WAR ON DRUGS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200830002-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 4, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
PROGRAM 20/20 STATION W J L A- T V
ABC Network
DATE August 4, 1983 10:00 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
SUBJECT War on Drugs
ANNOUNCER: This is a simulated war game. Tonight,
Ceraldo Rivera poses as a smuggler to test the government's new
defenses in the war on drugs. Military aircraft, ships, more
agents, sophisticated equipment. Can he get through? How strong
is the second front?
HUGH DOWNS: Up-front tonight. There hasn't been
anything like it since Prohibition, the Reagan Administration's
war on drugs. Under the direct supervision of the Vice Presi-
dent, federal law enforcement agencies are putting aside their
traditional rivalries and are working together, now with the
military, in a special task force. Just today, news of two drug
seizures: 3 1/2 tons of marijuana intercepted in this small
sailboat, here being escorted into New York Harbor; and more than
800 pounds of cocaine seized from a small private plane at
Montgomery, Alabama. Both seizures the work of the new task
force.
But how often do the smugglers get through? Well, to
test the effectiveness of the new drug task force, Ceraldo Rivera
tried to break through its net.
Geraldo, are you going to explain now how that came out?
GERALDO RIVERA: I don't want to give away the end of
the story yet, Hugh. It'd spoil the suspense. But the reality
is drug smuggling today is a multibillion-dollar industry. And
the smugglers working the drug industry are often better in-
formed, equipped, and financed than the cops trying to catch
them.
Material supplied by Radio N Reports, Inc. may be used for file and reference purposes only. It may not be reproduced, sold or publicly demonstrated or exhibited
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The first front in the new drug war is the escalating
effort to stop the stuff from getting into the country. But
there are other ways to skin the drug fat cats, like going after
their money. And that's what's really new. That's the second
front.
When the Reagan Administration declared war on drugs,
they meant it, literally. For really the first time, the
military is now intensely involved. Using sophisticated equip-
ment like this Navy P-3 sub hunter, one recent case involved
tracking down a drug ship called the Alex.
For the last several months, the ship has allegedly been
cruising up and down the entire East Coast of the country, off-
loading drugs onto smaller vessels, like some huge floating drug
warehouse. The search for the Alex is typical of operations that
happen now almost daily. It involves Coast Guard cutters, swift
sleek Navy hydrofoils that can cruise at over 50 miles an hour,
and a Navy destroyer, the Issac Kidd, which actually apprehended
the drug-runner 400 miles off the Florida coast. It had 80,000
pounds of marijuana on board.
Retired Admiral Dan Murphy coordinates the Administra-
tion's anti-drug effort.
ADMIRAL DAN MURPHY: What we're trying to do throughout
the entire country is to apply what lessons we learned in
Florida. And this is deploying Navy radar planes off either
coast, using a balloon radar down here in Key West, Coast Guard
ships, Navy ships, all kinds of airplanes, and trying to catch
these bad guys both on the surface of the ocean and in the air as
they come in.
VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: Marijuana seizures are up
23 percent. Cocaine seizures are up 54 percent.
RIVERA: Are you stopping the drugs coming in or are you
merely diverting them from South Florida? That's the question.
VICE PRESIDENT BUSH: I think we're doing both. Some
have been diverted. But I think if you just took a net assess-
ment, you'd find that we'd deterred drugs coming in. And the
hits are up. But we're fighting a major problem with somewhat
restricted resource. But it's sure been worth it and we're going
to keep plugging away. We've got a national problem and this is
a national answer. And we hope it'll prove successful.
RIVERA: As just one test of how successful the Vice
President's task force is or may become, we agreed, with the
cooperation of federal authorities, to play a little war game.
Under the rules of this war game, I would pose as a drug smuggler
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attempting to break through the net cast by the Vice President's
task force around this Florida coast.
To make the game as realistic as possible, our side
would be flying in a Beechcraft D-18. It's a 30-year-old
airplane currently favored by drug smugglers.
To assist me in the planning and carrying out of this
operation, 20/20 enlisted the help of two, shall we say, consul-
tants, men who have intimate knowledge of real-life drug smug-
gling operations. We rendezvoused on a remote airfield in South
Florida.
So, Charlie, how long have you been in the business?
CHARLIE: About 10 or 11 years.
RIVERA: How long have you been flying?
CHARLIE: About 50 years.
RIVERA: Fifty years.
How about you, Bob? How long in the business?
BOB: [Unintelligible] years.
RIVERA: How good are these new methods of aerial
surveillance, Charlie?
CHARLIE: The industry has to take a lot of precautions
in order to beat 'em, but it can be done.
RIVERA: The industry Charlie is referring to is, of
course, the nation's drug-smuggling business, an $80-billion-a-
year colossus that has learned every trick in the book.
Why don't we go and take off, fly over the Bahamas
there, and we'll see if they can catch us.
To give the Feds a fair chance, there were ground rules
for this little exercise.
All right, this is the game were going to play, trying
to beat the South Florida task force. We're going to come in
from Orange Cay in the Bahamas low to the water to avoid the
radar.
The task force knew approximately how, when and where we
would attempt to penetrate a 30-mile slice of the South Florida
coastline between Biscayne Bay and Key Largo.
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MAN: Between there and the north tip of Elliott Key is
the penetration point. Minimum altitude, 2000 feet. So,
hopefully, C-3 can snap up on him.
RIVERA: These task force pilots had, in essence, a tip
about our mission, something they frequently get in real-life
smuggling ventures.
Incidentally, this entire exercise was part of their
regular training schedule.
Ultimately, our goal is to get to Homestead general
airfield, right here. Rick will be flying in the pilot's seat.
This satchel will represent the narcotics we're smuggling into
the country. We win the game if we can get this satchel on the
ground at Homestead airfield not surrounded by federal narcotics
agents.
MAN: Once he gets into the massive amount of air
traffic, Jesus, you know, we can find a airplane, but is it the
airplane?
RIVERA: These agents are all former military pilots
with thousands of hours of flying experience. And because so
much smuggled dope is coming in by air these days, the pilots are
an essential part of the task force net.
Another footnote. To avoid accidental injury to this
correspondent, at our request, the agents removed the bullets
from their weapons.
In contrast to our 30-year-old prop-driven D-18 smuggler
special, the task force uses specially-equipped converted
business jets for their mission.
Among the exotic electronics on board, these aircraft
are equipped with infrared scanners capable of finding distant
targets in day or night. On this flight, they also use their
classified radar system. Designed initially for aerial combat,
the system can find the altitude, speed and direction of another
aircraft, then plot the course and time of intercept, as it did
in locating and catching up with this Coast Guard jet flying an
actual anti-drug mission. In short, these are formidable tools
of law enforcement. Fortunately for the crooks, the task force
has just one of these jets operating in South Florida.
The reason we chose the Bahamas as the place to begin
our challenge should become obvious when you see the airfield on
Bimini Island. This is a major drug transshipment point into the
United States. The wrecked planes that litter the street at
Bimini are evidence of smuggling operations that did not make it.
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MAN: That guy was loaded with dope.
All right. We're at Orange Cay in the Bahamas. From
here on we'll be flying at an altitude of about 20 feet, trying
to penetrate into the United States. The game is on.
MAN: This guy here is doing about 160 knots. That
could be him. That could be an 18.
MAN: Rog. Let's get on him. He looks like a D-18.
RIVERA: These agents, by the way, knew we were flying a
MAN: It should be a lot faster this time. He looks
like he's going right past that, and it just might be our own
guy. He's going right past that doggone boat.
RIVERA: It wasn't the wrong guy, it was us. Thirty
miles off the coast and after just ten minutes, they had spotted
our low-flying airplane.
But finding us was one thing, catching us another.
Bob, I think they've spotted us.
MAN: The target is on the deck, on the deck. And we
didnot ID him. We did not ID him. However, it is a tan and
white, tan and white, a D-18 with a long nose.
MAN: Definitely a D-18. Definitely a D-18. Alert
[unintelligible] on that.
RIVERA: Spotted and now being tailed by two different
aircraft, we began evasive maneuvers just 20 feet above the
Atlantic Ocean.
MAN: I'm getting a heat reflection off the water from
him. So he's got to be low.
MAN: Our commander's down there with him.
MAN: I know. I had the commander a minute ago. But
this guy is juking and jiving.
RIVERA: What are we going to do?
PILOT: We're going under that thunderstrom, get in the
heavy rain, and then make turns back and forth, see if we can
lose them. No way you can lose them out here.
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RIVERA: But even before we got to the clouds, there was
more bad news in the rear-view mirror, a high-performance
Blackhawk helicopter donated by the Army to the task force. It's
additional evidence of the military's escalating involvement in
the drug war.
MAN: If he goes in the clouds, just break away, and
I'll just take over.
RIVERA: As the federal noose got tighter, we tried the
clouds on for cover.
MAN: He's in it, and we're scooting right along below
it, and we broke left.
MAN: Okay. I've got him at 12 o'clock. He's off to
your right side.
MAN: We have got him.
RIVERA: It didn't help. We just couldn't shake the
200-mile-an-hour helicopter.
MAN: One-eight, fall in behind 521.
RIVERA: The Customs helicopter is right on our tail.
There was only one gambit left.
PILOT: All right. They're right behind us. Our only
chance is to make a run for it. So I'll take the satchel as soon
as the wheels stop and see if I can outrun them.
MAN: Oh, they're turning around. They're running.
MAN: There's a guy rabbiting.
MAN: Some guy running.
RIVERA: But that didn't work for the crew of my
airplane, or for me. And though I was on the losing side, this
training mission was an impressive demonstration of federal
muscle.
But as potentially effective as the Vice President's
task force seems to be, even this type of combined effort can't
possibly prevent all drugs from being smuggled into the country.
By the government's own best estimate, just 10 to 15 percent is
actually being stopped. So they're opening a second front in
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the drug war, going after the property of the drug smugglers.
Homestead airfield, for example, is cluttered with
aircraft intercepted and seized in actual task force operations.
Now, if the government can prove these planes were used for, or
even if they were just bought with money earned from, the drug
trade, then they'll be confiscated. In other words, the planes
will become the property of the United States. Within just the
last year, the federal law enforcement agencies have seized a
total of 229 aircraft, and one of them belonged to our old friend
Charlie.
What were you carrying when they grabbed you?
CHARLIE: We had about 79 bales of marijuana on boad.
RIVERA: Seventy-nine bales of marijuana.
CHARLIE: Yes. It weighed about 1550 pounds.
RIVERA: Charlie was never charged for his role in the
smuggling caper because he managed to convince federal authori-
ties that he was actually a double agent, an informer working for
the government. So he expects to get his plane back any day now.
The owners of these other aircraft, though, will not be
as lucky.
Some of the property seized by the Federal Government
for its alleged connection with the drug trade is quite substan-
tial, both in terms of value and size. This 707 jet cargo plane,
for instance, belonging to a company called Tampa Colombia. It
was seized by Customs agents on June 11th after they found about
900 pounds of cocaine hidden in a cargo of flowers. This is the
second aircraft belonging to the same company to be seized within
about the last year. The last one they took down had about 4000
pounds of coke on board.
STANLEY MARCUS: It's a good and effective tool because
what it does is it increases the cost to a narcotics dealer of
doing narcotics business.
RIVERA: Stanley Marcus, the U.S. Attorney for South
Florida, is aggressively using the laws on forfeiture to increase
the dopers' cost of doing business.
MARCUS: So, for example, on a Monday morning 50 or 80
defendants might be arrested in connection with a major narcotics
smuggling operation. And at the same time, we will proceed
civilly against 26 automobiles, seven boats, 15 aircraft, two
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pieces of real property, three condominiums, and 11 bank ac-
counts.
RIVERA: So it would seem as if the government finally
has a potent practical weapon to fight the money-rich drug
smugglers. But are the confiscation laws really effective?
REP. JACK BROOKS: When they seize vessels or cars or
airplanes, they just let 'em sit around and they don't do
anything with them. Then they sell 'em for little or nothing, 40
or 50 percent off of the appraised value.
RIVERA: Congressman Brooks' main point is that better
management of these seized assets could make the entire anti-drug
effort even more effective.
When cash is seized or property sold, under a pending
proposal, the agency that made the seizure would be able to keep
the proceeds or property instead of having to turn them over to
the Treasury.
So you mean that if the task force, for example, seizes
a vessel, it can sell that vessel and then use that money in its
efforts.
REP. BROOKS: That's right. That's right. Subject to
congressional supervision.
RIVERA: But some are skeptical that even a well-run
program will really have an impact on the big-time smugglers.
Defense attorney Joel Hirshhorn has gotten rich successfully
defending accused drug smugglers.
JOEL HIRSHHORN: When a professional organized smuggler
loses an $800,000 plane, like a Learjet, if that's what they
cost, or loses a house that he might have spent a quarter of a
million dollars for or loses a three of four hundred thousand
dollar boat, that's just a cost of doing business. It's written
off as if you might write off the cost of lunch today.
RIVERA: One way to up the ante has been proposed by
Senator Joe Biden.
SENATOR JOE BIDEN: If you're a drug dealer and I can
prove that you gained a million dollars -- that is, you benefited
to the tune of a million dollars, all I have to do, under the new
Biden proposal, is to go out and anything that you have that's
worth a million dollars, the government can take.
RIVERA: Biden's proposal is called substitute assets.
And if upheld by the courts, it could prove effective against the
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wealthy drug syndicates.
Aside from the obvious risk of going to jail or having
property seized and forfeited to the government, there is another
cost of business for drug smugglers. You're about to see the
price of betrayal.
MAN: ...the bogey now down to 110 knots, 3000.
RIVERA: It's a moonless Florida night. The lights you
see on your TV screen are the infrared image of a smuggler's
airplane as seen from one of the task force aircraft. The voices
belong to the task force pilots. The smuggler, circling a remote
Florida airstrip, is waiting for his associates on the ground to
light up the field.
MAN: There's a big field down there with three hot
spots in it. They're signals on the ground, two fires.
MAN: This is Eddie. He's going in, Ben.
RIVERA: Desperately low on fuel, the smuggler does not
realize he's being followed and tracked by the task force
aircraft flying above him. But his associates on the ground do
hear the other engines. And to save their own skins, they turn
off the landing lights.
MAN: The light just went out.
MAN: ...they probably heard us up here and turned the
light out.
MAN: Okay. He's at 300 feet, 110 knots.
MAN: He's got to go in anyway. He's out of fuel. We
might see somebody die here.
RIVERA: The smuggler pilot has no choice. Betrayed but
out of fuel, he attempts to set his plane down anyway.
MAN: I'm not going to try to maneuver with him here
because there's just too much crap going on.
MAN: He crashed. He crashed. He just crashed.
MAN: Did he crashed.
MAN: He's crashed. He's crashed. There's the fire-
ball. There's the fireball.
This is five-zero. I've got no visible survivors on my
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gadget. The plane did break apart on impact. I'll tell you,
there's no chance for survivors.
RIVERA: This was the scene the next morning.
Perhaps, as Vice President Bush has said, the color of
drug money is not green. It's blood-red.
DOWNS: Can they ever really stop illicit drug traffic
without legalizing drugs?
RIVERA: I really don't think so, Hugh. I think that
you can slow it down, make it more expensive. But as long as
millions of Americans are willing to spend billions of dollars,
then someone's going to try and take it in.
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