---
born: 1949-09-07
category: Organized Crime
location: Armenia, Colombia
summary: Colombian drug trafficker who revolutionized cocaine smuggling for the Medellín
  cartel in the early 1980s.
tags:
- Person
- Drug_Trafficker
- Colombia
- 1980s
- Dark_Alliance_Investigation
---

Carlos Lehder was a Colombian drug trafficker and key figure in the [Medellín cartel](/organizations/medellin-cartel/) who revolutionized the cocaine import/export business in the early 1980s.[^1]

### Revolutionizing Cocaine Smuggling

By early 1982, Lehder and his associates in Medellín had gotten their act together and, using special airplanes, radar avoidance techniques, and specially designed speedboats, began bringing in unheard-of amounts of cocaine, mostly through the [Bahamas](/places/bahamas/). The result was a massive increase in supply that caused wholesale prices to begin dropping. Ten days before [Ricky Ross](/people/ricky-ross/)'s auto theft arrest in March 1982, Customs agents in [Miami](/places/miami/) searched an airplane owned by a tiny Colombian air cargo company that had flown in from Medellín. When an inspector stuck a screwdriver into boxes labeled "jeans," white powder came pouring out. The seizure topped out at 3,906 pounds, nearly four times the size of the previous U.S. cocaine seizure record. Authors Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen wrote in *Kings of Cocaine* that it was the DEA's "first look at the shadow of the beast."[^1]

[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 7: "Something happened to Ivan"