Word: deas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...cocaine ring, known as the grandma Mafia because three of its principals were grandmothers, banked more than $2 million a month; in the trial of the head grandma now under way in Los Angeles, there have been at least four plausible allegations of corruption against DEA and IRS agents. Last December a federal indictment in Georgia said that a state police sergeant and a local deputy sheriff were confederates in a 25-person smuggling ring. In one week in February, a Los Angeles deputy sheriff, a California-based DEA agent and a San Jose policeman were charged with selling coke...
...distinct and scrupulous legal process to prove that the gains were specifically illgotten. Says Miami U.S. Attorney Stanley Marcus: "It takes a lot?I mean a lot?to convince a federal judge that $10 million in someone's personal bank account should be taken away from him." Nonetheless, the DEA and other federal agencies last year managed to seize about $100 million in cash, $40 million worth of aircraft, boats and cars, and $20 million in real estate. Local police also seem to get a special kick from seeing cocaine merchants stripped of their fancy possessions. Fort Lauderdale, Fla., police...
Given that bounty-hunting enthusiasm, the new federal task forces, modeled on the feds' year-old South Florida unit, could pay for themselves. The task forces in each of twelve cities* might typically include four prosecutors, at least six agents from the FBI, six more from the DEA, three from the IRS and two from Customs. Until last year, the FBI steered clear of drug cases, largely because J. Edgar Hoover did not want his agents tempted by narcotics cash. But now 600 FBI agents are working on 1,100 drug investigations, and the bureau already has 326 convictions...
...weaknesses of the Government's approach is the tendency of the agencies involved to squabble over prerogatives and credit. Communication is sometimes only intermittent. The task will be to develop smooth relationships between, say, the rough-and-ready DEA (one in 50 agents was shot at in 1981), which specializes in street stakeouts and gritty undercover work, and the green-eyeshade technocrats at the IRS, who delve into the esoteric evidence of drug peddlers' financial crimes. "Any prosecutor," says U.S. Attorney Walsh, "can tell you horror stories about information they didn't have because it was in the hands...
...cocaine will amount in the end to a token fight. "All we can hope to do," says Sergeant Rene LaPrevotte of San Francisco's drug squad, "is prevent someone from setting up a cocaine stand in Union Square." One federal official, who has been with the DEA since it began in 1973, has no heroic notions of putting an end to cocaine runs. "We feel like we're part of a spectator sport," he says. "We're not the answer. The answers are going to be found in your wallets and your conscience...