Narcos - Carlos Lehder

[Robbie Hart]

Anyone else intrigued by this motherfucker? He took over an island and actually paid the CIA $10m to not interrupt his drug dealing pipeline in the Pablo Escobar days.

 

[Robbie Hart]

Some girl who was part of his defense team in the U.S. appeal wrote a book but I can't find it anywhere, it's called "Norman's Cay" but that shit vanished in the wind.

 

[ECC170]

Pablo was said to spend 2k a month on just rubber bands and burned millions just to keep his daughter warm during a night in one of his hide outs.

 

[Robbie Hart]

Pablo was said to spend 2k a month on just rubber bands and burned millions just to keep his daughter warm during a night in one of his hide outs.

That is the word on the street or that documentary. His story is crazy. The motherfucker held an entire country under his control. I know most will say, "yeah, I heard that, so what, it's old news" but this is some serious shit. Who the fuck controls an entire country? He had them change laws.....

 

[Wild]

He (Escobar) declared war against the columbian govt because they were going to change the extradition laws. That's what really started fall from grace. It had gotten to the point where he had become more trouble then he was worth.

I've watched numerous documentaries on him and Lehder. Find it fascinating.

 

[GSPTrainingInAPool]

i found this one on Amazon
View: http://www.amazon.ca/Turning-The-Tide-Against-Medellin/dp/1439258767


it's about the same fellow but i dont know who the author is

 

[Robbie Hart]

He (Escobar) declared war against the columbian govt because they were going to change the extradition laws. That's what really started fall from grace. It had gotten to the point where he had become more trouble then he was worth.

I've watched numerous documentaries on him and Lehder. Find it fascinating.

What are the best documentaries/books? He was a member of their congress at one point apparently.......I'm basing this on my superficial view thus far.......but he was a monster.....I want to view/read more on these guys.....

 

[Robbie Hart]

i found this one on Amazon
View: http://www.amazon.ca/Turning-The-Tide-Against-Medellin/dp/1439258767


it's about the same fellow but i dont know who the author is

I saw this but want the nitty/gritty that that chick Tamara inscoe-Johnson wrote (I think that's her name) wrote....she was involved in Lehder's appeal and had some very detailed info.

 

[GSPTrainingInAPool]

I saw this but want the nitty/gritty that that chick Tamarac inscoe-Johnson wrote (I think that's her name) wrote....she was involved in Lehder's appeal and had some very detailed info.

it's 2016, how can we not find this book?? it sounds amazing!! time to set my vpn somewhere in Russia and search again

 

[Robbie Hart]

it's 2016, how can we not find this book?? it sounds amazing!! time to set my vpn somewhere in Russia and search again

Agree, can't find it anywhere and tried to email her but the email is dead

 

[Wild]

What are the best documentaries/books? He was a member of their congress at one point apparently.......I'm basing this on my superficial view thus far.......but he was a monster.....I want to view/read more on these guys.....

These are some of the one's I've watched


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw5Bs5JreJk



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8mFPShxa3I



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmQlUW3AYsA


Here's Lehder's house on Norman's Cay


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeHiR8uJsCM


Here's a doc about Lehder & the guy one of the biggest distributors in US history, George Jung. The movie Blow was based on him & Carlos.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30wdkbi0dTw



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klcNQR2YhSY



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfVvE3A28Fg



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9uqRgGA8so



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1prO1OWbvg

 

[Jesus X]

He (Escobar) declared war against the columbian govt because they were going to change the extradition laws. That's what really started fall from grace. It had gotten to the point where he had become more trouble then he was worth.

I've watched numerous documentaries on him and Lehder. Find it fascinating.

*Colombian

 

[Robbie Hart]

Agree, can't find it anywhere and tried to email her but the email is dead

Here is a taste....

Yahoo! Groups

 

[ConorMcGregor NutHugger]

Pablo was said to spend 2k a month on just rubber bands and burned millions just to keep his daughter warm during a night in one of his hide outs.

I forgot the figure but they also lost a lot of money from rats eating it in there storage.

 

[Ted Williams' head]

Anyone else intrigued by this motherfucker? He took over an island and actually paid the CIA $10m to not interrupt his drug dealing pipeline in the Pablo Escobar days.

Oh for sure, the show was great, I was intrigued by all of them. Crazy fucking lifestyle.

Whenever I see stories like that, Frank Lucas, ect where they have more money than they could possibly spend in their lifetimes, I wonder why they don't just quit while they're ahead, take the money and go live lavishly until they die of old age, but I guess the mentality and personality it takes to succeed in that kind of business isn't the kind that stops while they're ahead. Crazy lifestyle

 

[Wild]

Oh for sure, the show was great, I was intrigued by all of them. Crazy fucking lifestyle.

Whenever I see stories like that, Frank Lucas, ect where they have more money than they could possibly spend in their lifetimes, I wonder why they don't just quit while they're ahead, take the money and go live lavishly until they die of old age, but I guess the mentality and personality it takes to succeed in that kind of business isn't the kind that stops while they're ahead. Crazy lifestyle

Ego. Thinking they're untouchable.

 

[Robbie Hart]

it's 2016, how can we not find this book?? it sounds amazing!! time to set my vpn somewhere in Russia and search again

Here is a taste....

Yahoo! Groups

 

[mysticmac]

This book appears to have dropped off the planet.

The author use to have a domain called tamara-inscoe-johnson.com that talked about a number of her books, but it no longer exists.

There are some archives on the WayBackMachine. Here is what her page for this book said:

NORMAN'S CAY: The True Story of Carlos Lehder, the Medellin Cartel, the CIA, and America's War On Drugs
One cannot find America’s best-kept secret at Area 51; nor may it be seen at the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, or any other conventional source of covert operations. To confirm even the existence of this clandestine institution, one must dig very deeply indeed – both literally and figuratively speaking – within the netherworld between darkness and light, life and death. For, hidden deep within the very bowels of the earth, exists America’s version of “the Disappeared” – WITSEC, a witness protection program designed specifically to house federal prisoners.

The residents of WITSEC have been stripped, allegedly for their own safety, of nearly every right afforded all other prisoners. They rarely see daylight. They are held in the functional equivalent of solitary confinement, with no chance of ever being released into the general population. In truth, many have no chance of ever being released at all.

Even the highest echelons of the US Department of Corrections have no information available on WITSEC inmates. The identity of the participants is so secretive that, in fact, there is no formal record of their existence within the Bureau of Prisons’ database. These men are, for all intents and purposes, dead.

The most highly controversial, feared and protected participant in this draconian method of incarceration is none other than Carlos Lehder, a man who has been dubbed by the press as the “King of Cocaine”. So highly protected is Lehder that even his former prosecutor, Robert Merkle, was a the time of his passing unaware of Lehder's present status or location. Lehder has proven himself to be the most dangerous weapon the US has ever seen in its “War Against Drugs”. He provided extensive testimony against Panamanian General Manuel Noriega, and even the threat of his testimony has caused countless defendants to accept a plea bargain rather than face trial.

Unfortunately for his handlers, Lehder is also a man of strong beliefs, a man who absolutely refuses to be censored. It is for that very reason that Lehder has lived under nearly complete government-imposed silence for over a decade. When it has fit the government’s agenda, Lehder has been allowed to speak albeit under strict scrutiny. The government controls the dissemination of his every word.

What most people don’t know – and what is being kept secret at great cost – is the real reason behind the government-imposed silence of Carlos Lehder; namely, the extent of Lehder’s knowledge regarding the truth behind the CIA and America’s War On Drugs.

As the first large-scale international narcotrafficker to utilize high technology, Lehder’s heyday was during the Reagan and Bush years. It was also during the period of time in which Bush was Director of the CIA, and the man behind the Iran/Contra scandal. At that time, the CIA was desperate for funds. Congress had refused to make appropriations for the CIA’s pet project, the advancement of the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The CIA was thus compelled, if they were to continue this goal, to find some way to fund the project. It was thus in that shadowy world of Central American intrigue that the paths of Carlos Lehder and the CIA became inextricably intertwined.

Carlos had what the CIA needed – a vast underground transportation network, and protection of his shipments by none other than the likes of Fidel Castro and his fellow cartel member, narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar. It was the perfect setup. The CIA made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, one that was later attributed to Lehder himself at his trial: “fly or die”.

As a result of his knowledge Lehder could, if allowed to tell his tale, provoke immeasurable damage throughout our hemisphere. He not only knows the players but, more frightening for the government, he knows where the proverbial bodies are buried. From Noriega and Castro, to Oliver North and the Iran/Contra scandal, to the CIA’s complicity in Central and South American cocaine operations, just to name a few – he is, without any doubt, the real-life version of “The Man Who Knew Too Much”.

Carlos Lehder has been silenced because he is the only living proof of a chilling reality: the CIA, in its zeal to carry out a plan disapproved by Congress, was directly responsible for the influx of narcotics necessitating the War on Drugs. The words spoken to Lehder by the CIA, "fly or die", would later be attributed to Lehder, as having been spoken to DEA informant Barry Seal. Not surprisingly, the CIA’s double-cross had begun even before a deal had been struck.

In the end, the undisputed “King of Cocaine“ - who was quite interestingly an avowed Nazi - became one of the most important yet unknown links in the Iran/Contra operation. Lehder became the main source of transportation for the drugs and weapons which financed the operation. The Medellin Cartel gave millions of dollars to the Contras as well, in the form of protection payments to the tune of about ten million dollars paid to the CIA, in exchange for protection from the DEA.

Lehder’s name is synonymous with Colombian cocaine trafficking, immense wealth, and extraordinary power. The infamous Medellin Cartel founder, described by the DEA as “the most successful narcotrafficker in history”, is known for many things, not the least of which is the dubious distinction of being the only international cartel founder ever convicted in the US. Yet, strangely enough, these are some of the less interesting aspects of the life of the undisputed “King of Cocaine” - aspects which the CIA certainly knew prior to his recruitment.

Carlos Enrique Lehder-Rivas was born on September 7, 1949 in Armenia, Colombia. His family ties alone are enough to raise not only eyebrows, but suspicion. His father, Wilhelm Lehder, known as “Guillermo”, emigrated to Colombia from Germany in 1922. Carlos’ mother, Helena Rivas, was a Nazi sympathizer whose family’s Manizale jewelry business once designed and distributed jewel-laden swastikas.

Armenia, Colombia, located 100 miles west of Bogota, is well known for its lush coffee plantations and temperate climate; to many visitors, it brings to mind images of Juan Valdez. Lesser known is the area for its position as a neo-Nazi stronghold, and one-time home to such infamous Nazi criminals as the “Butcher of Lyon” and Klaus Barbie. In the middle of it all, but lost to history, sat Wilhelm Lehder, the suspected German Intelligence agent.

During the 1940s, cablegrams regarding Wilhelm Lehder’s activities ran fast and furious between the Colombian Nacional Policia, the American Consulate in Cali, and the US State Department. One such cable, dated February 25, 1943, characterized the senior Lehder as a “a dangerous Nazi”; and his hotel, Pension Alemana, as the front for a network of pro-fascist informants. It is clear that Wilhelm Lehder’s actions were, at the very least, curious. This same cable stated, “Lehder’s friends consist of the local Nazis and Fascists who he frequently (almost every day) meets in a cafe near the principal hotel in Armenia. Conversations which have been overheard by informants indicate that Lehder and friends, which include also a group of pro-Nazi Colombians, advocate a totalitarian government for Colombia. They are also reported to be rabidly anti-Semetic [sic]. It is also reported that this group runs down the democracies, and is bitterly anti-American.” The cable went on to say that Lehder‘s hotel, considered to be the second-best in all of Armenia, catered specifically to known Axis supporters.

To say that Nazism was in young Carlos’ blood is an understatement. That it has been largely ignored by the government and media is astonishing. In a rare interview during 1990 with Frontline, he was finally confronted with the statement “You have been accused of being a Nazi”. Lehder, ever the politician, responded coyly with, “Is that a crime? Not in Colombia.” Indeed.

Yet proofs of Lehder’s fascination with Nazism are abundant. After purchasing the Bahamian island Norman’s Cay as a haven for his trafficking operation, he hired a German security firm to provide security. Lured by the large amounts of money offered in return for their exclusive services, he soon had his own “master race” security force of large blond men sporting German accents and automatic weapons. Those who were met by this bizarre miniature army included such credible witnesses as Norman Solomon, a businessman and member of the Bahamian parliament; and beloved news anchorman and avid yachtsman Walter Cronkite. Lehder, whose tastes ran to a fondness not only for Hitler but also revolutionist Che Guevara, had established his own Nazi state on Norman’s Cay, and his first order of business was to install himself as dictator.

In the beginning, Lehder himself did not partake of the cocaine he distributed, believing like most traffickers of that time that it was “poison”. However, he eventually gave into its lure, and not only became addicted but horribly so. His preferred method of administration was to smoke cocaine base. Combine that with the purity and unlimited quantity available to him as the world‘s foremost narcotics trafficker, and you’ve got the recipe for disaster. In smaller amounts, cocaine induces a sense of well-being and euphoria. However, large quantities over an extended period of time results in extreme paranoia and, in some cases, insanity.

In the wake of his addiction, Lehder’s behavior and beliefs became more and more outrageous. This previously polite and well-groomed man began to ignore his personal appearance and dress exclusively in military fatigues. He insisted on being surrounded at all times by his German bodyguards. He began to openly compare himself to Hitler, and began to refer to the Nazi leader as “Adolph” as though they were old friends. He memorized Mein Kampf, and would expound for hours on the Gospel of Adolph to all within earshot.

Lehder had a captive audience for his tirades, since everyone on the island was in his employ, and in his crazed state the megalomania already present in his personality began to take over. He spent untold hours plotting a political career, aiming at the Colombian presidency. As his goals expanded, so did his fascination with Nazism; after all, Hitler’s goal was to take over the world, and it was the same with Lehder. In his paranoia and dreams of grandeur he became even more determined to destroy the “imperialistic” fabric of American life, and his previous running commentary on flooding the US with cocaine became an obsession. No longer was he doing it for the money, the prestige, or the power; he already had all those things and more. Domination was the one thing left for Carlos to achieve. After a time, even his inner circle began to fear this increasingly unpredictable and clearly unstable - and highly dangerous - man. Some even began plotting their escape.

Lehder’s right-hand man and most trusted pilot, Steven Yankovac, a disenfranchised Vietnam veteran and pilot, was the one member of his inner circle who was not afraid to speak his mind. When he confronted Lehder about his erratic and militaristic behavior and its destructive effect on the operation, Lehder angrily proclaimed, “I make the rules, and you live by them or you leave.“ Yankovac chose the latter. Returning to the island shortly afterward to retrieve some personal belongings, he was met at the airstrip by Lehder and his bodyguards. Leaning close to Yankovac, Lehder placed his ever-present chrome automatic next to the terrified Yankovac’s ear and, never taking his eyes off his onetime prison buddy, then slowly pointed the pistol toward the ocean and fired. The last words Lehder ever spoke to his loyal friend and confidante was, “Get off this island and don‘t come back.”

Source: Tamara S. Inscoe-Johnson - NORMAN'S CAY: The True Story of Carlos Lehder, the Medellin Cartel, the CIA, and America's War On Drugs

It also says she is taking a break from writing and lists a different email as a contact. It is Legal_Writer@hotmail.com.

 

[GSPTrainingInAPool]

Here is a taste....

Yahoo! Groups

Wow thanks for sharing. that stuff fascinates me even more than bootleggers. The amount of distance and coordination it took to get the coke into the US is mind boggling

 

[Robbie Hart]

Wow thanks for sharing. that stuff fascinates me even more than bootleggers. The amount of distance and coordination it took to get the coke into the US is mind boggling

Dawg, if I can find the book (I'm on a mother fucking mission now), I'll send you a copy.

 

[Robbie Hart]

This book appears to have dropped off the planet.

The author use to have a domain called tamara-inscoe-johnson.com that talked about a number of her books, but it no longer exists.

There are some archives on the WayBackMachine. Here is what her page for this book said:



Source: Tamara S. Inscoe-Johnson - NORMAN'S CAY: The True Story of Carlos Lehder, the Medellin Cartel, the CIA, and America's War On Drugs

It also says she is taking a break from writing and lists a different email as a contact. It is Legal_Writer@hotmail.com.

Nice, thanks for that.....tried emailing her but immediate bounce back again.

 

[Wild]

This book appears to have dropped off the planet.

The author use to have a domain called tamara-inscoe-johnson.com that talked about a number of her books, but it no longer exists.

There are some archives on the WayBackMachine. Here is what her page for this book said:



Source: Tamara S. Inscoe-Johnson - NORMAN'S CAY: The True Story of Carlos Lehder, the Medellin Cartel, the CIA, and America's War On Drugs

It also says she is taking a break from writing and lists a different email as a contact. It is Legal_Writer@hotmail.com.

The US Govt probably had every copy seized and burned, and the author muzzled.

 

[Wild]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSpnoUDxaAE

 

[Wild]

F.E.A.R. -- Witness Protection Program - carlos lehder rivas

Three years later, Lehder wrote his letter of complaint to the judge.

Within weeks of sending that letter last fall, Lehder was whisked away into the night, several protected witnesses at the Mesa Unit in Arizona say. No one has heard from him since.

Court papers do not show any further sentence reductions. German and Colombian officials say they know nothing about his whereabouts and Justice Department officials refuse to acknowledge that Lehder is even in the witness program.

 

[Robbie Hart]

The US Govt probably had every copy seized and burned, and the author muzzled.

Crazy thing is, this is probably right. How is there only a yahoo groups and writers guild write up on this?
Btw, I woke up this morning and this thought creeped into my brain.....not taking away from you pointing this out but only to say we're on the same page.