The Movie Blow, the character Diego Delgado was based on him.
Interview with Carlos Toro friend of Carlos Lehder:
Carlos knew about these forces, the Ochoas, the Gachas and the Escobars. He knew they needed him, so he went in there on his own. Carlos Lehder approached Pablo Escobar and he told him, he is the one who said to Escobar, we have to change the way we're doing business, and they had a goal.
The goal was we are going to make cocaine the drug of the 1980s; and they succeeded. And secondly, he said, we are going to rule this country; and they succeeded. Right after that, the Ochoa daughter got kidnapped.
Carlos was the mastermind of the movement to go after the kidnappers. It was well funded and there were killings everywhere, so serious that the kidnappers took him seriously. Carlos earned that elevation in his power when they saw that he had tremendous capabilities of getting organized and doing things. They saw that he was a man that could transport anything.
He had alternative routes and he had connections where to scramble frequencies. He had radio people. Carlos became the most important ingredient of the whole pie. And that's how the cartel got started.
Carlos was a very good pilot. Carlos can fly anything. He can fly a helicopter, he can fly a Citation, a Turbo Commander, you name it. And he knew the islands extremely well. In addition to that, he had the charisma to convince these people in the islands and Cuba and other surrounding neighbors to support him and to give him what he needed: refueling opportunities; the protection of his people as they unloaded cocaine and needed refuge overnight; and so on and so forth.
