at the time we had a friend in the family um Man by the name of Pat Gregory a legend in DEA um talked to me about looking at DEA and uh and and I still remember something Pat Gregory told me at the time is that being a de agent is the closest thing that exists to being James Bond and and he was absolutely right not because of anything I did or got to do but it's simply the mission that DEA had the the international reach that DEA had and and the the ability to truly make a difference in the [Mus
ic] [Applause] [Music] world okay so for the audience going to do an interview right now with a retired DEA agent just a little bit of background uh before he introduces himself so he uh began with DEA in 1984 served in uh San Jose California Brazilia Brazil Seattle Brownsville Texas Islamabad Pakistan Kabula Afghanistan Dallas Texas he was at DEA he was the uh Deputy Chief of international operations and he was the special agent in charge for the DEA Aviation division which we'll talk to a litt
le bit uh uh about briefly just because we haven't anybody to talk about so before we begin can you introduce yourself for me please well thanks for having me miles uh Jeff stom former D agent uh actually I started out my law enforcement career as a deputy sheriff in Sacramento California uh spent 31 years in DEA and then uh it's not really considered law enforcement but the last six years of my working life I was actually the director of the Midwest heida the high-intensity drug trafficking are
a which is uh kind of a contract position that falls under the White House Office of National Drug control policy so uh total of 40 years in law enforcement guess one could say I've committed my adult life to the cause of Drug law enforcement uh and I don't consider uh any other profession out there as Noble as uh as law enforcement fair enough fair enough okay so can you tell me a little bit about you growing up where you grew up what your family life was like and was there anything growing up
that Drew you to law enforcement um yeah I suppose one could say I kind of got into the family business I'm maybe was destined to be in law enforcement so to speak um my dad was a cop um but you know before I I talk about some of those influences uh I have to say that I was actually a a child of privilege and not in the economic sense I uh I've often said that I believe that uh I was extremely privilege to have grown up in a household where my two greatest heroes in life were Mom and Dad uh just
exceptional people raised their three boys to uh to to develop and demonstrate character in their lives which I think is the most important thing in the world to to give to their kids and uh that's what they gave me my mom grew up in a farm in South Dakota never went to college but I consider her to be probably one of the uh the smartest people in the world a voracious reader gave me a sense of uh uh a hunger for history and things like that what goes on in the world which maybe drew me to DEA
a little bit to to see the World Experience some of those things um she also instilled in me the the need to to not just float through life but to make a difference to to leave the world a little bit better than you found it uh with Dad uh dad was a deputy sheriff in Sacramento County Sheriff's Department for 33 years um and you know I I grew up as a child in the 60s when he was a a a deputy sheriff becoming a detective later and hearing his stories and just understanding the kind of work that h
e did um so I I think in a lot of ways I was drawn to that as a kid and in fact it's uh it's also been interesting to see some of the developments over the years that so much of what he fought against and and work toward we ended up seeing some of the same things later in life the the Hell's Angels that he fought I ended up fighting in in my DEA career um he he spent some time also working against the Weather Underground uh which was big in uh California founded in 1969 uh a domestic terrorist g
roup at the time consisting mostly of rich white kids but uh intent upon overthrowing the government of of America and replacing it with Communism as well as undermining American law enforcement uh and of course in the 6s cops back then were the pigs right they were defiled degraded uh devalued attempts to defund them and then later in life we would find some of the same attempts so um you know I think a lot of people today hear the term um Predators uh referring to um criminals in our society u
h and I think there's some truth of that they they do in fact Prey Upon innocent civilians but my dad actually I think had a better term he called them uh parasites parasites in society and I think that's true with um drug traffickers today drug traffickers in any period in society so uh uh once again I I think I was sort of destined to follow dad's footsteps with some of those examples became a deputy sheriff when I was 20 and a half put myself through college after that as well um but as much
as I respected my dad he actually ended up retiring as the unders Sheriff of Sacramento County when I was there in the department he was one of four Chief deputies at the time chief of detectives so it was a little tough being the chief's kid you know in the shadow of of my dad in that department so I attempted to strike out on my own and um looked for a little different Avenue in law enforcement at the time we had a friend in the family um Man by the name of Pat Gregory a legend in DEA um talke
d to me about looking at DEA and uh and and I still remember something Pat Gregory told me the time is that being a de agent is the closest thing that exists to being James Bond and and he was absolutely right not because of anything I did or got to do but it's simply the mission that de had the the international reach that DEA had and and the the ability to truly make a difference in the world so uh um came on with DEA in 1984 my first office was San Jose California which I have to tell you at
that time in 1984 cocaine was exploding the place to be the supposed center of the universe at that time was was South Florida with cocaine pouring in from the Colombian Cocaine Cowboys and to be assigned to San Jose I was I was crushed I wanted to go to Miami I wanted to be one of the one of the guys working with Miami Vice right um but I would later come to the realization that taking The Road Less Traveled is actually sometimes better because I found out that being in San Jose was more in the
center of the universe than than Miami sure Miami had bigger cocaine seizures bigger cases uh against the Colombians but in San Jose we got to work Mexican black tar Hell's Angels meth labs Persian heroin Chinese heroin uh marijuana plantations uh the the whole gamut and I actually had the opportunity to work with some of the finest criminal investigators not just from San Jose PD and DEA at that time in that task force but State Bureau of Narcotics enforcement guys LAPD la o true professional
really experienced criminal investigators and law enforcement across the state as I said earlier there there is no more noble profession no more better way to make a difference in in life in society than in law enforcement and I actually think a a a smaller microcosm of that is Drug law enforcement itself not just in DEA uh I I certainly have some uh some very positive U memories of DEA but anybody working dope at any level local state federal International it's the best opportunity to make a di
fference against the parasites uh in the world how over the course of your career I think he said 30 plus years in law enforcement with all the places that you moved and all the places that you were were at how did that how did working Drug law enforcement but law enforcement in general how' that affect your family well uh clearly it affected him greatly I mean I drug drugged my family all over the world uh so many different uh domestic assignments um they clearly had to sacrifice themselves my
wife my three kids um but the old adage I think is true uh that uh adversity builds character and I truly believe that some of the adversities that my my family especially my kids have had to endure um has made them more resilient more realistic in how they see the world they see the world as it is not in how they wish it to be like a lot of people from the left do um probably the biggest adversity I subjected them to was uh in the summer of 2001 I took an assignment to be dea's Regional attache
in Islamabad Pakistan now at the time obviously Pakistan's probably never been a very uh desired location for many people to move to and live but for the family uh the the embassy had there one of the finest American schools in the world so for the kids they were going to get a wonderful education the embassy grounds were exceptional as far as some of the amenities the gym the pool um it made life quite livable for the families but for me in Drug law enforcement it was the center of the univers
e again um part of what used to be called the Golden Crescent that that uh opium and heroin production region in the world that spans Iran Afghanistan and Pakistan so we uh uh we had a a huge footprint over there at that time uh given the the heroin production in fact uh when I went over there I think at the time uh it was about 75% of the world's heroin produced at that time out of the Golden Crescent mainly Afghanistan and Pakistan um by the way fast forward to today it's about 90% so it's uh
it's it's gone the wrong direction um but when when uh the Twin Towers fell in September of that year um it as you can imagine it didn't just change the world it completely refocused mine because as the boss of that office at that time um DEA had such a stable of informance in neighboring Afghanistan that we were uniquely poised to to make a truly outsized contribution in those at least initial stages of the War on Drugs um and a lot of people forget that the uh the intelligence committee at tha
t time following the Cold War had grown so dependent upon high-tech platforms like overhead imagery or signals intercepts that the NSA did that they were completely blind in Afghanistan so the the the tools and and the piece that DEA had initially to turn all of our counterdrug informants tribal Chief Warlords uh opium cultivators truck drivers you name it into the more accute and important War on Terror at that time in fact the uh the former uh ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlin at that ti
me had publicly stated many times that dea's contribution was quote magnificent unquote and that wasn't anything I did it was once again the machine that that DEA had built over the years in uh uh December of 2001 uh just three days after the US Marine Corps the US military in general With a Little Help from the Northern Alliance had captured the capital city of Cabell the uh The Ambassador in Pakistan approached me and asked me if I'd like to accompany a small group of civilians into Cabo to re
open our US Embassy there an embassy by the way that had been closed since 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded that country how's that for the Arc of History right well of course I jumped at the chance and uh found myself that very night on a US Air Force C130 flying out of RA pendy Airbase there in Pakistan into downtown Cabell when I got to the uh Embassy there um a comp of Marines had established a defensive perimeter machine gun and mortar and placements on the roof um and I I set about to tr
y to reestablish some of the contacts that DEA had with some of the Afghan contacts from from the old days um I was uh I was shown my quarters there in the old two-story Embassy uh which was just basically a piece of the floor in that uh small old building and since 1979 or sometime in the past the Windows many of many of the windows had been shot out of the the place and birds had been coming in and out of that building for 20 years plus making their mess all over the floor and which was where
I was going to be sleeping and I've joked many times that it was actually that trip that I discovered one of the Mysteries in life which is what that white stuff in bird poop is you know what that is no that's bird poop too now I I tell that story just to make the point that sometimes times things is are just exactly as they seem some sometimes things really are just about black and white right and wrong good and evil drug trafficking and abuse is one of those things and by the way so is Terrori
sm and so is the combination of the two yeah and I think it's really important I don't think most people know this and maybe you can talk about a little bit more about this but drugs are just pervasive in everything no matter if it's just they're in every sort of criminal organization criminal activity you can possibly imagine so certainly for me it's not a surprise but I think it may be a surprise that all of a sudden DEA who is responsible for drug trafficking enforcement around the you know i
n the United States but definitely in the world as well all of a sudden you're you're you're the lead agency effectively for terrorism because you have these informants that nobody else has well just like drugs is so twin with so many elements of crime in our society uh in fact I think it's been estimated um going back as far as like James Q Wilson in the 60s uh that as much as two-thirds of all crime in our society is directly attribut attributable to drug use Andor drug trafficking 2third so t
he greatest Crime Control measure you can employ anywhere local state federal internationally is drug control and we keep forgetting that Lesson by the way in our country but since 911 when when terrorism really exploded on the scene uh it it also became apparent that drug trafficking and terrorism are completely intertwined in fact uh um just to go back to Afghanistan I was already out of Afghanistan in 2005 but um the military by then had greatly built up a a huge presence throughout the count
ry with some embedded DEA guys uh as well and we had kep captured a guy by the name of Bashir norai uh a member of the hakani network which is a terrorist offshoot of the Taliban um for not just drug trafficking and money laundering but for Narco terrorism specifically that statute that we charged 21 USC 960 um and much of his funding from heroin distribution had been pushed back into the hakani network used against American Service Personnel subsequently he was extracted to the US where he was
convicted sentenced to life in prison um but talk about forgetting lessons in in in history or life actually in December of 2022 the Biden Administration uh traded him in a prisoner exchange for a civilian contractor that had been kidnapped in 2020 in Afghanistan specifically designed to be able to trade him for for the for for Basher norai and by the way norai at that time in the early 2000s was not just Afghanistan's largest heroin trafficker but was the world's largest heroin trafficker and w
e traded him to get a civilian contractor back U from from from capture in Afghanistan now I'm happy for that man um Mark frerick is his name I'm happy that he's back with his family here in the US but you know this country used to have a policy forever going on all the way back to the days of Thomas Jefferson and dealing with the barbar pirates that we would not negotiate with terrorists well suddenly we're not just negotiating with terrorists we're negotiating for terrorists uh it's it's a dis
appointing Le Les lesson that we've learned here recently and um what what's truly necessary and and sometimes our government sometimes does not act in our best interest yeah Jee I want to ask and by the way uh uh just just to continue that thread um the the whole narot terrorism piece is most acute right now with Mexico there's absolutely no doubt today that Mexico is a narco state in every sense of the word uh mainly because we know terrorism is not um just a particular ideology or uh a specif
ic entity it's a it's a tactic and every signal one of the Mexican cartels today are engaging in the tactics of terrorism so with that being said how does it put us in danger with our south southern border the way it is oh hugely uh I think the damage is is so deeply already accomplished uh I think putting Humpty Dumpty back together again is going to take decades if if ever it's fundamentally changed this country you know for decades our own government has lectured the pakistanis I used to be p
art of those discussions by the way that that they cannot they must not allow themselves to be used as safe haven for terrorists fleeing Afghanistan taking up refuge in their country well right now when the Mexican Government occasionally still brings the Heat against the bad guys in Mexico um where do you think their safe haven is that's right they seemingly come across our border at will taking up Refuge inside our country uh we have been fundamentally unserious about protecting ourselves at o
ur Southern border not just from drug smugglers and human traffickers but from narot terrorists and that will come back to bite us here uh one day soon maybe not in the uh um in the form of a large terrorist act but certainly the continual degrading and undermining of our society every day not just with drugs but human trafficking other types of organized crime um I I actually can think of No Greater modern example of cicer warning to his fellow Romans about allowing an enemy within the gates an
d we continue to do it yeah Jeff I want to ask you is something we discussed today so from Pakistan to Afghanistan to your time in Brazil can you tell me you you worked in Brazil and I and I've asked this of other DEA agents who were working in other countries can you tell me the attitude typically of foreign governments towards drugs of they see the problem of drugs do they see it as their problem they see it as our problem and and what's their overall take on it well not just from my time in B
razil or Pakistan but also as Deputy Chief of our International operations and DEA uh I can tell you that that there's not one thing that better unites law enforcement throughout the world than the drug issue um it de degrades and debilitates every society I even had relations with the Iranian for a short time uh relative to the drug issue because heroin devastates their society as well there's uh there's simply no better issue for law enforcement throughout the world to to cooperate on than the
drug issue certainly some countries have better relations than others with with American law enforcement but um DEA has been extremely successful internationally over the years because the vast majority of foreign countries know that that we're not there to engage in Espionage or intelligence collection we're there to do law enforcement uh and and much of that law enforcement positively infects affects their country uh just as much as ours you know it's interesting about Brazil when I was there
and that was uh throughout the early 90s cocaine was was pouring out of all three Indian countries at that time Peru Bolivia Colombia um in all directions but most of the cocaine at that time the vast majority was was destined for America and and we had some great cooperation with our Brazilian counterparts um but for the most part they just assumed that that was America's problem that it would never affect them um they've obviously come to the realization that uh that that was not true back th
en the people don't realize that the second largest drug consumer Market in the entire Western Hemisphere right now second only to the US is Brazil it's totally out of control there um their organized crime problem the Commando veru the red Brigade um controls all cocaine trafficking in that country uh the red Brigade even when I was there was was cooperating with Colombian Narco traffickers um moving multi-ton loads of cocaine through the Amazon to the east coast port cities of belang reife for
tesa s Paulo to push cocaine loads uh into West Africa to to move them into uh to Western Europe taking advantage of those linguistic and Commercial ties that some of those former Colonial African countries had in fact you can fast forward to today one of the the main favorite countries over the years by first the Colombians and now the Mexicans uh has become Guinea BAU one the very Western tip of of Africa mainly due to the obscene levels of corruption uh by that military dictatorship in the co
untry so obscene that that their leaders figured out that they could make a lot more money for themselves by taking payment not just in US dollars but occasionally in cocaine to be able to sell to their own citizens it's a little known fact today that the highest per capita crack cocaine addiction rate in the world today is Guinea BAU a country just a generation ago had never heard of cocaine that that's truly evil right there in my opinion so I'm curious then what do you think the cause is from
going to this is America's problem to them having a serious cocaine problem is it disposable income or is it maybe just a lack of opportunity where people start using drugs what do you what's your opinion on that I think there are two and history Bears this out there are two principal causes of of every drug crisis and by the way that's that's whether drugs are legal or illegal as the prescription drug phenomenon here in this country with with opioids proved uh it's about availability and accep
tability uh if if you've got so much drug availability coming into your country uh that's unchecked and by the way it's law enforcement's job to check that and if you have a sort of a a culture in your society that uh thinks that drug uh acceptability is is not much of a problem you're going to have you're going to have a drug crisis and I think that's proved true throughout the world you know our experience with crack cocaine in the late 80s and early 90s um bears that out as well um and we act
ually achieved uh a a great win over crack cocaine not completely but largely by attacking both availability and acceptability we attack the the cocaine production and distribution Continuum at every level blowing up me uh cocaine labs in South America attacking the transit Zone in the Caribbean and Central America attacking precursor chemicals money laundering building cases against the the major cartel heads and extrating them to the US and lastly by targeting the violent Predators uh the stre
et level drug sales uh Across America and by the way that that last one greatly aided by the crack laws that US Congress passed in in the early 90s crack laws by the way that were mostly brought about through the leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus in Congress at that time mainly responding to the demands of black leaders throughout the country that demanding that something had to be done to make the Predators stop praying upon their communities but also acceptability uh we we had at ev
ery level government business parents churches uh even media all unified in their opposition to drug use and drug trafficking at that time and by the way that last one uh according to mark kimman from New York University years ago greatly aided by what he called a proliferation of $5 crack hores throughout Society willing to do anything for another hit from the crackpipe so why do you think why do you think we haven't learned as a society what's going on where for example in Oregon they in essen
ce decriminalize hard drugs they've realized it's a problem they're trying to go back on that now but you and I talked about this before I can think of no better way if I'm an adversarial country like China or Russia just the easiest way to destroy our country internally is just keep feeding us drugs where did the where did it you do you think it changed where it was sort of hey we had kind of a societal approach to go drugs aren't good for us and now it's switched where it's like you have drug
legalization talk not just for marijuana but for hard drugs as well what where do you think that that we've gone wrong I think society's lost the ability to be mean to people and and and that's really what it boils down to uh the the the mosquite Texas police department has an unofficial motto that basically says if you can't behave yourself you can't live here I think that that's wonderful it says it all but uh it's become Politically Incorrect to to think that way I think a lot of uh in a lot
of ways it's the 1960s mentality where you're supposed to be able to do whatever you want do it if it feels good whatever's your bag um I think the left has has really won a lot of those culture wars uh today where we don't simply have the uh the guts anymore in this country to to punish wrongdoers uh but but as we know that that's the only answer um that's the only uh outcome that that we're going to get which is a degrading of society unless we punish those who Prey Upon our fellow citizens um
you know several years ago I think it's behind me on my shelf here somewhere uh a guy by the name of Robert Sutton uh a business author wrote a book called The no rule wherein he defined an as not simply somebody we dislike or disagree with but somebody who exploits or oppresses other human beings I that's a pretty good description for a drug dealer right there exploits or oppresses other human beings uh we we have to push back against the the parasites and the predators in our society we just
uh We've we've become cowardly in needing to do that and I want to talk a little bit about we've discuss this as well you know you have a lot of we used to have we used to have a little bit more discussion about this which is even though you and I are the enforcement arm of this in terms of Drug law enforcement and taking care of this issue it's not just enforcement and I thought it was something interesting that you brought up earlier which is you know the biggest push back you get or people in
general get from enforcement are the people that are running say rehab clinics where they just don't see a need whatsoever they just want to do one prong and I think you and I are in agreement this can't just be an enforcement we need those guys as well we need multiple prong approaches but you just can't do away with enforcement you know it's absolutely true that saying that we're not going to arrest our way out of the drug problem that's absolutely true in fact law enforcement's been saying t
hat same thing for for decades um but one thing that law enforcement knows and I think most common sense Americans do too is that we're also never going to control drug trafficking and abuse without the law enforcement component um you know traditionally our drug control model has been equal thirds of treatment prevention and enforcement all working in Synergy if you will but um to to your point there uh you know I've I've met with a lot of different groups on the drug control issue over the yea
rs especially during my period as the the heed director uh in Kansas City um and and the most closed-minded arrogant group of all as you just alluded to are a lot of the drug treatment folks that really think they're in competition uh for Souls competition with with law enforcement um so and and it's also been kind of astonishing to me over the years that so many of our leaders in law enforcement not the majority but many of them continue to try to show their compassion by bending over backwards
and and and working in conjunction with the treatment and prevention folks when there's there's no reciprocity there uh in many cases I I've often said uh you will never ever go to a Health and Human Services conference with drug treatment and prevention folks where they uh acknowledge the fact that they should give up part of their budgets to law enforcement because they're the the most important third in that uh in that equation yeah yeah can you talk a little bit I just want your I want your
own opinion since you spent a lot of time overseas what was your what was your what was the difference that you saw doing law enforcement domestically versus internationally and did you have more of uh satisfaction one way or another whether you're working domestically or internationally you know what I I think uh they're both different they're both entirely necessary and they're both exceptionally fulfilling in in their own ways um I I've never said that DEA is the be allend doll for Drug law
enforcement I think some of the best cases I've ever seen have been from Fargo Police Department um you know Eureka California it's it's street level narcotics guy doing the best job they can with Innovation imagination improvisation to push every case that they do as far Upstream as possible to to to create their own courtroom quality evidence you know there's no other job in law enforcement uh unlike narcotics work where um we don't simply have the ability to react to crime or or even as detec
tives to detect it uh we've got to go out and actually create an instigate our own overacts that's different than entrapment don't get me wrong but you you've got to go out and continue to push every investigation with imagination uh and and improvisation because drug traffickers are ever evolving so too must must the good guys um so that being said the the international piece um you know there there's also a lot of uh satisfaction to be gained by um taking a multi-ton load off and say the the p
ort of Rio De Janeiro before it has a chance to hit the high seas on its way to to Miami Florida um it's also quite satisfying to work with Pakistani cops or Brazilian police you name it throughout the world uh helping them improve their institutions and capabilities uh which is what DEA has done for many years throughout the world uh I think we're in 87 countries throughout the world right now doing some some incredible work uh and and I don't think there's a greater threat to the US right now
than the drugs issue which is exacerbated by the by the open borders and all that relating to to terrorism as well um I it's it's not potential flash points and Europe or what NATO ought to do or or other parts of the world it's our own open borders right now that's continuing to undermine our society with drugs and it it it has to be fought at every level um from the street level crack sailes uh that the Crips and bloods engaged in to the meth labs that the Hell's Angels uh are still involved i
n uh to a much lesser extent to to the major Mexican cartels or Narco terrorists as I call them uh it's got to be fought at at every level you know we took our offe off the ball in Colombia um the the cocaine production level in Colombia today is uh is roughly 2 million kilograms right now according to the UN that's twice of what it was uh during the Heyday of the C and Med medine cartels uh we we simply took our eye off the ball in in many parts of the world it has to be fought all the time at
every level and by the way this is not a War on Drugs we're ever going to win it's a constant obligatory struggle against complex social criminal and pharmacological forces yeah I want to get back to uh the question that kind of started off on this which is the effects of the job on your family if I was to go back and and chat with your kids um and for that matter chat with your wife I know how many hours DEA guys put in I'm just talking about law enforcement in general but in your case DEA part
of it is it's just a fun job but you also feel like you're making a difference so you're putting in very long hours if I was to go back and chat with your with your kids or your wife what do you think they would say in terms of the job and how it affected your family well I think they would tell you that it's been an adventure too uh maybe not always in a in a good way um but um as I said earlier I I think my kids are are realists and they're resilient today because of some of the adver adversa
rial positions I've put them in over the years but uh none of my three kids elected to go into law enforcement not that that disappoints me greatly they're all incredibly uh successful in life but all three of my kids did go into the military to serve their country um so I I think in a little different way they too recognize that um civilization must be defended that this is our society one worth fighting for and and they've uh um they've done so so U um I'm I'm I'm incredibly proud of of of my
family um much of my kids' success is due to my wife not me she's actually the smarter of the two in this partnership um but you know speaking of families um when I was in uh when I was in Pakistan um in when 9/11 happened they evacuated the families and they they had to come back to the US move in with my in-laws re-register for school it was hugely problematic uh on a on a personal level uh although I still got to to have fun over there in that part of the world uh but it's a little known fact
that uh the state department regulations require if if a if an evacuation lasts longer than 90 90 days it by Statute becomes permanent it's a it's a no dependent post so at that time I I think the state department was afraid to not have that uh particular set of Optics to the world so they they brought the families back and in March of 2002 um there was a very small uh building off the embassy grounds there in Islamabad um which was the Protestant International Church where folks from all count
ries uh all all Christians from from everywhere in the world mostly diplomats uh would would go to church on Sunday in uh in March of 2002 a uh Pakistani suicide bomber walked into the church one Sunday morning and uh and blew himself up and killed five Americans and wounded scores of of other folks uh in that church at that time two of those dead were the wife and daughter of uh a man named Milton green who is the embassy it technician there at the time um a great guy um he actually had his dau
ghter die in his arms after piece of shrapnel severed her cored artery uh his wife died instantly both he and his son were severely wounded and ended up uh being evacuated U for for several months uh in late 2002 I I personally witnessed what I thought was one of the most courageous things I'd ever seen Milton green came back to Islamabad Pakistan to finish a job and to allow us to honor him and give him a uh kind of a uh memorial service to his family U I cried like a baby that day uh given the
sacrifice that that he made um and it was uh it was incredible I've since lost touch I'm sorry to say with Milton green but it was one of the greatest demonstrations of profiles and courage that I I've ever seen so any any sacri rice that I think I've made or my family has made pales in comparison to to guys like him so I haven't had many people that I can ask this of but because you were Deputy Chief of international operations you were high enough up that uh I I can ask this question and we t
alked about this a little bit it's when administrations change and you have a new uh Administration Deputy of operations come in but who comes up with the plans of what DEA is going to focus on you know we had the Kingpin strategy then we had this 360 strategy we're currently run a one pillin kill strategy is it a committee who who comes up with those ideas you know in my experience I think it's largely been driven by some kind of replacement either at the top we have a new DEA administrator com
e in or maybe a new chief of operations that looks for a for for a different way to do things sometimes it's politically driven uh usually a new de administrator comes in with a new political Administration uh We've we've oscillated back and forth so much over the years between more compassion and more enforcement um so so many of those changes really are a function of of personalities at the top uh but but one thing remains uh Crystal Clear is that as an enforcement agency um a lot of people ca
n engage in in the the treatment and prevention the the so-called compassion piece of this thing but there's only one agency that is poised to make a huge difference um internationally but but also with all of our partners uh domestically uh you know I'm I'm a bit of a student of history when it comes to to the whole War on Drugs issue um and it's it's actually been frustra ating and disappointing over the years to see after creating DEA 1973 as a single Mission Drug law enforcement agency creat
ed by Nixon in 1973 that uh over the years we continue to allow um wave after wave of proliferating agencies and proliferating governments uh uh excuse me government programs out there that that undermine that single Mission Focus uh of a DEA um you know when I was Brazil in the uh in the early 90s uh when the when the Cold War ended the there was no major national security game in town anymore so we saw much of the National Security apparatus lift and shift and suddenly get involved in a War on
Drugs now much of that assistance was welcome DOD Assets in the Caribbean for instance but but so many agencies like like the CIA didn't just want to help in the drug war they wanted to just go do their own thing so in in many cases whether it's uh DEA attempting to to or excuse me FBI attempting to take DEA over or CIA doing their own thing overseas uh in in many instances it's been kind of productive um it's it's also been quite confusing to a lot of our host nation counterpart law enforcemen
t agencies overseas so uh I'm not saying DEA does it all right but there's there's one agency uh traditionally that local state law enforcement throughout the us as well as foreign countries know is only engaged in one thing and that's to take it to the bad guys producing and and selling drugs worldwide yeah I never really understood why we have one Mission DEA has one Mission and why FBI is involved and now Homeland Security is involved and ATF is involved you have all these different federal a
gencies and they have kind of their own things that they should be working on and just you know and and I get it like for ATF I totally understand why they want to do a drug case because you have a an Nexus to other illegal stuff whether it's explosives or firearms and Felons carrying firearms and dealing drugs but I just sometimes it got a little frustrating having these other agencies get involved in drugs and it's like this is all we're supposed to do well it uh um it becomes eye openening go
ing to Washington DC working in DEA headquarters to see how the sausage is made in in Washington DC and it and it's not pretty in a lot of ways um in fact a lot of our elected Elites that we send to Congress don't have a clue of of not just the history but what's what's right and wrong and what has to be done to protect our our fellow citizens um sometimes the uh the federal government uh works against the National Security of our own people in fact we're seeing that uh today with our open borde
rs um we we've seen it state by state uh in about half of our uh country right now with the marijuana legalization um you know the the science is in and the science is unequivocal that marijuana is debilitating and degrading at every level but Congress doesn't want to hear that a lot of politicians don't want to hear that they only want to hear about the the tremendous money that can be uh brought in by by legalizing weed which all goes up in smoke if you really truly analyze the social costs ve
rsus any potential benefits so uh there's uh there's some frustrations in a Democratic Society um but dealing with all that I've often said uh the the the the drug control apparatus we have in our country today it's a lot like Winston Churchill's famous observation about democracy it's absolutely the worst system ever devised by mankind except except for all the others yeah so another question I wanted to ask you that you're uniquely qualified to to answer is can you talk about the DEA Aviation
uh Aviation division essentially I don't think people realize what the EA has in that division can you talk about the assets and what the job is of the aviation Division I was actually honored as my last position in in DEA to be the the Special A agent in charge of our Global Aviation division um I've been given that job mainly because we had a pretty significant Aviation piece in Afghanistan at that time and trying to interface with DOD and the intelligence community and and and trying to to fi
gure out that uh that ISR that uh intelligence surveillance reconnaissance uh piece over there as well as troop transport um that kind of thing but um most of the aviation piece in DEA is targeted for domes IC surveillance um it's it's kind of a backbone of of what the the aviation support division does but there's also a huge piece with conducting extraditions from overseas um providing equipment and and sensitive needs to our our overseas offices um and and by the way we've got some of the bes
t pilots in the world flying for DEA guys that are willing to fly into areas that that most Pilots wouldn't willing to fly bad guys or or guns or dope uh anywhere in the world uh and and it's it's important to note that all of our DEA Pilots are agents first and that's what and that's what I was going to ask you is what does it take to become a DEA pilot well uh you have to qualify to be a de agent first uh and and the main reason for that is is because if if you're on the ground in an undercove
r deal if you're getting ready to kick a door you want to know that the guy in the air is is going to do the right thing for the mission and for his fellow teammates on the ground and and for that I think there's no better requirement that then they got to be an agent first um so there's no specific requirement to to have any kind of Aviation qualification before coming into DEA obviously DEA likes to look for former military Pilots or um you know even those that have licenses before coming in w
ith DEA um but you have to be it's kind of like the old adage that no matter what job you have in the Marine Corps whether you're a pilot or a general or even a dentist you're first and foremost a marine Rifleman the same goes true with DEA you're first and always an agent uh one of the one of the things that I got to be involved in uh as one of the first things I did in the in the aviation Division and we didn't personally fly this Mission but we helped coordinate it was the extradition of uh u
h a guy by the name of Victor boot in 2011 also known as The Merchant of death now um he was given that nickname because he was a former Russian intelligence officer turned one of the most prolific arms dealers in the world uh at the height of his activity he was flying as many as six Russian aircraft a day into Afghanistan supplying the Taliban with weapons and and Equipment where he really ran a foul of US law however was when he AG agreed to sell shoulder fired surfac to- a missiles to the fa
rc in Colombia specifically to kill Americans engaged in counternarcotics so s so our Special Operations Division and DEA instituted a pretty sophisticated sting operation uh that led to his capture in Bangkok Thailand in 2011 so uh we engaged in his extradition but unfortunately just like Bashir norai from Afghanistan in uh December of 2022 our current uh Biden Administration affected a prisoner swap to get back WNBA celebrity Britney Griner uh in what was described as probably the most lopside
d prisoner Exchange in the history of our Republic now miss Griner was not a political prisoner as our Administration like to make her out to be she was a drug Smuggler she got caught smuggling THC con traes into the Moscow airport and we traded her for The Merchant of death okay all right Jeff can you tell me one of the questions that I'd like to ask toward the end can you tell me how your views on society and people have changed since beginning your career with law enforcement well let me say
that I don't think it cannot change I you know anybody that gets into law enforcement even even a street level patrolman uh it's going to change your views on your fellow man and not just because law enforcement deals with the drgs of society um the the the parasites if you will but uh because we deal with all walks of society I I've often said that the the the greatest armchair psychologists in our society are are the cops it's not you know the academics in their Cloister Tower it's it's the av
erage street cop who understands how the world Works uh so I don't think you can get in DEA and and not have your view of of your fellow man change um and and it's absolutely true that that line between good and evil cuts through every human heart um there's often Sometimes some disappointments uh in the people that you deal with in government in in in life even sometimes in in in your fellow law enforcement uh community but you know what we uh we we develop a sense to see the world as it as it
really is um to to understand how to make the best difference for your fellow citizens and it cannot just come from compassionate approaches uh sometimes you have to hold people accountable um and there's only really one entity out there that can get that done and that's and that's in law enforcement you know one of the greatest examples of leadership I ever I ever saw and got to participate in uh was when I was in asack an assistant special agent in charge in in Dallas in 2011 when um excuse me
haime Zapata and his partner Victor Aila from uh Immigration and Customs Enforcement were operating in Mexico they actually were were stopped in a makeshift roadblock by the Zetas in Mexico and u u tried to identify themselves by Rolling the window down just enough to to badge these these bad guys and of course they were met with the AK47 barrels into the car and Hai zabata was killed instantly and his partner U Victor aula severely wounded um he would actually survive and I believe he's actual
ly running for congress as we speak in South Texas um but when that happened um the the Obama Administration uh put out a press statement saying that we would work with the Mexican authorities to bring the as salant to Justice a completely sheepish and and and weak response but what came next was was even weaker it was nothing um at that time the Zetas had probably their principal command and control center in the US in in Dallas Texas so our special agent in charge at that time of DEA Dallas Ji
mmy kapra decided you know what we cannot allow this to happen the good guys cannot let this stand so we're going to take it to the Zetas at every level and he put together a coalition of local state law enforcement agencies city government inspectors uh an entire broad array to go out and kick the Zetas in the ass as best we could DEA headquarters actually got wind to that and uh said wait a second stop let's postpone this for a week because this is such a good idea we're going to make this hap
pen on a national level and our sod Special Operations Division coordinated that in what became known as operation Bombadier um our fellow ice agents who had been actually embarrassed at the response from their own agency their own government uh was more than happy to jump in uh and and we we took it to the Zetas across the country at every level not just building drug cases but doing Knockin talks uh arresting family members for any ancillary misdemeanor arrest warrants we could uh deporting fa
mily members uh even the most ancillary ones for for even having the connection to them we kick their ass all the way across the country at the end of the day I think there were a total of 450 arrests 300 kilos of cocaine seized couple hundred pounds of methamphetamine 8 tons of marijuana and $10 million in cash gold bars and and Other Drug proceeds we uh uh we we kicked them in the ass so hard that the Zetas although they're still around uh never really recovered um so that that's truly leaders
hip um and in fact we did the same thing in 1985 When de agent Kiki Kamara was kidnapped tortured and killed by the guadara cartel back then um we we took it to the Mexican traffickers relentlessly for years including Dr machain Who was the Doctor Who was brought in to keep Kiki alive for as long as he could so they could continue to beat on him and uh extract information um the the the Mexican traffickers had learned for the next 26 years that you don't lay a hand on American law enforcement uh
because um the good guys are obliged to respond to such profane violations of justice as that so uh um has my view of mankind changed absolutely but once again um for the best because there's there's no other way to see life than um the way it really is do you have any advice to people who are going looking at this Channel and want to go in law enforcement um yes do it as I said at the outset you know there is more noble profession than law enforcement if you truly want to make a difference in
the world in life and that's even in your small local police department becoming a state trooper becoming a federal agent um becoming an intelligence analyst or even a prosecutor there is no more rewarding experience no more ability to make a positive impact on the world than to go into law enforcement it's not going to be easy sometimes uh so many elements of our own Society even in government will rail against you for um truly unjust remarks about uh your motives and um um motivations but um i
n the big scheme uh you can make a difference in life Jeff thank you for the interview thank [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] you down
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