Norman's Cay - Drug Smuggling History

Drug Smuggling History

When Lehder arrived in Norman's Cay in 1978 he started purchasing large pieces of property, including a home for himself, a hotel and an airstrip. Lehder then began pushing the native population and vacationers off of Norman's Cay and rapidly gained full control of the island. Following Lehder's arrival, air traffic over the small island began to increase and armed guards began patrolling the beaches. In July 1980, a yacht belonging to a retired couple was found drifting off Norman's Cay; blood stains were found when the boat was searched, and a corpse recovered.

As part of the Medellín Cartel, he used the island as a transshipment base for smuggling cocaine into the United States. Lehder, before with his partner George Jung and later through Norman's Cay, is often attributed with revolutionizing drug smuggling. The typical method of transporting small shipments often carried by human drug mules, either through digestion or in their luggage, onto commercial airlines, was surpassed by the use of small aircraft shipping entire loads of cocaine.

Lehder eventually constructed a 3,300-foot (1,000 m) long runway for his fleet of aircraft. In order to protect the island, armed guards and attack dogs patrolled the beaches and runway, and radar was employed. Any pilot foolish enough to land there was quickly warned off by heavily armed guards. The island served a strategic point for Colombian drug flights to refuel and rest before proceeding to the United States.

With the Bahamian authorities looking the other way and all the local inhabitants scared off, the island became a haven of debauchery for Lehder and his associates. Carlos Toro remembers, "Norman's Cay was a playground. 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... And there we partied. And it was a Sodom and Gomorrah... drugs, sex, no police... you made the rules... and it was fun."

Marine biologist Richard E. Novak, the island's former dive master, fought back, waging a heroic but ultimately futile one-man war to liberate Norman's Cay. Not until 1982, under pressure from US law enforcement, and despite years of turning a blind eye, the Bahamian government began to crack down on the island drug smuggling operations. In 1987, after Lehder was arrested in Colombia and extradited to stand trial in the U.S., his property was confiscated. It is now a tourist destination that can be reached by charter flight.