---
category: Country
summary: The Bahamas served as a refueling stop for cocaine flights moving from South
  America to the eastern United States, with drug cartels establishing island bases
  for their smuggling operations.
tags:
- geography
- caribbean
- contra-war
---

The Bahamas served as a refueling stop for [cocaine](/concepts/cocaine/) flights moving from [South America](/places/south-america/) to the eastern [United States](/places/united-states/), with drug cartels establishing island bases for their smuggling operations. The island nation's location between [Colombia](/places/colombia/) and [Florida](/places/florida/) made it a natural waypoint on the Caribbean drug corridor.[^1]

### Cartel Operations

[Pablo Escobar](/people/pablo-escobar/)'s associate [Carlos Lehder](/people/carlos-lehder/) set up shop in the Bahamas, buying an island where drug planes coming out of Colombia could land, refuel, and wait for the right moment to fly into the United States. A 1990 [DEA](/organizations/dea/) report stated that the [Blandón](/people/danilo-blandon/)-[Meneses](/people/norwin-meneses/) ring operated internationally "from Colombia and [Bolivia](/places/bolivia/), through the Bahamas, [Costa Rica](/places/costa-rica/), or [Nicaragua](/places/nicaragua/) to the United States." [Noriega](/people/manuel-noriega/)'s pilots flew drugs along two routes: one through [Mexico](/places/mexico/) for the West Coast market, and the other through the Bahamas for the East Coast's cocaine buyers.[^2]

[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 5.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 5, Ch. 14.