The Dark Art
Page 24
Undercover work requires you to rub skin with another person. When you contribute skin, you are the collateral. You are the person they are trusting with their lives. And that’s what DEA does. Very few of us are left. The recipe is almost gone. Jimmy Soiles is the undisputed master of it. I was lucky enough to learn from the best.
All of that, sadly, will soon be a thing of the past. Within a few short years, I believe, undercover will be an entirely lost art. Why? Primarily, it’s due to the astonishing new technology that allows for a virtual presence absent of soul. Listen, I’ve been there as we send up our unmanned aerial vehicles—or UAVs. I had one young DEA agent working for me—a US Army reservist—who’s one of the pilots. Our UAVs are remotely flown from various locations, mostly out of Edwards Air Force Base.
Our drones aim to replace the human element. We have surveillance vehicles so small—like the micro RQ-11 Raven—that they weigh less than five pounds and can fit inside a soldier’s backpack. If you’ve watched the drone pilots like I’ve done, it’s eerie: they wear flight suits, strap into virtual “cockpits.” But it’s all a sophisticated video game, like playing Halo or Call of Duty on Xbox 360.
The pilot signals from Edwards up to a satellite, and the UAV takes off. The drone hovers at ten thousand feet and, with its state-of-the-art infrared optics package, sees day, dusk, night, and dawn, zeroing in on the targets and deploying missiles—usually to devastating effect. More Al Qaeda command-and-control figures have been killed by Predator strikes than by any other weapon in our arsenal.
I was there personally, on the ground, to set up these actions. Yes, I did manage to save Haji Juma Khan from a lethal drone strike, but others weren’t so lucky.
I would be in the field in Afghanistan, undercover, working as the lure for the Department of Defense. When the time was right, I’d be told I needed to engage certain Taliban and Al Qaeda figures on my cell phone. Make that last call.
We’d talk for a few minutes, then silence.
The guy at the end of the line—for me, at least—is a ghost.
That’s the way things are done today—it’s certainly effective but it damn sure isn’t undercover work. In light of the vastly changed landscape of law enforcement, and the fact that we have an entire generation relying almost solely on advanced technology to “get them in the room,” I’ve come to see myself as having been privileged to be one of the last links in the chain of the dark art.
Hill tribe worker harvesting opium sap, north of Chiang Mai, Thailand
Michael Bansmer
Dry opium poppy pods, from which heroin can also be produced
Michael Bansmer
Blocks of Shan United Army heroin seized during a DEA operation in northern Thailand
Michael Bansmer
Special Agent Edward Follis (left) in Thailand with a Thai police officer after a seizure of Shan United Army heroin
Edward Follis
DEA Special Agent Edward Follis (standing) and ATF Special Agent William Queen (sitting), both working undercover, with “armaments flash” in a major heroin sting operation in Los Angeles.
William Queen
A unit of Thai Border Patrol police, trained by the U.S. Special Forces led by DEA Special Agent Michael Bansmer, during a raid on Shan United Army heroin refineries
Michael Bansmer
Hill tribe people of northern Thailand and Burma, a stronghold of the Shan United Army
Michael Bansmer
Special Agent Edward Follis (left) undercover in Songkhla, Thailand, after a seizure of Shan United Army heroin
Edward Follis
Phong, a chief lieutenant in the Shan United Army, forced by the Thai police to point at blocks of seized Shan United Army heroin number-four after being arrested by Special Agents Edward Follis and Michael Bansmer
Edward Follis
Cover page of DEA Special Agent Michael Bansmer’s photo album of counter-narcotics operations in northern Thailand and Burma
Michael Bansmer
DEA Special Agent Michael Bansmer (far right) with fellow DEA agents Ben Yarborough (center) and Jim Matthews (far left) in an active heroin refinery during a raid in northern Thailand
Michael Bansmer
A heroin refinery in Doi Chiang, Thailand, after a major raid and seizure conducted by the DEA and Thai Border Patrol police
Michael Bansmer
Special Agent Edward Follis (center) in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, during an operation to gain intelligence on the industrialized production of methamphetamine within North Korea
Edward Follis
Amado Carrillo Fuentes, “Lord of the Skies,” godfather of the Juárez Cartel, still ranked by many in law enforcement as the “Richest Gangster of All Time”
US Government photo
Mexican drug cartel cash and weapons seized
Open Source Photos
Santa Muerte, “Saint of Death,” an iconic figure worshipped by drug traffickers at numerous shrines throughout Mexico
Edward Follis
The funeral of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, after botched plastic surgery in an attempt to thwart extradition to the United States during a DEA investigation
Open Source Photos
Edward Follis, while stationed in Kabul, dressed for an undercover operation in traditional Afghan attire
Edward Follis
Edward Follis (left), country attaché in Kabul, meets with opium warlord Haji Juma Khan (right).
Edward Follis
Taliban financier and opium trafficker Haji Bagcho Sherzai, in DEA custody. Sherzai was convicted on March 13, 2012, and sentenced to twenty years in US federal prison.
Edward Follis
Counter-narcotics team in Afghanistan burns a known heroin stash-house.
Open Source Photos
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For their invaluable assistance in completing this book, the authors wish to thank Richard Abate, Mike Bansmer, Charlie Conrad, Mike Holm, Leslie Hansen, Andrea Santoro, William Queen, José Martinez, and Steve Whipple.
* The US Drug Enforcement Administration’s internal report of an ongoing investigation, known as DEA-6, is commonly referred to by us as a six.
* The Drug Enforcement Administration has an elite program of vetted units stationed in hot zones around the globe: Mexico, Colombia, Thailand, Burma, Afghanistan.
* Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America’s Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (Random House).
* I was only the twenty-fourth man inducted into the Possible Club in DEA’s history. These days, they are up to about sixty. The FBI’s club goes back to the Depression; the ranks of their Possible Club are much bigger. The DEA’s only been in existence since 1973; our membership in the club is small by comparison. Still, I’m honored to have made it into the Possible Club, and still cherish that bullet-riddled silhouette target, which hangs on the wall of my home office.
* The supernotes are made with the highest quality of ink, printed on a cotton-linen blend, and designed to re-create the various security features of US currency, such as the red and blue security fibers, the security thread, and the watermark.
* On April 28, 1992, the US Senate rose to offer its highest commendation to “Special Agent Edward Follis for his extraordinary efforts above and beyond the call of duty” in taking down the Nigerian drug-trafficking organization. “Follis, through highly skilled and tireless undercover work, was able to penetrate this organization at the highest level, and completely dismantle this complex international heroin and marijuana smuggling operation. He frequently met suspects while they were heavily armed and the threat of violence was ever-present.”
* In October 2013, three retired federal agents told Fox News and various newspaper reporters that the Central Intelligence Agency participated in the kid
napping, torture, and murder of Kiki Camarena because the agency was supposedly involved in drug trafficking from Latin America to Mexico during the 1980s to raise money to aid Nicaraguan Contra rebels. The Central Intelligence Agency promptly released a statement to the media claiming that “it’s ridiculous to suggest that the CIA had anything to do with the murder of a U.S. federal agent.”
* Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925), holds that a vehicle can be searched without a search warrant if there is probable cause to believe that evidence is present in the vehicle, coupled with exigent circumstances to believe that the vehicle could be removed from the area before a warrant could be obtained.
* “Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The Transnational Threat of Afghan Opium,” a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2009.
* I was the sole subject-matter expert witness on the stand in the three-week-long trial of Haji Bagcho Sherzai. He was convicted by a jury on March 13, 2012, of one count of conspiracy to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin, knowing and intending that it would be unlawfully imported into the United States; one count of distribution of one kilogram or more of heroin, knowing and intending that it would be unlawfully imported into the United States; and one count of narco-terrorism.
* Indeed, in 2001, after the Coalition invasion of Afghanistan, Haji Juma Khan had been briefly detained by US authorities, but—for reasons that remain somewhat mysterious even today—he was almost immediately released.
* In 1998, after four years without any regrowth, my doctors in St. Louis told me my cancer was in full remission.