Word: deas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...pervasive. Says Peter Bensinger, outgoing administrator of the DEA: "We see coke sales in suburbs, in recreational centers and in national parks. It is an unrecognized tornado." Nor does this overstate the case. A special investigative team of TIME correspondents found that in Vienna, Ga., or Venice, Calif., a gram of coke was about as hard to find as a six-pack of Bud. Whether in a suburban high school outside Los Angeles, on Wall Street or Madison Avenue or in the interstices of ostensibly "straight" Middle America, $100 will rapidly summon up a gram of what goes for cocaine...
...cocaine trade may be the most lucrative form of commerce in the world. Periodic glimpses of its staggering scale are afforded by headlines such as those in Wilmington, N.C., early this month. DEA and U.S. Customs officials swooped in on a twin-engine Cessna that made an unscheduled nighttime landing, arresting the pilot and a passenger and seizing their cargo of 440 lbs. of cocaine. The estimated wholesale value of the shipment: $16 million...
Allan Pringle, deputy regional director for the DEA, says of Miami: "The brokers are here, the financiers are here, the heads of the organizations are here." More than 80% of all cocaine seized worldwide is confiscated in Florida-yet by the most optimistic estimate, seizures of smuggled dope account for no more than 10% of the total traffic entering southern Florida. Arrests of cocaine smugglers and dealers pose a huge logistical problem: what to do with the confiscated cash. Says Pringle: "In some cases we've had so much cash on our hands that we've had difficulty...
...were being overwhelmed," says Peter Bensinger, whose recent firing by the Reagan Administration was precipitated by the DEA'S poor showing. Says Miami Police Lieut. Robert Lament, who heads the department's narcotics detail at the city's airport: "It's an epidemic right now. If you took all the drug money out of south Florida, the economy would totally collapse...
...Colombian connection works with savage efficiency. Once landed in the U.S., the drug is distributed largely by grim professionals, many of them expatriated Cubans. The Colombians and Cubans are known as the "cocaine cowboys" for their willingness to kill in order to protect their racket. According to the DEA there were 135 confirmed drug-related murders in Florida's Dade County last year. Most were connected with the cocaine trade, say the authorities...