All the millions that he spent on that mission turned out to be wasted. For a smooth operation of all that trade, he even had extended the island’s airstrip to 3300 feet length in order to also land Jets! The business was booming, Money Galore, he became soon a Billionaire and started to bribe also Colombian Politicians who were preparing the procedure to extradite him to the USA. He was a friend of that other legendary Medellin resident, Pablo Escobar, who helped him to handle every day some 300 kilos of cocaine to be transferred from Colombia to the USA via his little Treasure Island in which the Cartel Members thought to have found the fountain of Dazzling Wealth. A fleet of aircraft flew in at night from Colombia and the drugs were reloaded to smaller aircraft and General Aviation types for the final haul to Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. With the bribing of State Officials and high ranking Police/ Customs Officers, the island soon turned into a drug smuggling hub and the private playground for the megalomaniacal Drugs Lord. By the late 1970’s, he took possession of a small Island in the Bahamas, named Norman’s Cay (with 100 houses, a marina, and a landing strip) by buying out or threatening out all residents of that island. Along with his American companion George Jung, after his release from a US Federal Prison, Carlos Lehder started to think BIG in cocaine smuggling to the US mainland.

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