After nearly two years and at least $1.4 million, the US Drug Enforcement Administration on Friday released an external review of its overseas operations that barely mentioned the new corruption scandal and made recommendations that critics dismissed as vague.
Many of the 50-page report confirms the DEA’s sprawling, 69-country “foreign footprint,” while praising its efforts to plug gaping holes in the supervision of hidden money laundering operations and specially vetted units overseas.
“This report is stunningly vague in the actual evaluation of known problems in the DEA and remedies to fix them,” said Senator Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “This shows that more agencies are trying to avoid oversight. Agencies have been trying to avoid questions about oversight, but I want to move forward.
The external investigation was announced in 2021 after The Associated Press reported on the crimes of José Irizarry, a former DEA agent who is now sentenced to 12 years in federal prison after admitting to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels and collecting millions from seizures and informants. to finance an international joyride in search of food, parties and prostitution.
Irizarry told the AP last year that DEA agents have accepted that nothing can be done to reduce the flow of illegal cocaine and opioids into the United States that cause more than 100,000 overdose deaths each year.
“The drug war is a game,” Irizarry said. “It’s a very exciting game that we play.”
The Irizarry case got one paragraph in the external review. An ongoing federal grand jury inquiry into several DEA associates who set up the jet is mentioned in a footnote. In addition, Irizarry’s attorney told the AP that he offered his client to be available for an interview for review but was never contacted.
“Interviews and documents show that the DEA has generally implemented recommendations from the DOJ OIG to improve oversight of compliance risks arising from the agency’s foreign operations,” the review concluded, referring to the US Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General.
The investigation found fault with the bureaucracy that it says assigns agents to foreign divisions and recommends giving incentives to attract “top talent to hard-to-fill offices.” It also blamed the cartel’s “corrupting influence” on incidents of “individual misconduct by DEA personnel.”
“DEA could also do more to ensure supervisors are effectively evaluated and ultimately held accountable for compliance-related issues,” the review said.
Other recommendations include regular audits of foreign offices and verified police units, and tighter controls on spending.
The external review was conducted by former DEA administrator Jack Lawn and Boyd Johnson, a former federal prosecutor who handled international drug cases. Public records show the no-bid contract was awarded to the law firm WilmerHale, where Johnson works, at a cost of $1.4 million. Johnson did not respond to an email seeking comment.
The report makes no mention of the upheaval that has engulfed the DEA’s operations in Mexico, where law enforcement cooperation has collapsed amid a regional director who was quietly removed from his position for having inappropriate contacts with a narcotics lawyer.
The AP reported earlier this year that Nicholas Palmeri served only 14 months in the post and retired before an Office of Inspector General report found he solicited government payments to pay for his own birthday party.
“For the report that cost the government more than $ 1.4 million, it does not seem that the recommendation of the right type of change will prevent another Irizarry or another mistake,” said Bonnie Klapper, a former federal prosecutor in New York. “While the report is very thorough in defining the role and responsibilities of the DEA, it cites only a few examples of misconduct, and its recommendations do not go far enough.”
Palmeri arrived in Mexico on the heels of one of the biggest setbacks in recent years in the US-led drug war: the arrest of former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos. The retired general was arrested on a sealed US drug warrant upon arrival at Los Angeles airport in 2020 only to be released a few weeks later under pressure from Mexico’s leftist president, who retaliated by disbanding an elite police unit allied to the DEA.
Neither the Cienfuegos incident nor the arrest of another prominent US ally in Mexico – former security chief Genaro Garcia Luna – was mentioned in the report.
“The report’s key takeaway about improving information sharing and breaking down internal silos could not be more commendable,” said John Feeley, a retired US diplomat who worked alongside the DEA in many overseas postings. “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 when investigating senior host country officials.”
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, who declined repeated interview requests, said 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 threat and ensuring that our work is carried out at the highest level,” he said.
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Goodman reported from Miami. Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.