Last Updated on June 17, 2020, 5:40 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Carlos Lehder, one of Colombia’s most infamous “cocaine cowboys,” arrived in Germany on Tuesday after he spent more than 30 years in a United States prison.
70-year-old Lehder, holds both Colombian and German citizenships, was escorted by the US marshals on a passenger flight which was going from New York to Frankfurt and then he was handed over to the German authorities.
Carlos will be taken care of by a non-profit organization in Germany.
Carlos was one of the co-founders of the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia along with Pablo Escobar, the notorious cocaine kingpin.
The cartel had dominated the cocaine trade from Colombia into the United States, in the 1970s and 80s, and it operated for years by bribing the authorities and by murdering their opposition.
Carlos was Escobar’s right-hand man within the cartel. At one point, he had made enough money to buy his own airstrip and island in the Bahamas for a fleet of aircraft for transporting sacks of cocaine to Miami, Florida, a few hundred miles away every day.
Lehder was said to admire Adolf Hitler, and he was known for his brutality.
He was extradited to the United States during 1987, and he was sentenced to 130 years in prison.
However, the sentence was reduced after he had cooperated with an investigation into the Panamanian strongman, Manuel Noriega.
After that, he was placed in a witness protection prison in Florida.
Oscar Arroyave, Lehder’s attorney, said that his client has no interest in returning to Colombia after his prison sentence in the United States.
Colombian authorities had demanded that Lehder should be returned after serving his sentence in the United States.
However, his relatives said that they were worried that he would be thrown back in jail.
His father was a German immigrant who went to Colombia, and the German immigration authorities have issued him a temporary passport.
He has never been to Germany before and has no relatives in the country. Carlos will not face any legal action from the German authorities, as he has served his prison sentence in the United States already.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
