---
category: City
summary: Medellín, Colombia was the headquarters of the Medellín Cartel, which supplied
  cocaine to the Contra-connected trafficking networks run by Blandón and Meneses.
tags:
- geography
- colombia
- contra-war
---

Medellín, [Colombia](/places/colombia/) was the headquarters of the [Medellín Cartel](/organizations/medellin-cartel/), which supplied [cocaine](/concepts/cocaine/) to the Contra-connected trafficking networks run by [Danilo Blandón](/people/danilo-blandon/) and [Meneses](/people/norwin-meneses/). The city gave its name to the most powerful drug trafficking organization of the 1980s.[^1]

### The Medellín Cartel

[Pablo Escobar](/people/pablo-escobar/) and his Colombian associates [Jorge Ochoa](/people/jorge-ochoa/) and [Carlos Lehder](/people/carlos-lehder/) controlled the blossoming [Miami](/places/miami/) cocaine market, having wrested it from Cuban-Americans after a long-running drug war. Escobar's associate Lehder set up operations in the [Bahamas](/places/bahamas/), buying an island where drug planes from Colombia could land and refuel before flying into the [United States](/places/united-states/). The Blandón-Meneses ring sourced cocaine from the Ochoa family in Medellín and the Suarez family in [Bolivia](/places/bolivia/). The [DEA](/organizations/dea/) documented that the cartel's supply chain was directly connected to the Contra fundraising network.[^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. 6.