 |
 |
 |
In 1996 an expose series in the San Jose Mercury News made world
headlines. It charged that the CIA and its operatives used crack
cocaine--sold via Los Angeles' African American community--to raise millions to
support the CIA's clandestine operations in Central America during the 1980s.
The agency's Inspector-General Frederick Hitz--an independent watchdog
approved by Congress--was asked to make a thorough review of the allegations.
His subsequent report was released in 1998. This article looks at the
evidence, documents and findings of the Hitz report and draws on interviews
with Hitz, Oliver North and others.
|
|
|
 |
A summary of the controversy surrounding this billionaire family and a rare
on-camera interview with Carlos Hank Rhon in which he addresses allegations
that the family is linked to drug traffickers and money laundering.
|
|
|
 |
Every dollar spent by North America's drug users goes to fuel a mammoth and destructive global business. This report offers a chart on drug users' expenditures (in billions of dollars per year) and tracks where that money goes.
|
|
|
 |
As U.S. law enforcement sharpens its focus on the flow of billions of
dollars in narcotics money into legitimate commerce and trade, corporate
America is worried about becoming targets. This report looks at some
investigations and outcomes to date.
|
|
|
 |
"The Black Market Peso Exchange is perhaps the largest, most insidious money laundering system in the Western Hemisphere," says Raymond Kelly, Commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service. "It's the ultimate nexus between crime and commerce, using global trade to mask global money laundering." This is a primer on how and why this scheme has become so vital to drug traffickers and their need to launder their huge narco dollar profits.
|
|
|
 |
This is the story of a $1.5 million Bell 407 helicopter and how it became the
"defendant helicopter" in a Colombia-based U.S. Customs investigation In
August 2000 it was finally seized by U.S. Customs because Customs said the
entire helicopter was paid for by a Colombian multimillionair using
drug-smuggling money he laundered through the black peso scheme.
|
|
|
 |
In 1999, almost $1 billion worth of cash, cars, boats, real estate, and other
property was forfeited to the U.S. government--most of it labeled as
drug-related. Whle much of this property was taken from bona fide criminals,
critics of the nation's asset forfeiture laws say that many innocent people
have been hurt.This report examines what's gone wrong and why a rollback in
state forefeiture laws is underway in many parts of the country.
|
|
|
 |
The Arellano-Felix Organization (AFO) is North America's most violent drug
trafficking cartel. Based out of Tijuana, Mexico, for over a decade they've
shipped tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine into the U.S. AFO's
innovative strategy is befriending and recruiting 'juniors'--young, educated
men of middle-and upper-class families living on both sides of the San
Diego-Tijuana border. AFO uses them as drug runners and hit men. 'Juniors' get
involved with the cartel not necessarily to become wealthy but for "la
fama"--the fame of the gangster life. This is the story of what happened to one
of these young men, told by his family and a fellow 'junior.
|
