Carlos Lehder Criminal
Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas or simply Carlos Lehder (born September 7, 1949) is a Colombian drug lord currently imprisoned in the United States, having been co-founder of the Medellín Cartel. Born in Armenia, Colombia, Lehder eventually ran a cocaine transport empire on Norman's Cay island, 210 miles (340 km) off the Florida coast in the central Bahamas.Lehder was one of the founding members of Muerte a Secuestradores, a paramilitary group whose focus was to retaliate against the kidnappings of cartel members and their families by the Guerrillas.His motivation to join the MAS was to retaliate against the M-19 guerrilla movement, which, on November 19, 1981, attempted to kidnap him in order to ask for a ransom, but he escaped from the kidnappers and they only managed to shoot him in the leg.He was one of the most important operators therein, and is considered to be one of the most important Colombian drug kingpins to be successfully prosecuted in the United States. Lehder is of mixed German-Colombian descent, his father a German engineer and mother a Colombian schoolteacher. The family owned a semi-legitimate used car business in the Medellin area in which Carlos got his start as a criminal by supplying it with stolen American cars.