The Midnight Murder That Threatened Pablo Escobar's Empire
One rowdy party undid Pablo Escobar (front, centre) and Carlos Lehder’s (front, right) alliance.
A party at Escobar’s mansion turned into a bloodbath and created a serious headache for the boss.
One night, Pablo Escobar threw a lavish party to reward his loyal henchmen. There was one special guest: a guy called Carlos Lehder. One of the original members of the Medellin Cartel, Lehder was notorious for founding a neo-Nazi political party called the National Latin Movement.
Carlos and Pablo went back a long way. They came up through the criminal ranks together. Lehder’s job within the Escobar empire was to transport the cocaine out of Colombia. He was a vital cog in the machine.
At the height of the war with the government, this get-together was a chance to unwind. In the animal enclosures that surrounded Pablo’s mansion, the hippos, rhinos and giraffes were getting restless.
Carlos Lehder was the heart and soul of the party. Coked out of his mind, Carlos was so crazy some of the men were convinced he’d caught cerebral malaria in the jungle.
Finally, at two in the morning, Lehder went to bed. A few stragglers continued the party downstairs. Among them was a guy called Rollo. He was one of Pablo’s favourite bodyguards. Rollo was having a good time with one of the prostitutes hired for the night – the one Carlos had been flirting with.
It generally wasn’t a good idea to disturb Carlos – everyone knew that. But Rollo wanted more coke, so he hammered on Carlos’s bedroom door, demanding drugs. Big mistake.
As the gunshots rang out through the house, Pablo hurried downstairs. Rollo’s bullet-ridden body was not a pretty picture…
This presented Pablo with a dilemma. Carlos Lehder was one of his closest associates. But he’d just killed one of Escobar’s best men. How Pablo responded would define his rule at the top of the Medellin Cartel.
Episode 3 of Real Narcos delves deeper into the story behind this fateful night, and the long lasting repercussions for Carlos Lehder.