![]() ![]() I have a vivid picture of being picked up in a Land Rover with the top down and naked women driving to come and welcome me from my airplane. Carlos Toro, a friend of Lehder's who worked as a representative for the Medellín Cartel, remembered that "Norman's Cay was a playground. The island became a location for partying. The island was a strategic point for Colombian drug flights to refuel and rest before proceeding to the United States. Any pilot foolish enough to land there was quickly warned off by heavily armed guards. In order to protect the island, armed guards and attack dogs patrolled the beaches and runway, and radar was employed. Lehder eventually extended the airstrip to a length of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) for his fleet of aircraft. The typical method of transporting small shipments, often carried by human drug mules, either through ingestion or in their luggage, onto commercial airlines, was surpassed by the use of small aircraft shipping entire loads of cocaine. Lehder, before with his partner George Jung and later through Norman's Cay, is often credited with revolutionizing drug smuggling. ![]() ![]() The wreckage of a Curtiss C-46 Commando that crashed in shallow water at Norman's Cay during the 1980s (2006)Īs part of the Medellín Cartel, Lehder used the island as a transshipment base for smuggling cocaine into the United States. ![]()
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