Narconews.com is an informative website that performs a very aggressive brand of investigative journalism. Their radical politics and their willingness to take risks can put them on the leading edge of important stories, though at other times it can lead them down a blind alley. (Would-be blockbusters that went nowhere include the 1,100 U.S. Marines allegedly inserted in southern Colombia three years ago, or the U.S. contractors in Peru being paid to kill guerrillas crossing the border from Colombia.)
This time, though, Narconews may be on to something big. Reporter Bill Conroy has obtained a December 2004 Justice Department memo alleging massive, murderous corruption in the Bogotá office of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and a cover-up by DEA and Justice Department internal-affairs officials. The memo is written by Thomas M. Kent, an attorney in the wiretap unit of the Justice Department’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drugs Section (DEA is part of the Justice Department). It makes four allegations that are summarized here as briefly as possible. (For more detail, see the memo itself [PDF format] or – with more context – Conroy’s piece.)
First allegation: informants from the drug underworld who had begun cooperating with the DEA in Florida alleged that DEA agents in Bogotá were helping them with drug shipments. Specifically, the Bogotá agents were providing them with information about U.S. and Colombian law enforcement operations. The informants were even able to provide Florida agents with confidential reports that the Bogotá DEA agents had given them. One Bogotá agent was put on administrative leave. During that time, an informant was killed as he left a meeting with DEA agents in Bogotá. Other informants who worked with the Florida DEA were also murdered. “Each murder was preceded by a request for their identity by an agent in Bogotá.â€
Second allegation: informants were to bring a sample of cocaine infused in acrylic plastic from Colombia, in order to show DEA chemists in Florida how the cocaine could be extracted. This was agreed with the Bogotá DEA office. But when the informants ended up being arrested in the Bogotá airport, the Bogotá DEA told the Colombian authorities to “lock them up and throw away the key.†The informants spent nine months in jail before it was determined that the Bogotá agents were lying. After his release, one of the informants was kidnapped and murdered in Bogotá.
Third allegation: Bogotá agents “identified as corrupt†by the first two allegations repeatedly frustrated contact between the Florida DEA and an informant who claimed that he (a) had been approached by the FARC to provide communications equipment and (b) had information about weapons-grade nuclear material for sale in Spain. Finally it was agreed that the informant would provide the FARC with communications equipment that the U.S. government could intercept. Wiretaps appeared to reveal that several DEA agents based in Bogotá and perhaps Washington were on the payroll of narcotraffickers. The informant was intimidated by an anonymous fax of a document identifying him as a DEA informer on the FARC.
Fourth allegation: an internal investigation into money-laundering by corrupt agents was shut down under unclear circumstances. “The same agent connected to the murders of the informants described in the first allegation then began to call my case agent to learn the identity of his informants.â€
The problem continues today, Kent indicates. “One of the corrupt agents from Bogotá, who was central to the second and third allegations, was recently intercepted over a wiretap. … [I]n it he discusses his involvement in laundering money for the AUC. That call has been documented by the DEA and that agent is now in charge of numerous narcotics and money laundering investigations.â€
The Narconews allegations, which Conroy writes were corroborated with unnamed law-enforcement officials, are starting to find their way into more mainstream media. The Miami Herald’s Gerardo Reyes got a former DEA official – albeit one who has a grievance against the agency – to go on record.
Sandalio González, former deputy director of the DEA in Miami and former chief of the agency’s El Paso bureau, told El Nuevo Herald the memo is accurate and reflects the state of moral decay of some departments in the agency. “The information contained in the memo is accurate as far as I know, because I was involved in some of those cases,†said González, who is suing the DEA for discrimination. “The DEA is unable to police itself.â€
Semana, Colombia’s most-circulated newsmagazine, put the story on its cover. It added two more allegations of DEA corruption in Colombia.
In 1999, during Operation Millennium, one of the largest antinarcotics operations in the history of the drug war, some DEA agents and Colombian investigators who carried out a series of recordings in the office of drug lord Alejandro Bernal Madrigal, alias “Juvenal,†documented … a conversation with several of his partners, in which the capo told them that DEA agent Richard Meyer had given him a million dollars to leave him alone. “The recording with the drug lord’s statements launched an internal investigation in the DEA, but nothing happened. In order to avoid problems, the only thing they did was transfer the agent. When ‘Juvenal’ was extradited to the United States and began to collaborate with U.S. justice, they made him retract those statements,†one of the officials who participated in Operation Millennium with the DEA told Semana….
One of the most common complaints has to do with what some call “the extradition business.†This basically means that when a narcotrafficker is arrested and is going to be extradited, he receives a visit in prison from a DEA agent. “What he does is tell the narco: your situation is very difficult and in the United States many years in jail await you. Then the agent tells the narco that he knows a very good lawyer who could help him to negotiate. These lawyers are called ‘fixers.’ The agent puts the narco in contact with the lawyer, and the lawyer gives a percentage of what he charges his client to the DEA agent,†says the official, who knows several of these cases closely and who works with the DEA in Colombia.
A Justice Department official told the Associated Press that further investigation into Kent’s allegations “found no wrongdoing.†That should not be enough to stop reporters from asking many more questions, nor should it stop Congress from performing its oversight role, including requesting access to some of the extensive evidence to which Kent’s memo refers.
Whether these allegations are just the tip of the iceberg or an exaggeration of a smaller problem, one thing is clear: oversight of the DEA is atrociously bad. While it’s easy to appreciate why its agents need to operate in secrecy, somebody has to be minding the store. Secrecy without accountability leads too easily to situations like the one the Kent memo describes.
DEA’s internal-affairs office, or Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), appears to be dysfunctional. “When confronted with the allegations,†Kent writes, “the investigators at OPR treated the reporting agents as if they had a disease and did not want to have anything to do with them or the evidence they amassed.â€
The internal-affairs structure at the Justice Department (which includes DEA) also appears to be unable to do its job. Kent’s memo states that an investigator at the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector-General “was advised up front that the allegations would make his career, but the process of holding those responsible accountable may destroy his career. … He was recently removed from the investigation for reasons that still remain a mystery.â€
Outside the executive branch, things aren’t much better. Congress goes years at a time without holding hearings on the DEA’s performance, and oversight staff rarely ask tough questions. Reporters rarely look into DEA’s operations, and even when they attempt to do so they find it difficult to get information out of the agency. The experience of CIP and other NGOs seeking to monitor DEA’s relationship with Latin America’s security forces has been similarly frustrating. (A common joke is that DEA stands for “Don’t Even Ask.â€)
Congratulations to Narconews for breaking this story. While we hope that the mainstream media follows this lead and investigate it further, we especially urge Congress to do its job and find out what is really happening at DEA. Legislative staff need to be asking questions and holding hearings to determine whether criminal behavior and a cover-up have been undermining the Bogotá office’s work, and whether people whose salaries are paid by U.S. taxpayers are perversely helping to bring drugs to the United States, with impunity.
January 17th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Excellent work. I saw the narconews story earlier today and wondered if it was reliable. You do a good job of supporting the basic elements of these claims. It’s an appalling development and it will be very interesting to see if the story gains steam on the mainstream news. It seems most media coverage of the war on drugs in this country is tepid at best. But given the enormous implications of this story (i.e. the entire US led effort against coca is now in jeopardy), I sincerely hope that it gets play and verification.
January 17th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
First off, I must admit that my opinion of Narconews is generally somewhat negative, for some of the reasons alluded to in this blog entry (and others which are not relevant to this particular discussion).
However, in a few cases such as this one, they definitely deserve congratulations and credit for investigating and providing the basic elements of the story. In other words, the fact that “oversight of the DEA is atrociously bad”, definitely stands on its own merits.
Still, knowing how Narconews tends to operate, they may not be accurately reporting all the details about each of the allegations, and their conclusions may not be too accurate either (given what I believe is their continuing preference for exaggeration and political spin-doctoring).
Hopefully the story is properly verified by other outlets and continues to receive expanded coverage in the U.S. itself and elsewhere.
January 18th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
The problem has to be tackled from the top, rather than fuelling guerrilla and criminal resisitance tactics in Colombia by maintaining “Plan Colombia”, thereby destroying a whole nation. The US has taken the wrong approach, if somewhat intentionally yet non regrettably, that is.
Its is becoming increasingly common knowledge that Wall Street launders 1.5-2 trillion dollars annually in drug money. Think CIA and to a lesser degree the DEA. Obviously money is a lure to anyone in the service. The Colombian government and military leaders aren’t any different either as most Colombian citizens will confirm.
With both “sides” equally benefitting from the dealing narcotics, whose to stop whom?!? That takes real guts… anyone?
January 19th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Wow. Sounds like Adam is resentful (jealous?) of Narconews. This is very typical of beltway insiders who have forgotten (or never knew) how to talk to working people, they’re so busy trying to impress mutants like, um, congressmen.
If you speak in a language that everybody can understand, the rich kids always complain that you are somehow too rude (”sensationalist” is a favorite word of these snobs). Narconews has published thousands of stories over the years, picked up by major news organizations in many countries (including AP picked up this latest story). I’ve seen Narconews stories cited by Howard Kurtz, Rolling Stone named Gordiano hot journalist of the year, even Hugo Chavez reads it aloud on his TV show!
If all that Adam, in his childish effort to malign Narco News, can find is two stories that he thinks didn’t pan out among thousands of them, I’d say that Narconews is doing very well.
So what’s the deal, Adam? Are you competing for funding or some petty thing like that that is typical of “peace bureaucrats”? Did Gordano or Gomez criticize your work and your feelings are hurt? Or do they just ignore you? Or did Narconews expose some buddy of yours like Juan Forero who you suck up to trying to get your name in the paper? I bet you make more money in a year off the blood of Colombian campesinos than the entire narconews site costs in the same year! Typical, oh so typical…
January 19th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
i agree with naomi. narco news put the dea memo on its website. is anybody claiming that the narco news story distorts the memo????? if not, then it sounds like isaacson has hidden motives to attack narco news. it does come off as jealous imho.
January 19th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Reading this closely, the two old NN stories Adam complains about are both by Peter Gorman (former High Times writer that published these two on Narco News). It must be Gorman he is trying to besmirch. Wierd that he would attack the entire Narco News gang, though, just to get at Peter.
January 21st, 2006 at 10:03 pm
I find it curious that so many people rush to defend Narconews from even the slightest criticism, and do so apparently by proving that the best possible defense is to attack Adam Isacson. Curious, if not also a bit ironic…
January 22nd, 2006 at 2:53 pm
jcg, the context is that for (how many?) years Narco News has been rocking the boat, there has been a clubhouse of attackers against it, especially in Washington and among the newspaper correspondents that before Narco News existed thought themselves the controlers of “the story” in English out of Latin America. Along came Narco News – filling the vacuum caused by these people not telling the inconvenient truths – and these guys – Adam included – acted as if a skunk had wrecked their tea party. And yes I suppose we appreciaters of Narco News are mighty sick of it by now. Behind what you call “the slightest criticism” you ought to hear what Adam and the boys club in DC spew, of McCarthyist proportions, for years now trying to discredit the new info source on the block.
I remember when Akin Gump sued Narco News for Bancomex, those guys went around saying “see? we told you it’s not a credible source!” So much for their commitment to human rights and free speech. Later, when Narco News won the lawsuit (and for everyone, even them, 1st amend protections on the internet) you could hear a pin drop their disappointment was so deafening. I’m in DC. I hear everything that’s going on, and I follow it carefully, and it makes me doubly admire Narco News for doing so much great work even against the constant snipes by people like Adam.
Elaborating on my point above, for him to malign Narco News because he doesn’t like one writer’s work from years ago, would be like someone attacking interhemisphere research center and the work of Laura Carlsen and Raul Zibechi because they also sometimes publish Adam’s work, too. It’s a cheap shot, on Adam’s part, not borne out by a long archived history. What does he expect? Those who dish it out have to be able to take it.
You’re doing the same thing, jcg – attacking Narco News for how its readers defend it! Are you part of the clubhouse too? Is your name really Sanho? Let’s see you guys develp that kind of loyalty and following before you piss on it. I’m gonna send Narco News 10 dollars for every cheap shot posted here, so fire away!
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:02 am
If you must know, I’m technically unemployed at the moment. I doubt that I qualify as part of any “clubhouse” except in the most vague of senses.
Therefore, I am in no position to judge whether your description of “what Adam and the boys club in DC spew” is correct or not (or only partially so). But that hardly matters.
Those of you that love Narco News will keep loving it, while those that hate it will still keep hating it. And those of us that are more selective about Narco News’ content, reporting style, its accuracy and the resulting significance of it all will still continue to hold those opinions.
As far as I know, the least of Narco News problems is the way in which some of its readers defend it.
Still, I hope you’ll see that maintaining such an aggressive style of “revolutionary zeal” indefinitely can’t be too healthy (and no, this is not meant as an implied threat, though one thinks you might well try to spin this into just that…that’s so typical of NN’s MO that it isn’t funny).
And as far as Narco News telling the “inconvenient truths” goes…that’s rather ironic too, considering that they themselves forget, downplay or ignore those truths (or, maybe more accurately, the other components which make out the incredibly complex “truth”) that are inconvenient to them as well.
Reading NN can be useful, when its content is “mixed and matched” with that of plenty of other sources. But doing so in a vacuum is practically worthless, given their self-centered and self-interested “authentic journalism” ideology (which is more like “authentic editorializing” in practice). It’s not too far off from a certain someone’s (not really) “fair and balanced” approach.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Okay, that’s fifty dollars so far for Narco News (10 for each unsubstantiated cheap shot, 20 for you jcg, because you make your case based only on gossip without citing a single fact). I just donated it online at http://www.authenticjournalism.org
Anyone else like to contribute in this way? Fire away.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
Well that was a remarkable outpouring of comments while I was away.
The rather light criticism of NarcoNews at the beginning of this post was the reason why I waited more than a week before even mentioning the Kent memo on the blog. As I said, NarcoNews is useful and plays an important role. But because of some stories that didn’t pan out, I’ve also found it to be frustrating.
To the extent that NarcoNews carries out risky investigative journalism that changes the debate, all of our jobs become easier. But I also want to be confident about what I’m reading.
We’re not rolling in bucks here at CIP; we’re small and low-budget just like NarcoNews. For both of us, our main strength is our credibility – the degree to which people believe the stuff we write, the information we attach our names to.
That’s why getting it wrong without acknowledging errors – even once every couple of years – is so damaging. Once that happens, new revelations and allegations don’t have their desired impact because people will insist on waiting to see it corroborated or deepened by another source. It’s hard to rebuild trust.
For some, that view makes CIP and others like us a bunch of hyper-cautious Beltway sellouts who drink the blood of campesinos. That’s a shame, since we’re all presumably working toward similar goals.
January 24th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Well Jeff, instead of playing little games that evade the fact that NN does deserve some criticism (even if you happen to disagree with the specifics of mine, which could be debated in a more serious environment), why don’t you go ahead and give them a hundred bucks then?
It’s not like I really care if you do. If it makes you feel like you’re saving the world from the all-powerful Military-Industrial Complex and its puppet-monkeys, then by all means go ahead.
Enjoy it while you can. Sooner or later they’ll either slip up big time in such a way that it’ll finally be obvious even to you, or they’ll simply run out of business for other reasons, boredom included (disclaimer: this is not meant to be any sort of threat, at least not in a non-karmic way).
January 24th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
With all the snarking going on here, the major focus of the initial blog entry, the impact and accuracy of the Kent memo story, seems to have been sidelined.
Since the Kent memo itself is attached to the story, it seems logical that no one needs to rely on the source of the medium to determine the “credibility” of the message, to make judgments on their own, and to follow up questions by tracking down their own leads and research.
So if there are doubts about the Kent memo story, do your homework; part of that might include checking out other reporting by this writer, such as his investigative series on the House of Death — some 30 stories and hundreds of pages of memos and FOIA documents laying out U.S. federal agents’ and prosecutors’ complicity in mass murder in Juarez, Mexico, a cover-up that reaches to the top levels of the Justice Department. At a minimum, it demonstrates a track record of thoroughness and perseverance in reporting.
(Here: http://www.narconews.com/Issue39/article1503.html and here http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/12/4/191222/231 for quick access points.)
Regardless of where you line up on the scale of political direction — which by the way would be better defined in four dimensions rather than the flat 2D scale that seems to be so in vogue in DC — one core principle applies: ultimately, a thing is true or it is not true.
What we do with that truth, or nontruth — if we even bother to go on the quest — is what makes our world relevant.
January 25th, 2006 at 12:56 am
“our main strength is our credibility – the degree to which people believe the stuff we write”
i see two very different kinds of media seeking credibility in two opposite directions, Adam. you want credibility with mainstream (corporate) newspapers, academia and washington insiders. do you feel that all that bended knee stuff has gotten you it?
narconews looks for credibility in latin america and with the masses and the youth. you began this thing saying “Their radical politics and their willingness to take risks can put them on the leading edge of important stories”
what i think you get is that it is the politics of narconews and their putting themselves at risk in ways we in the USA don’t do is what gives them the access to get these stories, whether with bolivian coca growers, zapatistas or disgruntled DEA agents that leak their documents to narconews (and nobody else it seems).
what you need to face up to is that these two audiences (insiders v. outsiders, elites v. masses, comfortable north americans v. fighting latin americans) are irreconciable. you can’t speak to one without bothering the other. what narconews does that nobody else on these issues does is makes foils of comfortable people that take themselves and power too seriously, and that is what gives them the credibility to get these stories again and again that nobody else gets.
my view is that what narconews does is more important, more unique, nobody else is doing it, and when you gripe about them you sound like cantinflas with your backhanded “compliments” (look up cantinflas on google he was a great comic actor in my country who played dishonest slippery characters explaining away their contradictions). you are cantinfleando.
you have to understand that for most latin americans and even for many gringos, we see people in suits and ties and see them as people in suits and ties all trying to impress each other. but they (you) are not speaking to us. you are just talking to each other, trying to get credibility with each other, even with the enemy, and you make almost zero difference in doing it.
but narconews keeps fighting making foils of you all and it keeps winning.
to me, that’s credibility. they get results. what victories or results can you point to for all your reaching for credibility with the powerful?
Graciela
January 25th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
That’s precisely the problem with NN, graciela.
For them and several of their supporters, like you, it’s all going to be dumbed down to the level of a dramatic fight between “good and evil”, where there can be no middle ground nor any possibility for dissent. Either you are 100% with NN and “fight the good fight”, or you are evil (or at best an ignorant being manipulated).
January 25th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Graciela, I’m not “cantinfleando.†It’s entirely possible to find an organization’s work to be both useful and frustrating at the same time. It’s called “ambivalence.â€
I appreciate your argument about reaching different audiences, but I take strong issue with the notion that you can only reach, or work with, one or the other. On the right wing, you see propaganda organs – Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, FreeRepublic etc. – that have been alarmingly successful at influencing both elites and “masses†both inside and outside of Washington. I don’t see why our side, the critics and reformers, has to segment itself and be bitterly divided because various groups focus solely on one audience or the other. We should aspire to reach both.
Since I find this discussion (except for the tiresome name-calling) interesting, here are a few honest questions.
- Why eschew all contact with the mainstream media? If I manage to sell a “mainstream†reporter on a story, or to get published or quoted in a corporate periodical, haven’t I just communicated something, albeit indirectly, to the “masses?†CIP’s website gets about 100,000 visits a month, but the NY Times has 1.2 million readers per day.
Corporations pay PR firms huge amounts of money for such so-called “earned media.” Why turn down a chance to get it for free?
(By the way, much more satisfying than a quote in the NY Times is to have a local activist – whether from the United States or Latin America – tell me that he or she visits “ciponline†all the time. But in many, many cases, that activist initially heard about us from a mention in the mainstream media.)
- All over the United States, activists are writing columns and letters to the editor, holding press conferences and meeting with editorial boards of their local “corporate†papers (many of them the property of national chains like Gannett or Knight-Ridder). Is that what you mean by a “bended knee†strategy?
- Does it make sense to shun the U.S. Congress? Why not support and work with the minority of congresspeople who are committed and motivated by a strong sense of right and wrong? Are people like Jim McGovern, Pat Leahy, Barbara Lee or Jan Schakowsky really “mutants�
- Aiming to reach the youth and the “masses†is an honorable mission. But what do these groups then do with the information they get from NarcoNews? Whom do they seek to influence? Until such time as they take power for themselves, doesn’t your target audience itself seek to affect “elite opinion�
- In most of Latin America, a website is not a great way to reach non-elite sectors, is it? Getting your message to the favelas and the veredas is still very much a retail affair. Unless it is well connected with community radio, local free publications, or does a lot of face-to-face work, NarcoNews isn’t reaching the popular sectors any more than the Carnegie Endowment is.
In response to Jeff, there’s no plot here in DC against NarcoNews. NarcoNews hardly ever even gets mentioned at our boys’ club “tea parties.†Neither I nor anyone else at CIP has maligned NarcoNews, nor to my knowledge have we been maligned by them. If NarcoNews has had run-ins with others in Washington, that’s a shame but I don’t know about it. My one concern with NarcoNews is the one laid out in the beginning of this post: the confidence I can have in its accuracy. The other stuff – the ad hominem attacks, the crude stereotyping, the radical posturing – I can live with, as long as the information is good. And it looks very good in the case of Bill Conroy’s reporting.
Division on the left over who is “purer†and closer to “the masses†is a time-honored tradition. But it shouldn’t distract us from the more important issue that the DEA in Bogotá may be implicated in murder, and getting away with it. I regret that this post became an argument about the messenger, and not the urgent issue at hand.
December 20th, 2009 at 6:27 am
Read the murder of drug Detective Franklin Brewster in Panama. DEA, FBI and the US Embassy in Panama have no asnwers about an FBI investigation with fake documents, fake FBI agents and the real murderers still free.
April 21st, 2010 at 7:20 pm
The real deal. The DEA and the FBI covering up a cop´s murder. Dope money inside the US Embassy in Panama
http://www.franklinbrewster.weebly.com