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Monday, November 28, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Police stage phony drug seizures
DEA says false news reports help agents gain confidence of drug lords
The Associated Press
HOUSTON - The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says it has directed local law enforcement agencies nationwide to stage phony drug seizures and generate false news reports about them to help DEA agents gain the confidence of drug lords.
DEA spokesman Maurice Hill in Washington, D.C., said the technique was employed in high drug traffic areas across the country, including Texas, the Houston Chronicle reported yesterday.
"It's a procedure that is used, but I can't begin to tell you with what frequency." Hill told the newspaper. "It's not a new technique, I can tell you that."
Staging bogus seizures and feeding the information to reporters apparently came into practice several years ago to resolve a problem for undercover drug agents posing as cocaine importers for Colombian drug lords, according to the Chronicle.
Often the DEA operatives, posing as middlemen, deliver the drugs to local dealers according to instructions from Colombian exporters. They then keep the shipment under surveillance in the hope of intercepting it before it hits the streets, officials said.
But, the newspaper reported, the DEA sometimes ensures that drugs never reach the street
another way: by having local authorities seize the drugs before they are delivered to the local dealers. In some cases, even the officers making the seizures don't realize that busts were planned in advance by their superiors.
Newspaper clippings on the fake seizures help convince the traffickers that the seizures are for real, according to the Chronicle, which determined that they were seized in the Houston area had been staged.
"The Colombians, the only way they'll believe you is to show them the stuff (drugs), the money or the newspaper clips." Hill said.
Harris County Sheriff Johnny Klevenhagen, whose office cooperated in at least two staged seizures, said local police agencies used the tactic only at the request of the DEA. He praised the bogus seizures as "very productive in taking illicit drugs off the street."
drugs on the skull
Klevenhagen added that withholding information was a common police procedure, and that it did not constitute lying for officers to withhold the true origin of drugs when discussing a staged seizure.
seize. While many law enforcement agencies defend the ruses on grounds that they preserve investigations and protect agents, journalists say the scams raise ethical questions about government deception of the news media and the public.
of the news media and its partners.
If the DEA is willing to lie to the media and
public about this issue, what else might they be willing to lie about?" asked Tony Pederson, Chronicle managing editor.
"There seems to have been no accountability in the entire process," Pederson said. "At least some type of judicial review has always been necessary for other elements of law enforcement deception, the key example being wiretaps. But who, if anyone, has reviewed this process?"
The newspaper described two phony seizures in the Houston area.
"raud LaRocque, an assistant journalism professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, asked, "How can the public trust what they read in a book that her has been converted to an arm of government?"
In 1984, DEA agents helped smuggle 952 pounds of cocaine into Harris County, then abandoned the van containing the contraband at a prearranged roadblock set up by the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Chronicle repaint. In 1984, the public department alerted news that the troopers had found a cache of drugs described at the time as one of Texas' largest seizures.
On Sept. 29 of this year, 60 kilograms of cocaine was planted in an abandoned car at another spot in Harris County, and left to be discovered by deputy sheriffs, who notified reporters.
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The shooting victim, a 13-year-old boy, was wounded in the neck and throat and listed in satisfaction. Vincent's Hospital, police said
"It was at that time a man from the consulate came out. He had a pistol and he iried two shots," Feherran said. "As a result of that, one of the demonstrators — the 13-year-old boy — was shot in the throat."
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Heffernan said police officers tried to contain the youths, who turned to the demonstrators and incited them to chant slogans.
The shooting occurred as 1,500 protesters demanding a Croatian
In a separate demonstration earlier yesterday, some of the 2,000 protesters threw eggs and placards at a limosine carrying visiting Greek President Christo Sartetziket. The protesters demanded that Greece grant Macedonian autonomy.
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The consulate claimed diplomatic immunity for the shooting, said Sgt. Wayne Bottom, a New South Wales police spokesman.
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The Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia — Hundreds of ethnic Croatians demanding a homeland demonstrated outside the Yugoslav Consulate yesterday. Police said a gunman shot and wounded a teen-ager as several protesters climbed the wall of the compound.
Sgt. Peter Heffernan said about five youths tried to scale the walls of the consulate in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra.
homeland marked Yugoslav National Day, the anniversary of the communist government.
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