After nearly two years and at least $1.4 million spent, the U.S. The Drug Enforcement Administration released an external review of its overseas operations on Friday that barely mentioned recent corruption scandals and offered recommendations that critics dismissed as overly vague.
Most of the 50-page report outlines the DEA’s 69-country “foreign footprint,” while lauding efforts to address gaps in the oversight of undercover money laundering operations and special investigative entities overseas.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, “This report is surprisingly vague in its factual assessment of the known problems at the DEA and the measures it takes to fix them.” “This speaks to an agency-wide effort to evade inspection. The agency has attempted to dodge my inspection inquiries but I intend to press ahead.”
The outside investigation in 2021 was announced after The Associated Press reported on the crimes of Jose Irizarry, a disgraced former DEA agent who has now confessed to laundering money and extorting millions from extortion and informants for Colombian drug cartels. is serving a 12-year federal prison sentence after. to fund an international joyride of fine dining, parties, and prostitutes.
Irizarry told the AP last year that DEA agents are beginning to acknowledge that there is little they can do to stem the flow of illegal cocaine and opioids into the United States, which has prompted more than 100,000 deaths per year.
“The drug war is a game,” Irizarry said. “It was a really fun game we were playing.”
Irizarry’s case received a paragraph in the external review. An ongoing federal grand jury investigation regarding some of his jet-setting former DEA associates was mentioned in a footnote. In addition, Irizarry’s attorney told the AP that he offered to make his client available for an interview for the review but was never contacted.
Referring to the US Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General, the review concluded, “Interviews and documents demonstrated that the DEA has already largely implemented DOJ OIG recommendations to increase oversight of compliance risks arising from the agency’s foreign operations.” implemented at scale.
The investigation found fault with the bureaucracy, saying it reduced assignments of agents to overseas divisions and recommended incentives to attract “top talent to hard-to-fill offices”. It also attributed the “corrupting influence” of the cartel to instances of “personal misconduct by DEA personnel”.
The review found, “The DEA could do more to ensure that supervisors are effectively assessed and ultimately held accountable for compliance issues.”
Other recommendations included more regular audits of foreign offices and revamped police units, and tighter controls on spending.
The external review was conducted by former DEA Administrator Jack Lawn and former federal prosecutor Boyd Johnson, who handled international drug cases. Public records show the no-bid contract was awarded to WilmerHale, the law firm where Johnson works, at a cost of $1.4 million. Johnson did not respond to an email seeking comment.
The report makes little mention of the turmoil that has rocked the DEA’s operations in Mexico, where law enforcement cooperation collapsed during the tenure of a regional director who was accused of making inappropriate contacts with attorneys for narcotraffickers. Because of this, he was quietly removed from his post.
The AP reported earlier this year that Nicholas Palmeri served just 14 months in the position and retired before a report from the inspector general’s office found he sought government reimbursements to pay for his birthday party.
Bonnie Clapper, a former federal prosecutor in New York, said, “For a report that cost the government more than $1.4 million, it does not recommend changes that would actually prevent another Irizarry or other misconduct.” “Although the report is very thorough in determining the DEA’s role and responsibilities, it mentions too few instances of misconduct, and its recommendations are not adequate.”
Palmeri arrived in Mexico in the wake of one of the biggest shocks in recent years in the US-led drug war: the failed arrest of former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos. The retired general was held on a sealed US drug warrant upon arrival at a Los Angeles airport in 2020, only to be released a few weeks later under pressure from Mexico’s leftist president, who has disbanded an elite police unit after a key DEA ally.
Neither the Cienfuegos incident nor the arrest of another key US ally in Mexico – former security chief Genaro García Luna – is mentioned in the report.
“The report’s key takeaways about improving information sharing and breaking down internal silos could not be more commendable,” said John Feeley, a retired US diplomat who worked with the DEA in several postings overseas. “But the biggest silo that needs to be dismantled from an operations perspective is the DEA’s failure to communicate with front offices and ambassadors during investigations of senior officials from host countries.”
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, who has repeatedly declined interview requests, said in a statement that the agency would implement all 17 of the report’s recommendations.
“The DEA is committed to meeting the challenges presented by today’s global drug threats and ensuring that our work is performed at the highest level possible,” she said.