Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas is a Colombian drug dealer, born on 11th September 1949 in Armenia, Colombia. He is well known as the co-founder of the Medellin Cartel and one of the founding members of the Muerte a Secuestradores paramilitary group. Carlos is currently imprisoned in the US.
Have you ever wondered how rich Carlos Lehder is? According to sources, it has been estimated that Carlos Lehder’s overall net worth is $2.7 billion. Lehder acquired his net worth by becoming a drug lord in Columbia and one of the most influential narco-bosses in the region. His net worth also increased when he founded the Columbian neo-Nazi political party “the National Latin Movement”, which forced the country to abolish its extradition deal with the United States.
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Carlos Lehder Net Worth $2.7 Billion
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Lehder, who is of half-German descent, was born to a Columbian mother who was a schoolteacher, and a father who was a German engineer. His family owned a semi-lawful used car business, in which Carlos started his criminal activities by supplying it with stolen cars. He soon took part in marijuana dealing, and moved to smuggling stolen cars across the US-Canada border. Lehder served his first prison sentence for car theft in federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, and while there, decided he would take advantage of the prosperous cocaine market in the US once he was released, recruiting fellow inmate, George Jung – an experienced drug dealer – as his future partner, and from whom he learnt a great deal about smuggling and money laundering. He proposed to revolutionize the cocaine trade by transporting it in small aircraft, enabling the transport of a much greater amounts with a smaller risk of interception.
When released, Carlos and George organised smuggling of cocaine from Antigua to the US, and were soon flying cocaine into the US via the Bahamas, taking over the island of Norman’s Cay, meantime increasing his net worth considerably, However, during the late ‘70s he forced Jung out and took Robert Vesco, an international criminal financier as his new partner. Lehder now accumulated enormous amounts of money, supposedly more than once offering to pay-off the Columbian external debt, in return for protection against extradition to the US.
Carlos then founded the Natinal Latino Movement political party, however, the assassination of the Minister of Justice meant the beginning of Lehder’s end, as the President was now willing to extradite and Carlos was on the top of the list. His downfall was aided also by the attention his Norman’s Cay activities were attracting. In 1983, the corruption of the Bahamian government was made public, Lehder’s accounts frozen and all the property confiscated, disabling Lehder’s return to his island. His Medellin cartel partner, the notorious Pablo Escobar, helped him at first, securing him from the police, but Carlos was eventually captured. He was extradited to the United States in 1987 where he was sentenced to life without parole, and after that the Medellin Cartel organization soon fell apart. However, five years later Lehder’s sentence was reduced to 55 years in exchange for his testimony against Panamanian politician, Manuel Noriega.
In 1995, Carlos went missing and rumor had it he was living free, overseas. However, in July 2005, Lehder appeared in court to appeal his sentence, stating that the US had failed to carry out its obligations under a co-operation agreement he had made. Various other legal representations have happened since, but Lehder is still in jail in the US as of mid-2016 – his release any time soon would appear very unlikely.
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