‘The Last Of The Cocaine Cowboys’ Docuseries On Medellín Cartel’s Carlos Lehder In Works From Billy Corben’s Rakontur
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: Rakontur has wrapped production on The Last of the Cocaine Cowboys, a four-part documentary miniseries on Medellín Cartel co-founder Carlos Lehder.Described by the U.S.
Department of Justice as “the Henry Ford of the cocaine industry,” Lehder co-founded Colombia’s infamous drug cartel alongside Pablo Escobar, Jorge Ochoa and Jose Rodriguez Gacha in the 1970s.
He conspired with heads of state to corrupt entire nations and open cocaine smuggling routes in the Bahamas, Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua and Mexico, also buying his own Bahamian island, Norman’s Cay, and transforming it into an air and sea cocaine shipping hub.
Lehder simultaneously rose to political power in Colombia as head of the National Latin Movement and helped elect Pablo Escobar to Parliament, with the cartel at its peak smuggling 300 kilos of cocaine per day, and generating $20 billion a year.Lehder in 1987 became the first Medellín Cartel leader to be captured and extradited to the United States, where he was sentenced to life in federal prison without the possibility of parole, plus 135 years.
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