US Govt Admittedly Done Money Laundering

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http://tw.news.yahoo.com/以毒攻毒-傳美政府專...MEcHN0Y2F0AwRwdANzZWN0aW9ucwR0ZXN0Aw--;_ylv=3

以毒攻毒 傳美政府專員洗錢

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法新社法新社 – 2011年12月5日 下午5:35
（法新社華盛頓4日電） 「紐約時報」今天報導，美國政府掃毒專員為了一探販毒集團運作，親自走私或洗錢數百萬美元販毒所得，並將所獲資訊對付墨西哥毒梟。

報導引述未具名現任和前聯邦執法人員談話指出，這些專員主要為美國緝毒局（DEA）人員。他們經手大筆跨境非法現金運送。

報導說，根據這些官員透露，整起行動目的在追查出犯罪組織如何運送金錢以及在何處藏匿資產，最重要的是揪出首腦。

該報指出，這些專員把販毒所得存進走私犯帳戶內，或是存進專員自行開設的空頭帳戶。

紐時報導，緝毒局曾在其他國家進行類似任務，但過去幾年才開始在墨國展開行動。

報導說，專員洗毒錢之際，會讓毒梟繼續非法行徑數月甚至是好幾年，之後才會展開查扣或逮捕行動。（譯者：中央社蕭倩芸）1



http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-agents-launder-millions-for-cartels-20111204-1odbs.html

US agents 'launder' millions for cartels
Ginger Thompson
December 5, 2011
"The only way to get to them is to follow their money" ... Robert Mazur, former DEA agent.

"The only way to get to them is to follow their money" ... Robert Mazur, former DEA agent. Photo: Reuters

WASHINGTON: Undercover US narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington's expanding role in Mexico's fight against drug cartels, say current and former federal law enforcement officials.

The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders, those officials said, to identify how criminal organisations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most importantly, who their leaders are.

They said agents had deposited the drug proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers or in shell accounts set up by agents.
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The officials said while the DEA conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years. The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency's effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests.

Agency officials declined to discuss details of their work publicly, citing concerns about compromising their investigations. But Michael Vigil, a former senior agency official, said: ''We tried to make sure there was always close supervision of these operations so that we were accomplishing our objectives, and agents weren't laundering money for the sake of laundering money.''

Another former agency official, who asked not to be identified speaking publicly about delicate operations, said: ''My rule was that if we are going to launder money, we better show results, otherwise the DEA could wind up being the largest money launderer in the business, and that money results in violence and deaths.''

Those are precisely the kinds of concerns members of Congress have raised about a gun-smuggling operation known as Fast and Furious, in which agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed people suspected of being low-level smugglers to buy and transport guns across the border in the hope that they would lead to higher-level operatives working for Mexican cartels. After the agency lost track of hundreds of weapons, some later turned up in Mexico; two were found on the US side of the border where an American Border Patrol agent had been shot dead.

Former DEA officials rejected comparisons between letting guns and money walk away. Money, they said, poses far less of a threat to public safety. And, unlike guns, it can lead more directly to the top ranks of criminal organisations. ''These are not the people whose faces are known on the street,'' said Robert Mazur, a former DEA agent and the author of a book about his years as an undercover agent inside the Medellin cartel in Colombia. ''They are super-insulated. And the only way to get to them is to follow their money.''

Another former drug agency official offered this explanation for the laundering: ''Building up the evidence to connect the cash to drugs, and connect the first cash pick-up to a cartel's command and control, is a very time-consuming process. These people aren't running a drugstore in downtown LA that we can go and lock the doors and place a seizure sticker on the window. These are sophisticated, international operations that practice very tight security. And, as far as the Mexican cartels go, they operate in a corrupt country, from cities that the cops can't even go into.''

Former officials said the drug agency tried to seize as much money as it laundered - partly in the fees the operatives charged traffickers for their services and in choreographed arrests at pick-up points identified by their undercover operatives.

And the former official said federal law-enforcement agencies had to seek Justice Department approval to launder amounts greater than $US10 million in any single operation. But they said the cap was treated more as a guideline than a rule, and that it had been waived on many occasions to attract the interest of high-value criminal targets.

''They tell you they're bringing you $US250,000 and they bring you a million,'' one former agent said of the traffickers. ''What's the agent supposed to do then, tell them no, he can't do it? They'll kill him.''

It is not clear whether such operations are worth the risks. So far there are few signs that following the money has disrupted cartel operations and little evidence that Mexican drug traffickers are feeling any serious financial pain. Last year, the DEA seized about $US1 billion in cash and drug assets, while Mexico seized an estimated $US26 million in money-laundering investigations, a tiny fraction of the estimated $US18 billion to $US39 billion in drug money that flows between the countries each year.

The New York Times

 

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http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=449458&CategoryId=14091

U.S. Agents Laundered Money in Mexican Cartel Probe, Times Says

WASHINGTON – Undercover U.S. drug enforcement agents laundered millions of dollars from drug trafficking to investigate how Mexican cartels moved and invested their money, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The agents, the majority of them from the Drug Enforcement Administration, moved hundreds of thousands of dollars of illicit funds across the border.

The goal was “to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are,” The New York Times said.

Agents put the money in accounts designated by drug traffickers or in shell accounts established by the agents, the newspaper said.

“While the D.E.A. conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years,” current and former federal law enforcement officials told The New York Times.

The DEA allows cartel members to continue to conduct their operations for months or years before making seizures or arrests, agents told the newspaper on condition of anonymity and without providing operational details.

“The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency’s effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty, and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime,” the Times said.

These are some of the same concerns raised by Congress about “Operation Fast and Furious,” a U.S. operation that allowed thousands of firearms to be smuggled into Mexico in an effort to trace the weapons to the highest levels of Mexico’s drug cartels.

U.S. authorities lost track of hundreds of the weapons, two of which were found on the American side of the border where a Border Patrol agent was killed, and the operation is still under investigation.

“Former D.E.A. officials rejected comparisons between letting guns and money walk away. Money, they said, poses far less of a threat to public safety. And unlike guns, it can lead more directly to the top ranks of criminal organizations,” the newspaper said.

Officials tried to ensure that someone always kept a close eye on the operations to make sure they were meeting the established goals and that agents were not laundering money for the sake of doing so, former DEA official Michael Vigil said.

“These are not the people whose faces are known on the street,” Robert Mazur, a former DEA agent who wrote a book about his work as an undercover agent inside Colombia’s Medellin cartel, said. “They are super-insulated. And the only way to get to them is to follow their money.”