Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 14, Number 8, February 20, 1987

Carlos Lehder Rivas:

the fall of an 'untouchable'

by Valerie Rush

A scan of the last five years' writings and interviews given refugeit had provided theunderworld financier, thereby forc­ by 's flamboyantdope czar, Carlos Lehder Rivas, ing Vesco into Caribbean island-hopping. Using the good provides a striking view of his kaleidoscope of ideological offices of a Dutch Antilles shell company undoubtedly cre­ attachments. Lehder's professed admiration for Adolf Hitler, ated for the occasion by Vesco, Lehder and his new friend his association with the Colombian MAS death squad that purchased the privateisland known as Norman'sCay, a mere murdered leftiststudents and labor leaders, his oft-published 200miles from the tip of anda first-class smugglers' denunciations of "Marxism-Leninism," all stand in seeming­ paradise, whereLehder was to live for the next several years. ly stark contrast to his adoration of the Beatles' "peace­ Under the pretextof turningthe island into a tourist resort, loving" John Lennon, his politicalmovement's emulation of Vesco andLehder convertedit into a high-class "pit stop"for the "flower-children" of West Germany's Green Party, his the dope trade. Providing refrigerated warehouses for the lucrative business arrangements with the Cuban and Nicara­ , airplane hangars for repair and refueling, comfort­ guan governments, and his declaration of common cause able accommodations for weary pilots, and the best in elec­ with the leftist M -19 guerrillas in Colombia. tronic surveillance and killer Dobermans as security, Lehder Schizophrenic? Not at all. As EIR noted more than two rapidly earned a fortune for his services. years ago in its best-selling second edition of Dope, Inc., In a June 1983 interview with the Colombian radio station Boston Bankers and Soviet Commissars: "There is more than Caracol, Lehder asserted: "Part of my great fortune is due to just a marriage of convenience between the old Nazi networks the large investmentsI made in some six years and the Bulgarian-Soviet and Cuban networks which provide ago. Hundreds of Colombians have had access to these ter­ the arms and infrastructure to the narco-terrorists." The ca­ ritories, to conduct transactionsthey found necessary to carry reer of Carlos Lehder offers a clinical view of the phenome­ out. . . . I don't deny for a moment thegreat fortunes emerg­ non of Nazi-communism, a joining of two not-so-irreconcil­ ing today in Colombia, carrying out social acts and bringing able worlds in the underground of Dope, Inc. , the dollars back into Colombia." Norman's Cay had the misfortune to be shut down by 'Rags to riches' U.S. anti-drug forces around 1981, but-reportedly due to When Lehder, a pot-dealing, car-thieving hoodlum in his the influence of Vesco, as well as the hundreds of thousands early twenties, was deporteQ back to Colombia after doing of dollars in bribes paid to the government two years in a Connecticut penitentiary, he had learned a in Nassau-Lehder himself was able to escape arrest, return­ thing or two from his juvenile stint in the . In ing to his hometown in Quindio, Colombia, where h� was to' possession of significant profits from his earlier criminal ac.­ build himself a feudal empire and link fortunes with the so­ tivities, Lehder moved to the Bahamas around 1976, pur­ called MedelHn Cartel of and the Ochoa chasing an airplane, and soon thereafter, setting up an air­ clan. plane rental service for the burgeoning drug trade moving through those islands. The Cuba connection Although Lehder's car- and dope- links to the Far from ending his lucrative business association with Detroit mob in the early 1970s may have brought the Colom­ Vesco, Norman's Cay proved to be just the beginning. One bian delinquent into contact with the circles of fugitive em­ year later, Vesco had found a bigger and better Norman's bezzler Robert Vesco then, it is more likely that the two Cay in the form of Cuba, where Fidel Castrowelcomed the criminals first crossed paths in the Bahamas, sometime be­ harassed fugitive with open arms-in return for a piece of tween 1977 and 1978. This was when the Costa Rican gov­ the.action. Key to that "action" was Carlos Lehder. Accord­ ernment was pressured into withdrawing the highly profitable ing to investigative journalist Ernest Volkmann, writing in

EIR February 20, 1987 Feature 43

© 1987 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. April 1984 for the magazine Famity Weekly: December 1981 letter from the drug trafficker to top Colom­ "The Cubans needed Lehder; they were tryingto run guns bian banker JabIle Michelsen Uribe was discovered. Mich­ to leftist M -19 guerrillas in the Colombian countryside. Leh­ elsen, at the time president of the Banco de Colombia as well der, with his extensive smuggling operation, was perfect for as head of the powerful Grancolombiano financial group, the job, and a deal was struck: Lehder would aid Cuban arms was also first cousin to former President Alfonso L6pez smuggling into Colombia, while the Cubans would provide Michelsen. The text of the letter, published by El Espectador protection, anchorage, and other help for his drug-smuggling on July 5, 1985, read in part: operations into the United States." "In accord with the conversations held in the past few days, I attach here the following documentation . . . of the already constituted companies and projects to be developed by your organization. . . . We want to ratify our interest in the Grancolombiano Group's being the intermediary for Lehder handled logistics, and channeling our foreign exchange resources, a product of our Vesco thejinances,Jor what rapidly companies abroad, which equal thesum of some $20 million grew into a cocaine trade a year and which we would be prepared to transfer to the country through your correspondent banks under conditions 80% U.S. supplying nearly ojthe stipulated by you. cocaine market. Lehder operated "It would not be too much to add, Dr. Michelsen, our with impunity throughout the sincerest gratefulness for your interest and the magnificent attention lent our representatives. . . ." country, due to the web oj On New Year's Eve 1985, Jaime Michelsen Uribe was "corruption he and his ilk had forced by President to resign all of his succeeded in weaving around positions with the Grancolombiano Group in the face of over­ whelming evidence of his corrupt business practices. Mich­ Colombia's leading" national elsen fled the next morning to Miami, and later from there to institutions. Panama, where he has remained as a fugitive from Colom­ bian justice.

A green Nazi Back in Colombia, Lehder continued to expand the Lehder handled logistics, and Vesco the finances, for movement he had launched under the name of "National what rapidly grew into a cocaine trade supplying nearly 80% Latin Movement (MLN)." Lehder bought himself a 4, 000- of the U. S. cocaine market. As Volkmann described it: "Cas­ man army of fanatic youth, a national presence through ex­ tro and Vesco sit at the center of a huge drug-smuggling pensive full-page newspaper adS, and his own weekly news­ operation that is responsible for a significant portion of the paper, QuindioLibre. Lehder's rag, printed in green ink on illegal narcotics coming into the United States ....Accord­ green newsprint, mixed diatribes against extradition, Zion­ ing to admittedly imprecise estimates, believed to be on the ism, and U.S. imperialism with advocacy of drug legaliza­ conservative side, the operation has generated nearly $20 tion, breeding a taller, heavier, and healthier "race" of Co­ billion in profits during the past four years alone." Another lombians, and praise of Adolf Hitler. His self-defense of drug source, Forbes magazine of Sept. 4, 1984, wrote, "The Cas-" traffickers as Colombian patriots seeking to bring the "bon­ tro government is said to get payments of $500,000or more anza" back home was a constant theme in his writings. At perlarge boatload of drugs. " one point, Lehder sent a blank check to Cuba for the release Cuba was not Vesco and Lehder's only Communist ally. of Colombian drug traffickers held in Castro's prisons. In July of 1984, Lehder was named for the first time by a Lehder's rallies were held w�thgiant posters of Hitler and federal grand jury in Miami as one of eleven sought for Mussolini for backdrops. In several 1983 interviews, Lehder trafficking Colombian cocaine into the United States­ described Hitler as "one of the great men of our history, through Nicaragua. Escobar and Lehder put the operation whom the Jews and the imperialists distorted." In a January together, assisted by one Federico Vaughan, identified by 1985 interview, he declared, "Adolf eliminated 21 million the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration then as a top aide Communists and 6 million allied enemies. He is the greatest to the Sandinistas' interior minister, Tomas Borge. warrior mankind has ever had. " The role of Colombia's most prominent financial insti­ Lehder was a fanatic environmentalist, financingecology tutions in laundering Lehder's drug profits came to light movements inside Colombia and denouncing the pollution following the 1984 raid on Lehder's luxurious villa, where a brought by "oligarchic" technology. He regularly compared

44 Feature EIR February 20, 1987 his movement to the West German Green Party, itself a ment. In March of 1984, Lara coordinated a raid on the classic Nazi-communist creation in the service of Soviet de­ traffickers'jungle hideout of , the world's larg­ stabilization aims. One issue of Lehder's newspaper carried est cocaine production complex, and named, among others, the following chilling caption to a full page of matching elected Congressman Pablo Escobaras a co-owner. That raid photos of long-hairs in the Green Partyand in his own MLN: marked the beginning of the end of mafia "untouchability." "With their long and unkempt hair, the new 'Green' par­ On April 30, 1984, Lara Bonilla was assassinated by liamentarians of Gennanyenter the Bundestag. A fresh breeze, hirelings of the Medellin Cartel. Lehder was publicly cited with the odor of naturalness. . . . Headed by their leader, the as under suspicion for the murder, and was forced to flee, hyperactive Petra Kelly, the 29 Green parliamentarians im­ along with the majori�y of the top traffickers in the country. mediately took the microphone while the fat, old congress­ The only "capo" seized-and later released-in the govern­ men-accustomed to the odor of cologne,jackets, and ties­ ment's post-assassination dragnet was Evaristo Porras, co­ just smiled. Perhaps with time the smiles of the traditionalists owner of Tranquilandia. Ironically, it was Porras who had will disappear before the immense and growing power of the accused Lara in 1983 of being on the mafia payroll , present­ environmentalists [emphasis added]." ing his own falsified checks made out to Lara as "proof." At the time of Lehder' s 1984 escape into clandestineness, Porras was also the firstimportant drug trafficker captured in it was rumored that Lehder's movement had a mutual admi­ the Barco government's December 1986 raids, and is now in ration pact with the Greens, and that Petra Kelly had been jail facing military justice. invited by the MLN to tour Colombia. Lara Bonilla's assassination was intended to be just the Lehder also had an obsession with the "indigenous races" first of a series of murders of prominent anti-drug figures in of Latin America, an obsession shared with his equally mur­ lbero-America. Not long after Lara's murder, the Venezue­ derous Maoist colleagues in neighboring Peru, the Shining lan magazine Autentico carried the story that a plot to assas­ Path (SenderoLuminoso). He wrote of the "humble Indians sinate Venezuelan Justice Minister Jose Manzo Gonzalez had . . . the latent expression of our proud race which one day been exposed and prevented. The murder, according to the not long ago was a race of kings," and altered the logo of his magazine's sources,was to have been carriedout by Lehder's newspaper to read qulND/o UBRE (free Indian). Over a thugs, but was planned in Havana. Among those named as recent period,Lehder financed thecreation of a narco-terror­ responsiblefor coordinating the murder were Nelida ABare, ist "indigenist" force called the Quintin Lame Brigade, and Fidel Castro's live-in lover, Dr. Ana PIa, Allare's sister and threatened to forge a half-mill ion-strong army to capture the a close friend of Lehder's wife, Jemel Nasser, and two rep­ Colombian government. resentatives of Cuba at the United Nations. Denied a respectable place in Colombian society, Lehder Going underground went regional with a vengeance. He traveled to Peru,Brazil, By 1984, his "movement" had spread to three provinces and elsewhere, where he expanded trafficking operations and he had run, albeit unsuccessfully, for the Colomb�an with those countries' mafias. At the same time, he became Senate. Although based in the tiny province of Quindio, the mafia coordinator of Dope, Inc. 's "irregular warfare" Lehder coordinated his drug operations nationally through forces against the continent's sovereign governments, the Pablo Escobar in the city of Medellin, and through Gilberto narco-terrorist "Americas Batallion" just taking shape under Rodriguez Orejuela in Cali. He began to hold large and the leadership of the Colombian M -19 and Peruvian Shining well-financedrallies in the capital city of Bogota as well. The Path. His Quintin Lame Brigade officially enlisted in the probability of his movement electing one or more federal Batallion. congressmen was increasing along with his vast fortune. In a Jan. 28, 1985 interview "somewhere in the Colom­ Despite his admissions of drug-trafficking in public in­ bian jungle," Lehder described the leftist M-19 as "revolu­ terviews, Lehder operated with impunity throughout the tionary" and "nationalist." Lehder told journalists, "The M- country, due to the web of corruption he and his ilk had 19 . . . is the only movement that has declared itself against succeeded in weaving around Colombia's leading national extradition. The M-19 plays a key role with the masses.. . . institutions. Not a single charge was ever proffered against The call of [then M-19 leader] Ivan [Marino Ospina] in him, despite the overWhelming evidence of his criminal ac­ Mexico is a call for the guerrilla movements to join in the tivities. bonanza." Justice Minister Bonilla ended Lehder's Lehder was referring to a Mexico City press conference dreams of an easy ascent to power. Minister Lara, a patriot given by Marino Ospina one month earlier, in which the M- committed to rescuing the country's institutions from the 19 leader not only urged a total amnesty for drug traffickers likes of Lehder, took up a defense of the U.S. -Colombia so that drug money could be repatriated to "benefit the peo­ extradition treaty and-despite the reluctance of President ple," but enthusiastically endorsed the Colombian mafia's Betancur at the time-was hopeful of winning its enforce- threat to assassinate U.S. diplomats and citizens worldwide.

EIR February 20, 1987 Feature 45