by Laura Williams at Activist Post
The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is a colossal institutional failure. Since its founding in 1973, the DEA has intercepted a fraction of one percent of illicit drug trades. Drugs have never been stronger, cheaper, or more available. Meanwhile, the global economic and human costs of ‘enforcement’ keep rising.
Recently, Americans received a stark reminder of this ongoing, flagrant failure in the form of José Irizarry, a former award-winning DEA agent who was convicted of 19 counts of corruption and fraud in 2020. On his way to serve federal time in Puerto Rico in January 2022, Irizarry spoke to the Associated press, calling out his ex-colleagues and spilling a few agency secrets.
“You can’t win an unwinnable war. DEA knows this and the agents know this,” Irizarry told reporters, validating decades of criticism. “…We know we’re not making a difference.”
Irizarry told the AP that dozens of other federal agents, prosecutors, smugglers, and snitches on the US payroll (collectively known as “Team America”) engaged in global jetset adventures on the DEA’s dime. Irizarry estimates 90 percent of his group’s work trips were “bogus” (not related to any drug interdiction work) but that the US government was charged under the vague justification that travel was “case-related.”
Agents falsified the few reports they did file,…
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