In Mexican Probe, DEA Helped Drug Supplier and Trafficker Launder Money
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency helped a Mexican drug trafficker and his Colombian supplier move money in an effort to infiltrate the criminal gangs in Mexico, according to legal documents.
DEA agents, working with Mexican police, posed as money launderers to move millions of dollars and even helped escort one large cocaine shipment that moved to Dallas and ended up in Madrid, the New York Times reports. Spanish authorities seized the drug shipment soon after it arrived.
The Times story is based on information contained in an extradition order for a Colombian drug trafficker known as “the Rabbit.” The documents “read in some parts like a dry legal affidavit and in others like a script for a B-movie,” the Times says. They “provide rare details of the extent of that cooperation [with Mexican authorities] and the ways that it blurs the lines between fighting and facilitating crime,” the story says.
In a statement provided to the Times, the DEA said its efforts had helped Mexican authorities kill or capture dozens of drug traffickers.
