GLOBAL DRUG TRAFFIC - IN VERY HIGH PLACES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504450001-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 17, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/25 :CIA-RDP90-009658000504450001-6
,~~~ ~.
r~ P~
WASHINGTON TIMES
17 June 1986
Global drug tragic
in very high places
,~ By Charles Wheeler
rHe w~sr+nanraN nos
or the past six years Ja,~,mes
7 Mki~s has taken great nsks
in an unprecedented and
mind-rattling documenta-
tion of the corruption that global
drug traffic brings to a number of
nations, including the United States.
Mr. Mills has been eye-to-eye with
what he describes as "assassins, tor-
turers, secret agents, drug-army
leaders and billionaire drug bosses
... some of the shadiest, most in-
triguing, most otherworldly people I
have ever met."
FYom CIA and National Security
Agency sources also comes his new
book, "The Underground Empire -
WhereCrime and Governments Em-
brace," which provides the stagger-
ing dimensions of drug traffic:
? The inhabitants of the Earth
now spend more money on illegal
drugs than on food, housing, clothes,
education, medical care or any other
product or service.
? The international drug industry
is highly destabilizing to the world
economy with annual revenues that
exceed half a trillion dollars -three
times the value of all United States
currency in circulation.
? Illegal drug profits deposited in
banks around the world draw inter-
est exceeding S3 million per hour.
? Drug traffickers have almost as
much trouble moving their money as
they do moving their drugs - a load
of cocaine or heroin generates cur-
rency weighing five times as much
as the drugs. The "Samsonite suit-
case cun?ency-measure" is often
used: TWo Samsonites filled with
$100 bills equal 51 million.
? In 1983, an average of 1,500 peo-
ple each day entered American
banks clutching bags and suitcases
containing $10,000 or more in small
bills, mostly from illegal drug sales.
? There is more money on deposit
in Swiss banks from tiny Caribbean
islands than from Canada and West
Germany.
? Drugs are exported from Co-
lombia and Mexico at a rate equal to
75 percent of those nations' total an-
nual export revenues.
? The underground narcotics em-
pire includes 33 countries and the
Palestine Iaberation Organization,
all of which have highly plaexd gov-
ernment officials participating in
drug traffic.
i~om early 1980, when Mr. Mills
was permitted to witness the inner
workings of a now disbanded Drug
Enforcement Administration opera-
tion called Centac - "the most unor-
thodox, effective and least-known
police organization in the world" -
until the book was finished, he trav-
eled unknown thousands of miles
and spent more than 5500,000 of his
publisher's and his own money.
The result is 1,165 pages that, con-
sidering the implications for agents
es well as criminals, make an un-
usualpromise tothereader: "Every-
thing in this book is true. No names
have been changed, there are no
composite cluracters, no invented
scenes or dialogue:'
Mr. Mills, a former UPI reporter
end associate editor of Life msg.
azine, is perhaps best-known for his
navel "The Panic in Needle Psrk;'
which described the world of New
York City heroin addicts.
Standing 6 feet 3 inches tall in his
black cap-toed shoes and gray pin.
striped suit, the author seems more
like a Wall Street banker or a senator
from New England than the chroni-
cler of a sundry cast that still
amazes him by being so consistently
forthcoming.
"Though I never hid from atryone
the fact that I was writing a book,
often they refused to believe it. They
just assumed that a writer could not
possibly be where I was, doing what
I was doing - therefore, I was not a
writer;' Mr. Mills said. "Almost all of
them -agents and criminals -
seemed io want to malts sure that I
met everyone, saw everything, got it
all right "
The information revealed in a re-
cent New York Times story, alleging
that Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega,
Panama's powerful military head, is
ittvolved in drug trafficking, weap-
ons smuggling and money launder-
ing operations, has been known by
U.S. government officials for some
time, Mr. Mills said.
"It's really the tip of the tip of the
iceberg -that story on Noriega
could be done and will be done on the
leaders of at least half a dozen and
maybe as many as 25 or 3o nations;'
he said. "I mention 33 nations in my
book, and it's hardly a short list.
"While I was doing this book, I
was always figuratively looking
around, thinking, 'Where is every.
body else?, ? Mr Mills said. "I mean,
leaders of national governments as
international criminals?'T'het'a quite
a story, and there was nobody around
and I couldn't understand why no-
body else was doing the story..,
He began gradually tD understand
the immense foreign policy and dip-
lomatic pressures not to blow the
whistle on crooked officials of other
countries.
"What yrou always hear from the
State Department ia: 'Vlk have a lot
of very important interests in those
countries -military bases, intelli-
gence operatians,trade agrcements.
It's not just drugs, and if we come
down on them for drugs they won't
be there when we need them; ? Mr
Mills said. "You hear that and beer it
and hear it.
"Often you get two men arriving
on the doorstep of a national leader.
One is a DEA agent with handcuffs
and the other is from State or the
CIA with roses," he said. "The roses
always win and the DEA guy puts his
tail between his legs and gets lost:'
The number of U.S. government
offici$ls corrupted financially by
the underground drug empire is "in-
finitesimal, very small;' Mr. Mills
said. But he fears another type of
corruption -intellectual and moral
-that he says is far more prevalent
and dangerous. "I'm talking about
me cx-ncealment of what's really go-
~Baa
`.One thing about the drug busi-
ness that tmdesmines the will and
authority of this nation has nothing
at all m do with drugs, but has to do
with the unwilli:tgneas of our gov-
ernment m be honest," he said. "It
makes us make ert+oneoue decisions
- you can't make a decision when
the information yw are using is a lie,
is incorrect. A government that does
that as a matter o[ natkanal policy is
corrupting itaakf"
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/25 :CIA-RDP90-009658000504450001-6
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/25 :CIA-RDP90-009658000504450001-6
No pizaideat since xictiard Niioon
has been willing to take the neces-
~Y step ~ stop drugs from enter-
ing this country: tell ai'~da1s of
drug-producing caiatslsa b stop
those activitid and maaa it, Mr.
Mills said.
"Nixon told 'Nrkey to stop albw-
ing heivin to be produced inside
their borders, and they stopped and
stayed stopped. I'm not blowing Nix-
on's horn, but we don't have anybody
who will say, 'Stop it!' to Burma,
which produces more opium than
~Y country in the world, or to Thai-
land or to Pakistan or to Mexico. And
nothing is going to happen until a
president makes that statement:'
The biggest lie told to the Amer-
ican people, according to Mr. Mills.
is that the ongoing effort to stor
dings at the nation's borders is effec
five.
"In six years, I never met one per-
saa -trafficker, agent, anybody -
who thought the administration's
war on drugs wan anything other
than a joke;' he said. "It's strictly a
PR operation with fast, high-visibil?
ity operations, lots of seized drugs
and lots of arrests that make the 7
o'clock news and the newspapers.
"It is a politically motivated pro-
gram based on a falsehood: that you
can effectively address the drug
problem in the United States by stop-
ping drugs at the border. That is
absolutely untrue;' Mr. Mills said.
Despite naming still-active drug-
lords in his book and detailing their
criminal efforts, Mr. Mills says he
and his family are not endangered or
threatened.
"All the people named in the book
have been known for years to police
agencies. It's just you and me who
are always the last to hear;' he said.
"These people have nothing to fear
from the law, they are above the law
or they are the law, so they certainly
have nothing to fear from a journal-
ist. Do you think Gen. Norie~a wor-
ries about journalists?"
Mr. Mills does take some precau-
tions, though. He will not tell where
he lives, other' than tD say it is
abroad. And any questiaas about
family are politely turned aside. He
has ao illusions about the type of
people he is repotting ao.
"I think it"a a reel gaod~td-evil
thing -whoa you get right down m
it, it"s the evil is the world va. the
good in the world, nerd the motivat-
ing Paco behind all of it is greed
and poweC' Mr. Mills said.
While professing no strategy for
dismantling the underground em-
pire he has detailed, Mr. Mills does
suggest a first step.
People say to me, `What should
we do? What's the answer?' and I say,
'I don't know, but I know what the
first step is and the first step is hon-
esty; " Mn Mills said. "The most I
w+puld hope for from the book would
be that it provoke a little honesty."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/25 :CIA-RDP90-009658000504450001-6