36-NATION DRUG BUST TALLIES FAIL TO ADD UP

Investigation Discovers That 'operation Libertador' Counted Cash From
Previous Drug Sweep, Failed To Document Arrests Fully

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The Drug Enforcement Administration used phony
figures to tout the success of a 36-nation "major takedown'' of drug
traffickers in the Caribbean and Latin America last fall.

The DEA's scorecard on "Operation Libertador'' reported 2,876 arrests, but
a Knight Ridder investigation found that agency officials have no evidence
to support hundreds of them. Hundreds more were routine busts for marijuana
possession, and some drug eradication figures are double-counts of a State
Department program to burn marijuana plants. And while the DEA said $30.2
million in criminal assets was seized during Operation Libertador, $30
million of that was confiscated four weeks before the operation began.

The DEA official who masterminded the exercise -- since promoted to head
the DEA's international operations -- admits some discrepancies, but says
the international cooperation that Libertador promoted is what counts.

If the DEA's official tallies are generally as unreliable as Libertador's,
however, the public is likely either to overestimate the drug war's
progress or grow cynical about America's very difficult multibillion-dollar
narcotics enforcement enterprise.

Certainly, it's difficult to tell what happened during Libertador,
described as a ``tremendous success'' by its leader, Michael Vigil, then
head of the DEA's regional office in San Juan.

Libertador, the fourth U.S.-led regional drug crackdown since 1998,
intended to engage U.S., Caribbean and Latin drug authorities
simultaneously in what the DEA called ``an attempt to dismantle top-echelon
traffickers in the region.''

However, the DEA's internal documents and interviews with drug agents and
officials from Libertador's participating countries show that:

The DEA could not account for 375 of the 2,876 arrests attributed to
Libertador. For most of the rest, it simply accepted whatever numbers
participating countries reported.

The largest number of arrests -- 996 -- were in Jamaica, where authorities
said most of them were for misdemeanor marijuana possession.

Much of the marijuana interdiction credited to Libertador consisted of
plants that had been burned in Jamaica and already counted as part of the
State Department's ``Operation Buccaneer,'' which has been under way since
1982.

No one cared much about drug intelligence-gathering. The DEA did not, as a
rule, ask for the names of those arrested, the outcomes of their cases or
what happened to their drugs and cash.

DEA spokesman Michael Chapman said his agency saw no problems with
Libertador or its operations accounting system.

"Everything was done properly and above board,'' he said after discussing
Knight Ridder's findings with DEA Administrator Donnie Marshall. Marshall
declined to be interviewed about Libertador, Chapman said.

While unable to confirm the arrest figures he offered initially, Chapman
said his agency would ``stick by the reported arrests, because those were
the numbers that were called in'' by foreign law-enforcement officials.

Vigil, the overseer of Libertador and three previous regional anti-drug
initiatives in the Caribbean, said in an interview that the names and
numbers were not very important.

"The key here is that we have 36 countries that put aside cultural,
political and economic differences to come together,'' Vigil said. "You
can't argue with the success of these operations, and the fact that we're
developing international coalitions, I think, speaks for itself.''

Obtaining accurate arrest and seizure records is tough, added Rafael Perl,
a drug policy analyst for the Congressional Research Service.

"It's hard enough to get U.S. anti-drug agencies to share information,''
said Perl. "When dealing with foreign countries the problem is magnified
tenfold.''

Unimpressed, a former DEA senior official who ran similar operations in
Central and South America said Libertador's tactics were seriously flawed.

"It's ridiculous if the names aren't included,'' he said, on condition that
he not be identified. "You've got to identify (who gets arrested). That's
your job.''

"I'm not surprised at all that the statistics reported are unverifiable,''
said Eric Sterling, a former counsel on drug policy to the House of
Representatives Judiciary Committee. Sterling, now president of the
Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Washington, which advocates
prevention and treatment measures to combat the drug problem, continued:
"Distortions in the government's reporting of drug operations are
commonplace.'' One reason, he said: "Congress and agency managers hunger
for success stories to brag about.''

Vigil has twice testified before Congress on the accomplishments of
previous multinational drug operations he has led, including figures on
arrests and seizures. He recently was promoted to head the DEA's
international enforcement division, active in 56 countries worldwide.

Last year, after directing "Operation Columbus,'' a 15-nation predecessor
of Libertador that claimed nearly 1,300 arrests in 12 days, Vigil was named
Puerto Rico's "Top Cop'' by the National Association of Police Organizations.

Libertador, the latest exercise, began at 6 a.m. Oct. 27 and ended at
midnight Nov. 19. Nearly every nation in the Caribbean participated,
including Haiti and the Dominican Republic, along with major Latin American
cocaine-trafficking countries such as Colombia, Bolivia and Mexico.