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Medellín, Colombia was the headquarters of the Medellín Cartel, which supplied cocaine to the Contra-connected trafficking networks run by Blandón and Meneses. |
Medellín, Colombia was the headquarters of the Medellin Cartel, which supplied cocaine to the Contra-connected trafficking networks run by Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses. The city gave its name to the most powerful drug trafficking organization of the 1980s.1
The Medellín Cartel
Pablo Escobar and his Colombian associates Jorge Ochoa and Carlos Lehder controlled the blossoming Miami cocaine market, having wrested it from Cuban-Americans after a long-running drug war. Escobar's associate Lehder set up operations in the Bahamas, buying an island where drug planes from Colombia could land and refuel before flying into the United States. The Blandón-Meneses ring sourced cocaine from the Ochoa family in Medellín and the Suarez family in Bolivia. The DEA documented that the cartel's supply chain was directly connected to the Contra fundraising network.2