." He aimed to use cocaine to conquer the world like Adolf Hitler.
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After two months inside, Lehder was released in time for Christmas. Jung sent Lehder $30,000 and business resumed.
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