The "spine" of the Andes Mountain, which runs through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, is the source of almost all of the world's cocaine-based products, both legal and otherwise. In 1986, in the midst of the American "cocaine epidemic," the Reagan administration decided that the drug problem needed to be attacked at its source. The result was an eight-year clandestine drug war known as Operation Snowcap. From 1987 through 1994, groups of twelve to fifteen DEA agents were dispatched to South American countries on ninety-day temporary duty tours. These DEA agents met with counterparts from their host nation and together rained destruction down on the infrastructure and transportation networks that supported the illegal cocaine trade. Author Bob Hartman was deployed ten times during the course of Operation Snowcap. Inside DEA is his gripping, firsthand account of America's secretive drug war. In this true story, Hartman chronicles both his triumphs and tragedies and recounts his frustration with his superiors and the biased media portrayals of the operation. Prepare to be transported to the jungles of South America for an inside look at an often misunderstood chapter of history.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is on the front lines of the war on drugs in the United States. Readers explore the many ways DEA agents are working to fight this war, including the use of covert and undercover operations. This exciting career path is presented to readers through informative text, including helpful fact boxes and sidebars, as well as through detailed graphic organizers and full-color photographs of DEA agents in action. Readers interested in a career in law enforcement are sure to be inspired by this inside look at one of America's most important law enforcement agencies.
"A fascinating, exciting, and sometimes horrifyingly comic tale of an investigation that...had startlingly little effect on the flow of drugs into this country." The New York Times Book Review
A key resource and framework for assessing the performance of competing entities, including forecasting models Advances in DEA Theory and Applications provides a much-needed framework for assessing the performance of competing entities with special emphasis on forecasting models. It helps readers to determine the most appropriate methodology in order to make the most accurate decisions for implementation. Written by a noted expert in the field, this text provides a review of the latest advances in DEA theory and applications to the field of forecasting. Designed for use by anyone involved in research in the field of forecasting or in another application area where forecasting drives decision making, this text can be applied to a wide range of contexts, including education, health care, banking, armed forces, auditing, market research, retail outlets, organizational effectiveness, transportation, public housing, and manufacturing. This vital resource: Explores the latest developments in DEA frameworks for the performance evaluation of entities such as public or private organizational branches or departments, economic sectors, technologies, and stocks Presents a novel area of application for DEA; namely, the performance evaluation of forecasting models Promotes the use of DEA to assess the performance of forecasting models in a wide area of applications Provides rich, detailed examples and case studies Advances in DEA Theory and Applications includes information on a balanced benchmarking tool that is designed to help organizations examine their assumptions about their productivity and performance.
The Drug Enforcement Administration was created by President Richard Nixon in 1973 as a way to centralize drug control efforts. Since then, it has become a powerful agency that plays a part not just in enforcing drug laws, but in monitoring and targeting those who funnel drugs to the United States from overseas. Unfortunately, it has also been involved in significant controversies. This book looks at how this essential agency developed, the role it plays in law enforcement, and what the future might hold for it.
There were always two hotel rooms. One for his counterparts doing the surveillance and one he used as the stage to play a ruthless Mexican drug trafficker making the deal for enormous amounts of cocaine, marijuana or heroin. One small slip of the tongue, or a slight bead of sweat on the brow could result in his violent, painful death. He was willing to do anything to convince the dangerous criminals he was one of them. Whether showing them a million dollars cash packed in a suitcase, flashing a bag of diamonds, buying rounds of drinks for everyone in a nightclub, whatever it took to make them believe he was as greed-filled and callous as they were. It was a spectacular cat and mouse game with the ultimate reward of sitting next to a hand cuffed cartel head on a flight headed to prison. It was listening to him beg for his freedom, offer millions in bribes, threaten his life and both knowing he had won.
A stunning investigation of the life and legend of Mexican kingpin Joaquín Archivaldo “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, building on Noah Hurowitz’s revelatory coverage for Rolling Stone of El Chapo’s federal drug-trafficking trial. This is the true story of how El Chapo built the world’s wealthiest and most powerful drug-trafficking operation, based on months’ worth of trial testimony and dozens of interviews with cartel gunmen, Mexican journalists and political figures, Chapo’s family members, and the DEA agents who brought him down. Over the course of three decades, El Chapo was responsible for smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, meth, and fentanyl around the world, becoming in the process the most celebrated and reviled drug lord since Pablo Escobar. El Chapo waged ruthless wars against his rivals and former allies, plunging vast areas of Mexico into unprecedented levels of violence, even as many in his home state of Sinaloa continued to view him as a hero. This unputdownable book, written by a great new talent, brings El Chapo’s exploits into a focus that previous profiles have failed to capture. Hurowitz digs in deep beyond the legends and delves into El Chapo’s life and legacy—not just the hunt for him, revealing some of the most dramatic and often horrifying moments of his notorious career, including the infamous prison escapes, brutal murders, multi-million-dollar government payoffs, and the paranoia and narcissism that led to his downfall. From the evolution of organized crime in Mexico to the militarization of the drug war to the devastation wrought on both sides of the border by the introduction of synthetic opioids like fentanyl, this book is a gripping and comprehensive work of investigative, on-the-ground reporting.
With a foreword by four-time Oscar nominated filmmaker Michael Mann. The story of Paul LeRoux, the twisted-genius entrepreneur and cold-blooded killer who brought revolutionary innovation to international crime, and the exclusive inside story of how the DEA’s elite, secretive 960 Group brought him down. Paul LeRoux was born in Zimbabwe and raised in South Africa. After a first career as a pioneering cybersecurity entrepreneur, he plunged hellbent into the dark side, using his extraordinary talents to develop a disruptive new business model for transnational organized crime. Along the way he created a mercenary force of ex-U.S. and NATO sharpshooters to carry out contract murders for his own pleasure and profit. The criminal empire he built was Cartel 4.0, utilizing the gig economy and the tools of the Digital Age: encrypted mobile devices, cloud sharing and novel money-laundering techniques. LeRoux’s businesses, cyber-linked by his own dark worldwide web, stretched from Southeast Asia across the Middle East and Africa to Brazil; they generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of arms, drugs, chemicals, bombs, missile technology and murder. He dealt with rogue nations—Iran and North Korea—as well as the Chinese Triads, Somali pirates, Serb mafia, outlaw bikers, militants, corrupt African and Asian officials and coup-plotters. Initially, LeRoux appeared as a ghost image on law enforcement and intelligence radar, an inexplicable presence in the middle of a variety of criminal endeavors. He was Netflix to Blockbuster, Spotify to Tower Records. A bold disruptor, his methods brought international crime into the age of innovation, making his operations barely detectable and LeRoux nearly invisible. But he gained the attention of a small band of bold, unorthodox DEA agents, whose brief was tracking down drugs-and-arms trafficking kingpins who contributed to war and global instability. The 960 Group, an element of the DEA’s Special Operations Division, had launched some of the most complex, coordinated and dangerous operations in the agency’s history. They used unorthodox methods and undercover informants to penetrate LeRoux’s inner circle and bring him down. For five years Elaine Shannon immersed herself in LeRoux’s shadowy world. She gained exclusive access to the agents and players, including undercover operatives who looked LeRoux in the eye on a daily basis. Shannon takes us on a shocking tour of this dark frontier, going deep into the operations and the mind of a singularly visionary and frightening figure—Escobar and Victor Bout along with the innovative vision of Steve Jobs rolled into one. She puts you in the room with these people and their moment-to-moment encounters, jeopardy, frustration, anger and small victories, creating a narrative with a breath-taking edge, immediacy and a stranger-than-fiction reality. Remarkable, disturbing, and utterly engrossing, Hunting LeRouxintroduces a new breed of criminal spawned by the savage, greed-exalting underside of the Age of Innovation—and a new kind of true crime story. It is a look into the future—a future that is dark.
This book represents a milestone in the progression of Data Envelop ment Analysis (DEA). It is the first reference text which includes a comprehensive review and comparative discussion of the basic DEA models. The development is anchored in a unified mathematical and graphical treatment and includes the most important modeling ex tensions. In addition, this is the first book that addresses the actual process of conducting DEA analyses including combining DEA and 1 parametric techniques. The book has three other distinctive features. It traces the applications driven evolution and diffusion of DEA models and extensions across disciplinary boundaries. It includes a comprehensive bibliography to serve as a source of references as well as a platform for further develop ments. And, finally, the power of DEA analysis is demonstrated through fifteen novel applications which should serve as an inspiration for future applications and extensions of the methodology. The origin of this book was a Conference on New Uses of DEA in 2 Management and Public Policy which was held at the IC Institute of the University of Texas at Austin on September 27-29, 1989. The conference was made possible through NSF Grant #SES-8722504 (A. Charnes and 2 W. W. Cooper, co-PIs) and the support of the IC Institute.
In 1995, after receiving a tip from an informant that a new drug called Ecstasy was being pushed in Manhattan’s nightclubs, DEA agent Robert Gagne embarked on a mission to unravel one of the world’s most lucrative drug-trafficking networks. Chemical Cowboys tracks Gagne as he infiltrates New York’s club scene, uncovering a multimillion-dollar criminal empire that spans continents. At its helm is Oded “Fat Man” Tuito, an Israeli fugitive and elusive drug kingpin who combines Wall Street business savvy with old-fashioned street smarts and a taste for violence. A taut behind-the-scenes glimpse into an international criminal enterprise, Chemical Cowboys is a riveting tale of one man’s obsessive pursuit of justice—and the personal cost of that obsession.
