The Medellin Cartel - Escobar, Gacha, Lehder and Ochoa

  

 The Medellin Cartel was established in the early 1970s as a drug trafficking alliance between the King of Cocaine Pablo Escobar, El Mexicano Jose Gonzulo Rodriguez Gacha, Carlos Lehder and the Ochoa family. 

 At the height of the cartel's power, it made $420 million per week and at one point it supplied 90% of the drugs sold in the U.S. and 80% of the drugs sold worldwide. 

 Jorge Luis Ochoa and his childhood friend Gilberto Rodriguez acted as financiers for the cartel and they acquired the First Inter-Americas Bank in Panama, which the cartel also used to launder their drug money in. 

 Carlos Lehder purchased property on a Cayman Island in the Bahamas which was used as a major drug trafficking hub from 1978-1982. The cocaine was transported from there to Columbia by jet, and then onto privately owned aircraft. They would then fly to the U.S to offload the narcotics.

  For the first 10 years, they were unhindered, left alone by the Columbian authorities until in 1984 it came up against Rodrigo Lara Bonilla who was a Columbian Justice Minister. They suspected that Pablo Escobar's election in 1982 to the House of Representatives was the first move in a bid to transform Columbia into a "narcostate." So he joined forces with the American Drug Enforcement Agency to oust him out of politics and to hopefully legally prosecute against the cartel. Bonilla was assassinated, however, in 1984 under Escobar's direct orders. This was not the first time this had happened to one of Escobar's political opponents and it wouldn't be the last. 

 The sensitive subject that tempted Escobar and Lehder to join politics in the first place was that of extradition legislation. Lehder founded "Movimento Latino Nacional" which stirred up popular support by condemning U.S. involvement in Latin America. He even claimed that cocaine was a means of liberation. 

 The first card to fall in the dismantling of the Medellin Cartel was Lehder, who was forced to abandon his base on the Cayman Islands in 1983 when the government seized his property and froze his bank accounts. He had to flee through the jungle to escape capture. Escobar later brought him back to Medellin by helicopter. Despite Escobar's best efforts, however, he was captured on his farm by the Columbian police who were tipped off by one of his employees. 

 Lehder was extradited to the U.S. in 1987 where he was sentenced to life without parole and an extra 135 years for good measure. He turned snitch in 1992 and agreed to testify against General Manuel Noreiga of Panama who had helped harbour cartel members in the past. He received a reduced sentence of fifty-five years for this information. 

 Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha and Pablo Escobar refused to go quietly. Gacha and his son were killed in a firefight with Columbian military helicopters in 1989 and three years later in December 1993, Escobar was famously killed in a shootout with the police in the back streets of Medellin...